Bret Stephens: Hola, Gail. ́ qué opinas sobre la insisistencia de donald Trump en que el iclés sea nuestro idioma oficial;
Gail Collins: Hi, Bret, great to go back. And in Spanish no less, a language I once tried – and failed – to learn. It was my second attempt to become bilingual. In college, I took the Russian lessons in the hope that I could finally read “war and peace” in the original. He could not even arrive through the “visit to Grandma” in Chapter 1 of the manual.
Bret: Good thing Trump did not make the Russian official language. This will be next week, tovarich.
Gail: I have to say that I never seemed to ask everyone else to abandon their mother tongues, so I shouldn’t remind my weakness.
So bottom line: not to make English the official language. It is not a proposal to solve a problem. It’s just another loopy and the ugly Trump appeal to the crowds.
Bret: I have no problem with that. French is the official language of France, Spanish of Spain, Denmark of Denmark, Sweden in Sweden – and none of them are less free and democratic for it. Democrats should not allow themselves to be underestimated by Trump to oppose it, which only serves its political purposes. In fact, democrats have to insist on By making English the official language and then ask Trump to learn to speak and write it correctly.
Gail: Goose. Okay, that won me.
Bret: The other thought I will offer to the Democrats is not to make adorable glasses. Reminding me: What did you think about Trump’s speech in Congress last week?
Gail: Well, let’s start with Al Green’s attempt to hit the president. I am very sorry that it happened, mainly because the attention is diverted from the incredibly long and boring performance by Trump.
Bret: I almost preferred his hit, which at least was fragile and royal, in the view of the Democrats holding tiny protest plaques. They made them look like the Kindergarten Brigade fighting with Godzilla.
Gail: Let’s talk about the Trumpian Tax Expenditure Plan itself.
Bret: Hang: Another point for speech. Apart from his various withdrawals, his snake, which was not so full of threats against Panama and Denmark, the combination of trademarks of self-confidence and self-esteem, I thought it was … a very effective political speech. He had energy and trust and promise of action and change. His casual roughness spoke with regular Americans, especially when he lived on cultural issues of hot buttons, as there were only two sexes. And he had moments of real human connection-a boy who survived brain cancer to get the secret signal of his service-deserving of an upright cheerful one, not the noisy, stone and politically stupid reaction from most democrats to the chamber.
Democrats must appreciate Trump’s supernatural political gifts and find a way to get the best of them.
In terms of taxes: cut, baby, cut.
Gail: I look forward to a tax argument. And while I know that many average Americans are disturbed by all the debate on transsexual rights, the answer is to make the debate serious and focused, not just hatred. For example, people who are worried about leaving athletes who have turned into men who compete in women’s sports seem perfectly reasonable to me. But the people who focus on a good piece of their presidential campaigns that mix fear and miserable were worth … scared and frustrated.
Bret: I totally agree with a serious and intact debate – the one that is not just about biological males that transcend organic females in women’s sports. It is also about respecting the right of adults to make deep personal decisions on the identity of their gender, protecting minors from irreversible medical interventions that can later come to deep regret and have good pitch conversations that do not go down.
Gail: About taxes: It seems that the Trump-Musk plan to reduce income taxes is only the prelude to their dream for strangulation programs such as Medicaid and preschool education. I disagree or foreseen with an eagerness?
Bret: My objection to tax plans is that they are not far enough: If the government is going to upgrade prices through invoices, which is a form of taxation, it should offset other types of tax cuts and not just by expanding today’s tax rates or tax deductions. What about the deeper cuts of capital profits?
Gail: Sorry, thumbs. Each time the capital tax comes, it highlights Lefty on the knee.
Bret: Okay, let’s increase capital profits and compensate with a 15 % income tax rate for all employees, regardless of wealth, in order to reward hard work. As for Medicaid, Trump would be silly to try to destroy the program. Much of it is based on it.
Education is another story.
Gail: How do you feel about it?
Bret: Personally; I am for training if you are wondering, including pre-k. If your question concerns the Ministry of Education, I will not oppose it.
Gail: Education is correctly a great, huge focus of national concern. Mostly, of course, it is a state and a local issue. But the whole country has the right to push for basic quality standards. And the Ministry of Education, in addition to this role, is also the crucial supervisor of student programs.
Bret: If the department has cared for basic quality standards – after years of falling alphabetism and arithmetic skills – then I am definitely in favor of eliminating the department.
Gail: On the other hand, the Secretary of Trump’s training is the World Wrestling Entertainment’s Linda McMahon. So you don’t keep much hope for quality control right now.
Bret: Holding on the general issue, Gail: Trump’s administration has just announced that it is canceling $ 400 million in grants and contracts at Columbia University, because of what it says is Columbia’s failure to protect its Jewish students from discrimination. Your thoughts?
Gail: My thought is that this is just the Trumpians who enjoy the opportunity to save money and attack a quality university that never breeds many Donald graduates.
We have a very serious issue in this country with anti -Semitic discrimination and damages the cause of justice when this administration uses in this way.
You;
Bret: Imagine a famous university in which an extremely vocal body of white students, with the help of prominent members of the School, formed clubs with seemingly political goals that have led to life for black students strained and scary. Imagine these white students, who usually wear bullying masks, illegally seized buildings of campuses, while chanting slogans justified by many, such as sparsely covered threats of violence. Imagine that university administrators spent months in response to misery and hesitation, expressing their regret, but slightly conveyed punishments, at least until they began to fear government action. Imagine that every time these administrators spoke to the anti-black hate, they made sure to add that they remained opposed to hatred against anti-Inetiwhite. Imagine that one of the most famous historians of slavery in the country refused an invitation to teach at university because he did not trust the university and did not want to be treated as a contract.
If Columbia now gets the taxpayer funding and must proceed with disgusting graduates – many of whom will not give the school a minute until he cleanses his act – I don’t mind. Columbia is a private university: it can sink or swim in its own penny.
Gail: Having gone to school in the anti -war era, I am quite familiar with the inability of colleges when it comes to handling political demonstrations. And there is absolutely, obviously, of course, no excuse to allow any expression of anti -Semitism. But students should have the right to protest the Israeli government.
Bret: If the protesters are simply opposed to Israeli government policies, I would have no problem with their right to do so. Protesting Israel’s right to exist or the right of those who support the existence of Israel to have a place on the campus, they meet the acceptable definition of the US government for anti -Semitism and violates the title VI of the law on civil rights. It would be nice if the people who think of themselves as regent will also oppose this form of racism.
Gail, before signing, I hope that our readers will not lose the brilliant deadly/appreciation of Ricardo Scofidio by Ricardo Scofidio, the architect who, with his wife and associate Elizabeth Diller, are responsible for some of her most innovative and enjoyable buildings in the United States, New York and Broad Museum in Los Angeles. The success of their business came despite its tendency to treat a commission not as an opportunity to make a customer’s offer, but as an opportunity to challenge the customer’s goals, “Bernstein writes.
If only we could all have the guts and vision.
