Musings on the Democratic Party’s Future
This is written from the other side of the pond, so feel free to tell me I’m wrong (as long as you say why I’m wrong.) It was also written in a hurry so sorry for any mistakes.
If you lose at something – anything, from a football game to a war – and there are serious consequences for failure, you must hold a post-mortem inquest into why you lost, what mistakes you made and what you can do to fix them for next time. You cannot lie to yourself. You cannot afford to be blinded by your preconceptions when you’re picking up the pieces after a disastrous defeat. You cannot allow yourself any sacred cows. Everything you did – and failed to do – must be considered; your weaknesses, whatever they are, must be removed as quickly as possible. If that means, for example, firing the person who bears the blame for the disaster, that is what you do. You cannot allow sentimentality or self-interest to stand in your way.
It has been nearly four years since the Democratic Party lost an election it’s candidate – Hillary Clinton – was heavily tipped to win. The defeat was shocking, unanticipated by the political and media elite. (Those who did predict Trump’s victory were often shunned for daring to suggest things weren’t as rosy as they seemed.) It should go without saying that the Democrats should have taken a good hard look at themselves, worked out what they did wrong and set out to fix the problems before 2020. They did not. Instead of an admission they screwed up, they have indulged in a three-year-long temper tantrum, a desperate series of attempts to blame Trump on everything from deeply-racist countrymen to the Russians, a pointed attempt to delegitimize Trump’s government and, most recently, an attempt at impeachment that anyone with a hint of political awareness knew wouldn’t do more than waste time. In the wake of endless slanders and conspiracy theories, it was unlikely that anyone outside the echo chamber would be convinced. Thanks to the Democrats, Trump has become immune to almost any charge that can reasonably be levelled at him.
And yet, the failure to consider what they what they might have done wrong in 2016 is entirely understandable. Hillary Clinton was merely the tip of an iceberg of dysfunction, a political party that cannot admire fault – let alone failure – and is utterly incapable of reforming itself. The Democratic Party is steadily tearing itself apart, even as it careens towards another general election. 2016 was Hillary Clinton’s to lose. 2020 is Donald Trump’s.
The root of this dysfunction, as I see it, is that the Democratic Party is divided into a number of de facto factions. These factions are not, by and large, enshrined within the party’s formal structure. There is a great deal of overlap between the groups. That does not make them any less real, unfortunately, and it doesn’t stop them from casting a baleful shadow over the party’s proceedings. Put crudely, they both hate each other and need each other. As the cracks in the party grow bigger, the factions are starting to forget that they need each other, spurring what is – to some extent – a civil war.
The factions do not, as I have said above, exist as formal structures. The ‘Elitists’ see themselves as a political and media aristocracy, positioned at the top of the system and in position to rule the rest. (Their preferred candidate is Joe Biden.) The Corporatists/Wall Street want stability above all (Bloomberg). The Socialists want massive wealth redistribution (Sanders/Warren). The Minorities want a bigger piece of the pie (uncertain – Yang or Warren?). What complicates this is that the each of the four factions regards the others as its ideological enemies and, perhaps just as dangerous, the factions are not united themselves. The Minorities are the most scattered of the four; African-Americans have different priorities to Asian-Americans, let alone homosexuals and transgenders.
This may require a little explanation. The Elitists hate the Corporatists for wanting a say in how the money is spent, the Socialists for wanting redistribution and the Minorities for wanting to join the elite. The Corporatists hate the Elitists for being massively out of touch (i.e. pushing for laws that harm the Corporatists), the Socialists for wanting redistribution and Minorities for demanding diversity and otherwise impeding corporate paradise. The Socialists hate the Elitists for not delivering on their promises, the Corporatists for being money-grubbing capitalists and the Minorities for disuniting the faction. The Minorities hate the Elitists because of years of broken promises, the Corporatists for doing as little as possible for minorities and the Socialists for not focusing on Minority interests.
This would be bad enough, but it gets worse. The Socialists believe – rightly or wrongly- that Bernie Sanders was cheated out of the nomination in 2016. They’re on the alert for any signs of a second rigged nomination – and Iowa provided all the proof they could want. Maybe it was a genuine stroke of bad luck. It still looked bad. (One of the weaknesses of the Elitists is that they honestly don’t understand how their actions are seen by people outside their bubbles.) There are good reasons to be suspicious of the outcome, whoever wins the nomination. The Socialists will probably not move to support anyone other than their preferred candidate if they think he’s been cheated again.
I’m not saying that any of them are right to feel this way. I’m just saying that many of them do.
We might, therefore, end up with a situation like this:
- If Biden wins the nomination, the Socialists will assume they were cheated and refuse to turn out for him.
- If Bloomberg wins the nomination, ditto (only worse, perhaps, because of the money Bloomberg has been tossing around.)
- If Sanders or Warren win the nomination, the Corporatists will probably throw their support to Donald Trump.
- If there is no clear winner, the party will probably fracture.
