Progress — Even In Mississippi February 6, 2018February 5, 2018 Hate crimes are apparently up, in part, perhaps, because Klansmen and others — some of them “very fine people” — are encouraged by what they see as a sympathetic president. The Washington Post recently offered this sad report: “The Confederate flag resurged. The KKK burned a cross. Racial tensions flared in a Southern town.” But the general trend of hearts and minds, I think, is positive. Witness this exchange between a mom whose son has just told her he’s gay and a bartender — in Mississippi. That same president yesterday called Democrats “treasonous” for not clapping when he took credit for good economic news. Treason is a crime punishable by death, and, obviously, he didn’t literally mean Congressional Democrats should be killed for not applauding him or the good economic news as he delivered his State of the Union Address. But he is, after all, the President of the United States, and he was, after all, being broadcast live, and there was a time (April 30, 1789 through January 20, 2017) when the president’s words were expected to be generally honest, measured, and dignified. The economic progress Trump boasts about mainly builds on what Obama did: averting a global depression and handing Trump 75 consecutive months of private-sector job growth, a 4.7% unemployment rate, and a Debt finally shrinking relative to the economy as a whole. As argued yesterday (YOU get $930! and YOU get $930!), the tax cut he touts is massively ill-advised.