Donald Trump, after giving a speech to Congress on Tuesday,regarded as “Presidential” by many, could not sustain his image for more than 24 hours.
Within a day, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a horrible choice to head the Justice Department, was shown to have had two meetings with the Russian ambassador, and not telling the Senate Judiciary Committee of that fact in his hearings in January, and was forced to recuse himself from any investigation of Russian connections in the Trump campaign, but with more people now shown to have had contact with the ambassador, including son in law Jared Kushner.
And then, without explanation, in the early morning hours of Saturday on Twitter, Trump unleashed an attack on Barack Obama, that he had wiretapped the Trump Tower, and that Obama was a “bad, sick guy”.
This is unprecedented, and has NO validity at all, as Presidents cannot order wiretaps, as it goes through a special court to deal with such wiretaps.
It is clear more than ever that Donald Trump is delusional, paranoid, and a believer in conspiracy theories promoted by right wing crazies, including Breitbart News Service and crazies like Alex Jones.
No President has ever been as strong in attack on his predecessor, and Trump seems more and more mentally unhinged, and the idea of his being too dangerous to have the nuclear codes is growing, and the likelihood of him being forced out of office at some point grows, as millions of Americans must worry about the danger of this man remaining in the White House!
Richard Nixon resigned the presidency just days before my third birthday in 1974. He did so because he reached a low level to a point in which Barry Goldwater essentially told him it is over. Congress, the people—they wanted Nixon out.
I have not bought into this Russia stuff—the accusations of interference with Election 2016 (stolen for Donald Trump)—and I can figure this is Trump hitting back.
What it is with Trump, in office as the 45th president, are the indications of neofascism. It is why I think it is folly for the Democratic Party to be thinking their neoliberalism will successfully combat that and Trump. (It helped make Trump’s presidency reality.)
If we had a return of what had been middle class incomes for people who have since lost that—that these were the groups most susceptible to delivering the presidency to Trump—we would have better and saner leadership. A Republican Party president would not be Trump but someone who does not, even with opposition, make people question his sanity.
Where I think Trump is coming from is to show his voter base he’s still one tough SOB. But—and I notice this difference between empowered Republican vs. Democratic Party presidents—his No. 1 goal is to get as much of his agenda advanced. That means a difference between which party has presidents who get an agenda that is right or left. Barack Obama did not move rapidly. And he had 59/60 U.S. Senators and over 250 in the U.S. House—better numbers than George W. Bush and so far Donald Trump. So, my criticism of Democrats, how they currently operate, still stands. The Republicans move the needle further right. The Democrats do incrementalism—and they do what they like to called centrism (which is on the right).
I think Trump is going on to keep messing with people’s minds. He will continue to inflame. But, his way of losing power will be: 1) If he does not deliver on better incomes for the people who switched from 2012 Obama to 2016 Trump; 2) If he reaches a point where Republicans, from behind the scenes, figure Trump is too uncontrollable and dangerous (and must be removed from office).
These are the impressions I have right now. For those people who think there are no more standards left…you appear to be getting confirmation with the presidency of Donald Trump. And Trump knows it. And he is proud.
Correction and clarification: “Barack Obama did not move rapidly. And he had 59/60 U.S. Senators and over 250 in the U.S. House—better numbers than George W. Bush and so far Donald Trump.â€
I meant to add that Obama had these numbers his first two years. Bush did not have this high a level during any point in his presidency. (He had 55 after re-election in 2004. The 2006 midterm elections saw Democratic pickups with unseating six of those incumbent Republicans.) Trump is also, so far, not as high with same-party congressional majorities.
Well, we don’t believe the Russia stuff is fake news.
D – A centrist is not on the edges, but in the middle of the left-right spectrum. You only think they look right because you are on the edge.
According to Salon.com, more white Obama voters switched to third-party candidates than voted for Trump.
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/23/can-we-finally-ditch-the-white-working-class-myth-obama-to-trump-voters-werent-the-problem/
Precisely, Southern Liberal. The far left sees centrists as being to the right and the far-right sees centrists as to the being left.
Breakdown of the polling regarding Trump’s approval/disapproval numbers. Only Republicans love Trump. Independents and Democrats hate him.
http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/02/20/republicans-love-trump-independents-not-so-much/#.WKr8t5tjlm0.facebook
Progress takes time. It’s never, ever something that happens overnight. The problem is, too much of the electorate is impatient.
