I hear that they speak all the time. Trump follows Macron’s labor-market reforms and calls to congratulate him. The first state visit of his administration will be Macron’s to Washington next month, a special honor for “a great guy.” The French president is Trump’s best friend in Europe ..
.. Both understood the fact that voters were bored as well as angry, mistrustful of the liberal consensus, angry at globalization’s predations, restive for grandeur, thirsty for the outspoken rather than the dutiful warnings of experts.
.. Both men came from nowhere, mavericks hoisted to the highest offices of their lands by a wave of disgust at politics-as-usual. They are, in their way, accidents of history, thrust to power at the passing of an era. Longing for disruption produced these two disrupters.
.. Macron, who at 40 could be Trump’s son, has honed a grandiose theater of the center, thereby giving centrist politics new vigor at a time of extremist temptation. He’s tough on immigration because he knows his survival depends on it. Trump’s is the theater of the zigzagging bully, nonstop noise often drowning out meaning. For both men, movement and action are essential.
.. Gaullist pomp, shunned by Macron’s predecessor, is back. If that’s what it takes to defeat the racist National Front, bring it on. Macron celebrated his victory last year with an address to the French people at the Louvre, greeted Putin at Versailles
.. “It’s not ‘Make France Great Again’ — except that it is, sort of,” a French friend observed.
Why is Jason Chaffetz suddenly retiring from Congress? One word: Ambition.
So why is Chaffetz doing so?
The most likely answer, theorize Republican strategists watching this play out, is that Chaffetz is just bored with his job. His job as chairman of the oversight panel is to investigate the government, and it probably would have been a lot more fun for this tea party-leaning Republican to investigate Hillary Clinton’s government than President Trump’s.
.. After Trump was inaugurated, Chaffetz rather provocatively suggested that he planned to remain a national figure because of Clinton, not Trump. That hasn’t really materialized now that Congress is investigating Trump’s potential ties to Russia.
.. And in a town full of overly ambitious people, he is especially known for dripping with ambition.
.. Josh Romney, Mitt Romney’s son, said he’s “strongly considering” running, but that wouldn’t preclude Chaffetz from jumping in.
.. maybe he just decided that his name recognition was high enough to do it from the private sector (where in-the-know members of Congress can make millions)
.. Chaffetz’s district isn’t going to suddenly be competitive for Democrats. It’s one of the most Republican districts in the nation.
.. Chaffetz has never been a traditional politician. He makes political calculations slightly differently than the average lawmaker, and he doesn’t really care if he raises eyebrows doing so.
.. Chaffetz famously set a modern record of flip-flopping on Trump.
.. When John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) resigned last year as House speaker, Chaffetz announced a run for speaker. (He dropped out after Rep. Paul D. Ryan entered the race.)
.. But Chaffetz has clearly decided that speaker is no longer a job he wants.