Although the opinion section of the Washington Post has its share of liberals and progressives, it has also been a consistent source of right-wing Never Trump commentary that ranges from columnists Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot and Kathleen Parker to guest op-eds by attorney George Conway. This week, two of those conservatives cite recent examples of the walls closing in on President Donald Trump: Conway discusses the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Trump v. Vance and the arrival of Mary Trump's tell-all book, while Rubin asserts that former Vice President Joe Biden is seizing the populist narrative from Trump.
In his op-ed, Conway writes: "What do a gripping family tell-all book and a momentous Supreme Court decision have in common? Quite a lot, it turns out. The book, to be published next week, comes from Mary L. Trump, a clinical psychologist who happens also to be niece of Donald Trump, the president of the United States. It describes how Donald Trump has been protected by institutions his entire life. Trump v. Vance, the Supreme Court case decided Thursday, illustrates how the president has pushed those protections to the limit — and how they're about to end."
The U.S. Supreme Court, in its 7-2 decision in Trump v. Vance, ruled that "executive privilege" does not shield Trump from a request by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance — which has been seeking the president's financial records. Vance, according to the high court, is within his right to pursue those documents as part of a Trump investigation regardless of the fact that he is president of the United States.
Conway writes that Mary Trump's book, "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man," tells "a remarkable story, the broad strokes of which many already knew. Mary Trump offers a tale of what she calls 'malignant' family dysfunction, and how it produced a malignantly dysfunctional president. It's an unsparing and relentlessly detailed account."
The attorney adds that Mary Trump alleges that "Donald Trump paid someone to take the SAT for him. He also tried to trick his mentally declining father into signing a codicil that would have stripped his siblings of their inheritances. … Mary Trump's point is that her uncle has spent his life being protected from the consequences of his actions and shortcomings."
Meanwhile, Rubin, in her column, argues that Biden "snatched the populist mantle back from Trump" on Thursday, when he unveiled a proposal for spending $700 billion on U.S. products and research."
According to Rubin: "Biden's plan is aimed squarely at workers based on a message of 'fairness.' As he explained on Thursday during a speech in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, the presumptive Democratic nominee seeks 'an economy where every American enjoys a fair return for their work — and an equal chance to get ahead. An economy that is more powerful precisely because everyone is cut in on the deal. An economy that says investing in the American people and working families is more important than the nearly $2 trillion dollar tax break Trump predominantly handed out to the richest Americans.'"
Biden's "Build Back Better" plan, Rubin notes, calls for a made-in-the-U.S.A. program — which is very much the type of thing Trump has campaigned on.
Rubin wraps up her column by contending that Biden's economic plan strikes a left/center balance and can appeal to both liberals and centrists.
"Biden, whose staff consulted with Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), managed, apparently, to satisfy the left wing of his party without putting forth something that will scare the rest of the electorate," Rubin writes. "Generally, this is how every winning Democratic candidate since World War II has campaigned. It has been good politics to run on an active federal government working for the little guy — especially when your opponent has been rewarding the super-rich and corporations."
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