Southern Liberal writes, “A centrist is not on the edges, but in the middle of the left-right spectrum. You only think they look right because you are on the edge.â€
The devil is in the details.
I share this video…
http://youtu.be/4j0g66x7o5M
We agree with this: http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/02/27/the-fake-factional-war-over-the-dnc-chair/
Precisely, Southern Liberal! The Democratic Party has always been a relatively centrist/center-left populist party which advocated for reforms of the capitalist system (“save capitalism from itself”) and things like a safety net, unions, fair trade deals, civil rights, women’s rights, etc – while still viewing capitalism as the main engine of economic growth and advancement. Hillary’s views are more in the tradition of these mainstream Democratic values, same values as ours.
Seconded Rustbelt! Most Dems are like us and are not going away.
Thanks Rustbelt! The Dems are not a socialist party, even if certain ideas were originally advanced by socialists, they were only adopted and implemented because they made sense in the context of American values, ideas like Social Security, worker’s rights, unions/fair trade, civil rights, etc.
Guys, the far left is adopting Republican talking points. http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2017/2/26/willing-stooges-how-the-far-left-has-openly-adopted-republican-talking-points
Ah! Thanks for that Pragmatic! It’s as I’ve said many times before. The far right and the far left are mirror images of each other.
Bernie wants to model the US after the Nordic countries. Problem is, we are religiously, ethnically, politically, socially, and economically diverse. That’s why we found it hard to join his “revolution”.
The failed Trump experiment is coming to an early tipping point.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-trump-experiment-may-come-to-an-early-tipping-point/2017/03/05/87d38b3a-0055-11e7-99b4-9e613afeb09f_story.html?tid=pm_pop
Chart showing the relationship between Trump’s team and the Russians.
https://www.facebook.com/WinningProgressive/posts/1577557752254725
Rational Lefty writes, “Bernie wants to model the US after the Nordic countries. Problem is, we are religiously, ethnically, politically, socially, and economically diverse. That’s why we found it hard to join his ‘revolution.’â€
From http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model …
Jerry Mander has likened the Nordic model to a kind of “hybrid” system which features a blend of capitalist economics and socialist values. Lane Kenworthy advocates for the U.S. to make a gradual transition to an economic system similar to those of the Nordic countries. United States Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a self-described democratic socialist, has been a strong proponent of the Nordic system. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has noted that there is higher social mobility in the Scandinavian countries than in the United States, and argues that Scandinavia is now the land of opportunity that the United States once was. American author Ann Jones, who lived in Norway for four years, contends “the Nordic countries give their populations freedom from the market by using capitalism as a tool to benefit everyone,” whereas in the United States “neoliberal politics puts the foxes in charge of the henhouse, and capitalists have used the wealth generated by their enterprises (as well as financial and political manipulations) to capture the state and pluck the chickens.”
____________________________
Ann Jones has a good point.
The current system is putting the screws to the young, and it is also doing that against approximately half the people who are employed in this country. Their incomes are $30,000 or less per year.
From http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/goodbye-middle-class-51-percent-of-all-american-workers-make-less-than-30000-dollars-a-year …
“We just got more evidence that the middle class in America is dying. According to brand new numbers that were just released by the Social Security Administration, 51 percent of all workers in the United States make less than $30,000 a year. Let that number sink in for a moment. You can’t support a middle class family in America today on just $2,500 a month – especially after taxes are taken out.â€
This topic, to some extent, was recently addressed in this video as former speaker Nancy Pelosi fielded a question about the U.S.’s current system.
http://youtu.be/4xf3W_Jpnls
Rustbelt Democrat writes, “Precisely, Southern Liberal! The Democratic Party has always been a relatively centrist/center-left populist party which advocated for reforms of the capitalist system (“save capitalism from itselfâ€) and things like a safety net, unions, fair trade deals, civil rights, women’s rights, etc – while still viewing capitalism as the main engine of economic growth and advancement. Hillary’s views are more in the tradition of these mainstream Democratic values, same values as ours.â€
The problem with that is that the center wasn’t the same decades ago as it is here in 2017.
After Election 2012, with MSNBC’s coverage on “Morning Joe,†guest Donny Deutsch pushed the meme of “center right country.†(Which is b.s.)
But, are the policies on the left or right?
That is what needs to be asked.
