I agree that the EPA cuts and the abdication of oversight are the real news but disagree the private jets/lavish spending are a distraction for the simple reason that I think it possible that publicity about the latter abuses might get them sacked thus at least putting a spanner in the works of the former.
Pruitt in particular treats the job of dismantling the EPA with almost evangelical zeal, I think if he left it would be hard to replace him with someone with quite the same passion. I feel the same about Sessions, seeing his little face light up with glee when he got to gut the Dreamer act, although his ouster is of course complicated by the fact that then the Mueller investigation could be disbanded by any repacement AG.
Meanwhile Price from what I can tell is far more interested in the personal perks (his stock trading would suggest it at the very least) but his use of jets does seem to be putting him on dodgy ground in a way that the failure to progress any of Trump's health reform hasn't.
Fair point, but do I think each of these - Pruitt, Price, even Sessions - could easily be replaced by others just as militant yet obedient, without much damage to the brand. How many Republicans can even remember more than 10% of Obama's cabinet, even though if polled, it probably has a 10% Republican approval rating? Men like Scaramucci, only more doberman, less yappy lap dog, are abundant in Republican circles And a ceremonial sacrifice would probably even strengthen Trump at this point - "He promised to draineth the swamp, and lo, the swamp doth hath been drainedeth."
That Washington Post link is interesting, but I suspect Trump is mostly just looking for a scalp over the failure to repeal Obamacare, and he can't fire Ryan or McConnell. He is also very displeased over being led to humiliatingly back the wrong horse in Alabama, which doesn't relate directly to Price, but which informs his search for symbolic blood - and lavish jets are a smart, easy pretext. The problem for the Dems is that highlighting illicit perks only reinforces the perception that politics in America is irrevocably corrupt, and repeating these observations with no plausible alternative just makes people cynical about the entire enterprise. This only serves to tar both parties - but Republicans less so, because government is the problem and they can claim to hate government. Democrats are as of yet mostly unwilling to countenance the courage that a meaningful departure from this downward spiral demands.
I guess my point, which I admit is not necessarily as coherent as it could be so late in the evening here, is that outrages like splurging on publicly-funded private jets are nothing that we haven't already seen from Trumpism before, even during the Republican primary. The Democrats are demonstrably unable to counter Trump by performative pearl-clutching over his many improprieties, and I don't expect this to abruptly become decisive now. Even if the hot air eventually diffuses out of Trump's balloon, it will never conversely buoy the Democrats, at least not under the prevailing status quo.
Instead, they need to show that they a) even know what something better might look like and b) are capable of bringing it about. It hurts me to say this, but rather than focusing on say, global warming (which, three unprecedentedly strong and sequential hurricanes in, remains mostly an abstraction in the US) they might instead rally against horrors of more-tangible outrages like, for instance
Louisiana's Cancer Allies - a much more visceral and concrete demonstration of what happens when we let oil companies rather than the EPA manage their own regulation.
How many Americans even know what the EPA does? Or what 'Cancer Allies' are? Why has the party that ostensibly defends the environment never seriously thought to inform them?
Likewise, a credible plan to improve mediocre Obamacare, with its unaffordable mandatory premiums, could do wonders. Can, for example, more than 5% of Hillary voters explain what her alternative was?
But we need clear, evocative language, not wonkish technical jargon. I suspect very few voters even really understand what "single-payer" or "insurance exchanges" or "means-testing" or "premiums and deductibles" or "medicare expansion" even means. Instead, for example, how about: "Nobody in America who works 40 hours a week should live in poverty." Or "Every American should have the right to see a doctor. Nobody should ever go bankrupt because of medical expenses."
Essentially, the Democrats need to stop running professional, over-educated smart-asses - people like me, in other words - and instead, run relatable candidates who can speak in concrete, practical terms about tangible common-sense improvements. NOT just the post-Obama convention of settling for making the oligarchy look more like a Benetton ad.
No, they will never win over the utterly dead-end Trump base, but the absolute key to understanding 2016 is that a decisive number of people who HATED Trump still voted for him because they hated Clinton and what she stood for even more.
But I'm just an internet rambler in my spare time, while Mme. Abelard does the night shift - not a political consultant - and yours is certainly a thoughtful response.
