The republican party ran on oligarchy, racist, misogyny, and religious extremism; the difference between some of the quieter republicans is that they may not necessarily be that racist, misogynistic, and extremist - maybe they’re just in it for the tax cuts. The problem is that the manner in which the right wing propaganda machine has polarized the electorate over the past 20 years has meant that it is nearly impossible for Republicans to get elected without courting bigots, misogynists, and theocrats.
He won’t do that because everything at this point is about self-preservation. Trump needs to survive legal jeopardy, which means that he must completely destroy legal and political conventions in order to preserve himself. In return, he understands that white nationalists and religious extremists have rare access to the levers of political power, and they don’t want to waste this opportunity. They’re in it together. If they go down, they go down together. There is nothing that moderate or centrist republicans can do about it, either. They invited these monsters into their house, and now they’re becoming the landlords. Any republican who stands in their way is finished - ask Jeff Flake and Bob Corker. Hell they voted with Trump and the party 90-95% of the time and it still didn’t matter. The message is clear: cross them, and out come the swords.
I’ll have to disagree. The people would presumably be voting to reverse course on a lot of things that Trump has done. They would presumably want to raise taxes on the rich. They would presumably want to strengthen Obamacare and maybe even expand it. They would want a government that protects the environment and normalizes relations with our former allies. I agree that they shouldn’t tap dance on his political grave and do an end zone celebration, but it seems to me doing absolutely nothing to reverse the setbacks of the Trump years would be the absolute worst thing Democrats could do.
Nope. My point is be careful what you wish for. The universe seems to have a dark sense of humor.
In the long term, Trump will be a good thing if it gives those who worship the state and think that the government is intrinsically benevolent some much needed cynicism about the dangers of concentrating power and dishonest/contorted interpretations of the Constitution.
Perhaps we can get an expanded House of Representatives? Who knows. The point being is as nutty as Trump is things could be orders of magnitude worse. And he’ll be gone soon enough.
That said, the anti-globalization/populist sentiment isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Maybe we’re talking past each other. When I talk about undoing the damage, I’m talking about moving forward and mitigating. The alternative is to just keep all of the policies that the Republicans have enacted since 2016 in place.
C’mon now. Ranting isn’t going to advance your cause.
Anyways, these issues were known even in the time of the Federalists.
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself."–Alexander Hamilton on human nature and government. From the series Great Ideas of Western Man.
“Both-sides”-ism isn’t going to help anyone’s causes but the worst of the worst among those in power. Right now, by far the biggest threat to decency, stability, and good government are the Republican cheerleaders of Trump. It’s reasonable to recognize and say this. There are also systemic issues which need fixing, but in terms of the politicians, one side is doing mostly the wrong thing, and the other side is trying to stop them from doing mostly the wrong things.
Algorithmically appealing to an irrelevant cliche isn’t helpful either. Who said anything about both sides?
You are missing the point by a large margin. It isn’t about democrats or republicans. It’s about misplaced faith in the political class when one feels the political class is under one’s control. Real life isn’t so neat. That’s why we have checks and balances and a federal system. Hopefully, the new found knowledge of this persists.
Furthermore, you folks really need to stop obsessing about Trump. Trump is nothing more than a symptom. And you folks are willfully blind as to what he is a symptom of. Why the future unintended consequences of globalization and mass migration were dismissed and ignored is understandable. Now that the future is present it isn’t understandable.
I think so- I had originally read it like you were suggesting some kind of deliberate, public, policy-by-policy dismantling of Trump’s presidency, solely for the sake of undoing everything he’d done. Kind of like a political damnatio memoriae of some sort.
Trumpism is about culture and politics, not economics. This has been shown again and again. Trump is definitely a symptom, but that doesn’t excuse the really, really terrible things the Republican party has been advocating and rationalizing again and again. Any possible chance at making things better starts from getting rid of Trump and his enablers. Then we might be able to begin to address the systemic issues.
Even if the Dems win in 2020 and hold the house, it is relatively unlikely that they can capture the senate. And without that they can do nothing. Even with it, they can do nothing since the Reps need only 41 votes to block anything. The only real advantage to capturing the senate is that that will allow poor RBG to retire. But even so, they will not be able to capture the court. And if they don’t win the senate, they will not get to make any court appointments. So I am totally pessimistic about all this.
‘Furthermore, you need to stop obsessing about the loss of motion in your right arm. That loss of motion is nothing more than a symptom. And you are willfully blind to what it is a symptom of. Why the future consequences of your diet were dismissed & ignored is understandable. Now that the future is present it isn’t understandable.’
So what? Shut up and die?
The man is a criminal and you’re trying to make excuses for his base.
If the Democrats win the Presidency and get 50 seats in the Senate they will end the filibuster. They have to. Not even the Dems could be so stupid not to do so.
So what? If you want to gain power you should understand where it’s derived. You should also make an attempt at understanding why people behave a certain way instead of accepting misleading but comforting oversimplifications.
It only takes 50 Senators and the V.P. to revise Senate rules. I’ll b disappointed if there are 50 D Senators but some lose their nerve and refuse to act. For the foreseeable future filibuster should exist only in the old Jimmy Stewart movie.
There’s nothing to be gained by preserving the filibuster “traditions” which are hardly traditional anyway — they’ve been egregiously desecrated in recent decades. Recall that the R’s used cheating and chicanery in their effort to repeal Obamacare. They needed only 50 votes — not 60 — to succeed, and were defeated only when the late John McCain stood up and showed that, unlike 49 other Republican Senators, he was still a human being.
Trump’s the incoherent, irrational one. Not that I’m at all convinced that Putin wouldn’t be happy standing by and watching more really dumb and damaging wars by the US.
I didn’t say avoid, just that the Democratic party wouldn’t do well to make a deliberate point of systematically dismantling everything he did, like a political* damnatio memoriae*.
That looks petty and vindictive, as well as setting a bad precedent.
The party could easily propose new legislating aligned with their platform and values and enact that as a way to undo a lot of his more harmful policies without looking particularly vindictive.