When Democrats have been empowered, like with the presidency with Barack Obama the previous eight years, a major bill like Affordable Care Act was not on the left. It was on the right. The mandate. No drugs importation. No single payer. No public option. Private insurance. That is right wing.
No one who is progressive should be okay with that.
D, I have to say you make very good points here!
D – The policies are on the left. The platform for 2016 was the most progressive ever.Â
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/main/2016/7/11/the-most-progressive-platform-following-the-most-progressive-president
If you want to make the party even more progressive than it already is, you need to get actively involved. Ranting on the internet isn’t going to change things. You start at the local level, because that’s where you’ll be affected the most.
Also, on MSNBC, don’t listen to Morning Joe. He’s a Republican, often giving Republican spin. The progressive shows on the channel are Chris Hayes’s show at 8 pm weeknights, Rachel Maddow’s show at 9 pm weeknights, Lawrence O’Donnell’s show at 10 pm weeknights, Al Sharpton’s show at 8 am Sundays, and Joy Reid’s show at 10 am weekends.
This sums up how we felt about Bernie vs. Hillary and the Democratic party.
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2016/02/how-sanders-candidacy-is-good-for.html
How a Sanders Candidacy is Good for Clinton
Personally I never bought the argument for Bernie Sanders’ candidacy that a lot of pundits made. Namely the one about how, win or lose, he has moved Hillary Clinton to the left. The way I see it, the Democratic Party moved to the left before this campaign took shape. For example, income inequality took center stage as the issue that needs to be tackled. On cultural issues, the emerging power of millennials and the diversity of the Democratic coalition ensured that elected officials would follow suit.
But after reading an article by David Roberts titled: Two ways of assessing political candidates, and how they explain the Clinton-Sanders conflict, I came away with an appreciation for the fact that these differences will likely get hashed out in this campaign.
To begin with, Roberts picks up on the case Sanders tried to make last week about the distinction between a progressive and a moderate. He says that the label “progressive” is an ideological category, while “moderate” is a practical question related to what we’ve been calling a “theory of change.”
Roberts then suggests that these two questions form the basis of each candidate’s campaign message:
The distinction matters, because it helps map out the terrain each candidate want to fight on. In a nutshell, Sanders wants the contest to be about ideology and Clinton wants it to be about practicality. He is the champion of ideological progressivism; she is the champion of practical moderation.
So when Sanders attacks Clinton over her progressivism, he is trying to pull the fight into ideology. Clinton defenders try to pull it back to practical matters, saying, no, it’s not that Clinton doesn’t share these big ideological goals, it’s just that she realizes the only way to get there is through modest steps built upon existing programs. Pushing too much change too fast is dangerous (one of many lessons Clinton took from her 1993 health care debacle)…
Similarly, Sanders proponents are quick to shift the discussion away from practical questions. All that’s been said in support of Sanders’ ambitious legislative plans is that there will be a “political revolution,” which presumably involves either historic turnout, a historic shift of working-class white Republicans into the Democratic camp, or both. Few supporting details have been offered.
The first thing we can take away from this analysis is that it would be helpful to push each candidate in the area they are working to avoid. The debates have done a better job of highlighting Clinton’s ideological positions than they have of pushing Sanders on questions about how his “political revolution” is supposed to work. So there is still some work to do on that one.
But secondly, this is a good debate for Democrats to have during the primary. Back in 2008, Barack Obama captured the party nomination because he was able to articulate a progressive vision, but combined it with the practicality of a pragmatic approach. Roberts points out that the opposite of moderate is radical…something that never described Obama. But what tended to happen is that the idealists heard the vision side of things and then became “disappointed” in the President when he went about implementing the slow methodical approach that our form of government requires. There tends to be a lot of overlap between those folks and Sanders supporters.
This time around, if we can get Sanders to be more specific with his vision of how change happens, we will have a primary where the two candidates lay out both their ideologies and their theories of change. If, as the polls indicate now, Hillary Clinton wins the nomination and is elected president, hopefully everyone will be clear about what to expect from her.
Posted by Nancy LeTourneau
Sums up what being a progressive means for us.
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2015/05/what-it-means-to-be-pragmatic.html
What It Means to be a Pragmatic Progressive
I tend to be uncomfortable with labels. But when I need a short-hand version of where I fit on the political spectrum, “pragmatic progressive” works pretty well.
