Final Word from Tuesday, February 11, 2020

All the main Democratic candidates are running against Donald Trump on the same agenda, according to columnist David Brooks of the New York Times. Their argument, he said, is that capitalism is fundamentally broken and that the economy is bad. This was the same anti-Trump message that Hollywood sent on Sun. by picking "Parasite" and "Joker" as two of the big Oscar winners. The class-based murder of a prominent businessman is a key moment in both movies. Until now, Bruce Wayne's philanthropist father had been a positive character, but now he is Trump-like. The problem with running on economic gloom or class war in 2020, Brooks of the Times said, is that it probably won't work. Confidence in the U.S. economy is too high. Democrats should instead run on values, he said. If there is a lesson in this for Czech opposition parties (and esp. ČSSD), it's that a class war, like a hot war, must be timed properly, otherwise it achieves the opposite of the desired result. [ Czech Republic president United States of America films Academy Awards Batman ]