The word “progressive” means that I align myself with progressive goals. For example, I wouldn’t disagree with much of anything on this list of Senator Bernie Sanders’ positions (although I definitely think that marijuana should be legalized and I’d add some things to his priorities – like criminal justice reform and gun control).
But the word “pragmatic” indicates that I think the process we use to reach those goals is as important as identifying what they are. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “So I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends.” I am not going to assume that I know what Dr. King would describe as “immoral means,” but I’ll give you some ideas about my own thoughts.
One way that plays out is in “not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.” To illustrate, I share Sen. Sanders’ belief that single payer health insurance is the ideal. But it was Sanders himself who pointed out that, at the time Obamacare was passed, there were perhaps 8 votes in favor of single payer in the Senate. Meanwhile, people were literally dying for lack of health insurance and medical bills were the single most frequent contributor to bankruptcy. To wait until there were 60 votes in the Senate for single payer would have been to ignore the very real and present needs of people in this country. Crafting Obamacare and getting the 60 votes it needed to pass was the pragmatic thing to do precisely because it was doable and a significant improvement on the status quo. That’s why, in the end, Senator Sanders voted for it.
But being a pragmatist also means paying attention to the potential for collateral damage in implementing your goals. On the issue of single payer, that was most recently demonstrated by Vermont’s failure to implement such a system. They found that it would require an 11.5% income tax on all residents. An abrupt change from our current system would create big winners and losers and the unintended consequences on the latter turned out to be too much to ask. As an alternative, a pragmatist would celebrate the movement away from employer-based health insurance created by the exchanges in Obamacare as a step towards single payer – minus the unintended consequences. That’s also what it means to play the long game.
If there is a patron saint of pragmatists, it would be Reinhold Niebuhr. He is the Christian theologian most commonly known for the idea that we have to live in the world as it is, not as we want it to be. That means that getting involved in social change means getting your hands dirty. Purity in pursuit of goals is not an option. Here’s how Wilfred M. McClay described it:
Niebuhr dismissed as mere “sentimentality†the progressive hope that the wages of individual sin could be overcome through intelligent social reform, and that America could be transformed in time into a loving fellowship of like-minded comrades, holding hands around the national campfire. Instead, the pursuit of good ends in the arena of national and international politics had to take full and realistic account of the unloveliness of human nature, and the unlovely nature of power. Christians who claimed to want to do good in those arenas had to be willing to get their hands soiled, for existing social relations were held together by coercion, and only counter-coercion could change them. All else was pretense and pipedreams.
That might seem at odds with the idea of avoiding unintended consequences. But it’s really all of one piece. Pragmatists acknowledge that there will be collateral damages, and they chose their means carefully to limit them. In the case of the ACA as health care reform, that meant – to a certain degree – getting your hands dirty by getting in bed with health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. The whole approach by the Obama administration of incentivizing reform in those kinds of institutions rather than mandating it is a way to limit the backlash that leads to unintended consequences. That’s what it means to live in the world as it is.
Of course, there are potential pitfalls for the pragmatic progressive. The most significant is that there are times that the line between getting your hands dirty and co-optation of your goals becomes very narrow. As the saying goes, “lie down with the dog, get up with the fleas.” That’s why we so often hear President Obama (a true pragmatist) talk about the importance of his North Star. In order to avoid that possibility, it’s important for the pragmatist to “keep their eye on the prize.”
That Horizons blogger, Nancy LeTourneau, writes for the Washington Monthly’s blog: http://washingtonmonthly.com/
We recommend checking that site out.
Speaking of Lawrence O’Donnell’s show, we like that, not only does he tear into Trump, he tears into the media for enabling Trump. That’s why his shows is currently tops with us.
Good to see that Bernie and Sherrod Brown are working on an economic agenda together, one that helps working people.
https://www.facebook.com/WinningProgressive/posts/1579310962079404
Nancy LeTourneau of the Horizons blog has some comments about the latest Wikileaks incident on the Washington Monthly blog this morning.
http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/03/10/were-all-conspiracy-theorists-now/#.WMKkwl1uzC0.facebook
I agree with her that Trumpty Dumbty not denouncing this is rather suspicious.
Nancy LeTourneau of the Horizons blog has some comments this morning on the Washington Monthly blog concerning inequality.
http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/03/13/democrats-must-challenge-inequality-in-all-its-forms/#.WMa699FG0S4.facebook