This tends to lead to a bigger problem. The Democrats are increasingly out of touch with the mood of the nation. They’ve already lost most of the white working class. They’re certainly losing a number of African-American and Hispanic voters, the former because of the broken promises and the latter because not all Hispanics are in favour of illegal immigration. (The Elitists prefer to listen to academics and radicals.) They propose projects that will give far more power to the government, while being both incredibly expensive and largely ineffective. The only real winner out of Iowa is Donald Trump because he can say, quite rightly, that if they can’t program a simple app how can they govern the entire nation?
And even without that problem, none of the candidates appear to be remotely capable of bridging the gap and speaking to the entire nation. They all have more baggage than an army of holiday-makers heading to Rome. There isn’t one of them who’s invulnerable to all sorts of charges, all of which will be true (or at least true enough.) Trump will have a field day when the candidate is finally selected. He doesn’t have to be super-president to win. He just has to be better than his opponent.
Because of this, they’ve resorted to slander instead of understanding. They’ve blasted Trump’s voters as racists, sexists, etc. That does nothing for their standing amongst those voters. It also increases frustration amongst undecided voters who dislike Trump, but have to admit he’s better than whoever – finally – wins the nomination. The simple truth is that people are tired of broken promises and endless insults. They want change, real change. And the Democrats are no longer capable of realising they have to change.
It’s not easy to see where the party can go from here. The cracks in the edifice are growing larger. They may be impossible to patch, even with an Obama-level candidate. The denial there is a problem is making them worse. Worse, perhaps, some of their ideas are dangerously unrealistic. The suggestion that demographic change will create a permanent Democratic majority is probably untrue. Indeed, it reflects the blindness of the elites:
First, if the Republicans fear demographic change, they’ll push for steps to counter it.
Second, as the newcomers integrate and grow more prosperous, they may no longer give their vote to the Democrats.
Third, as the newcomers get more numerous, they’ll start asking precisely why they should support a political elite that isn’t them?
The crux of the problem is that the Democrats have lost touch with the majority of their voters (and undecided voters). They don’t understand the challenges facing people who aren’t part of the elite. They don’t grasp that vast numbers of Americans view socialism as a cancer. They don’t realise that their actions are driving countless undecided voters to Trump – he may be a rump, but he’s better than the alternative. And they don’t realise that they’ve lost most of their credibility in the last four years. They have no room to claim there was a mistake, when something goes wrong.
And something will go wrong. It always does.
The Democrats need to rejuvenate their party. This means, at a minimum, discarding ancient elites and socialists and going back to the little men, pushing for localised social programs, improved schools and hundreds of other small projects that might improve their lives. It means accepting, right from the start, that things have changed. It means cutting down on government power. It means giving the culture wars a rest and embracing, once again, calm and rational debate. It means learning to accept that disagreement is part of life and people who disagree with you have a right to do it.
But I don’t think they will. Because that would mean admitting that they were at fault and, perhaps worse, giving up their stranglehold on the party.
And yet, the more they tighten their grip, the worse things will become.
(I can do one on the Republicans too if anyone’s interested.)
The Chrishanger 
Thanks, Chris. Always enjoy and appreciate your observations and commentary. I’d certainly be interested in what you might have to say regarding the Republicans, as well, as your time permits.
Please, please do one on the GOP. That was awesome.
I think you’ve hit the nail right on the head. The Democrat boat seems headed straight for the eke tion iceberg. As a person who leans liberal, I watched in horror as the house took the impeachment gun, aimed deliberately at their foot and pulled the trigger. I am lukewarm on all the candidates, perhaps for some of the reasons you articulated.
At least the stock market is doing well…
Nice one Chris – try deleting ‘Democrats’ and inserting ‘UK Labour party’ – works for me..;}
Very well done. As a low level, independent politician in Virginia I have also observed a certain desperation in the Democrat party. When they do achieve power – as they did here last Fall – they attempt to pass every single crazy idea anyone has ever had immediately, without regard to how those ideas play out or how they are received by the populace at large. This is backed up by an almost religious fervor that their ideas and solutions are the only ideas and solutions that can or should work. They have become a deeply religious irreligious party. Now, please do write one up about the GOP. I think only segments of the party understand what Mr. T represents – not an agreement with longstanding GOP priorities, but a cry of anguish and anger over our own “corporatist” vision.
Ow, very conservative bias, you should sometime read something outside bubble.
What happen to Democrats is something that happen to Labour, SPD, or every other Left parties in Europe.
In many way, this view identical fracture in Right.
Reagan/Thatcherism had been proven failure, Western post war boom (1945-2008) had ended, pushing young and poor to two answer a) Socialism b) Fascism/ethnic nationalism. At same time old generation still remember “postwar consensus” and dream of “moderate way”.
And while Democrats always had factionalism, their differences isn’t that great, most voters actually like each candidates across faction line, Biden voters who had Sanders as second best option is not rare. There will be moderate who afraid of Sanders and Leftist who refuse to vote for Biden, as always has. But majority of Democrats would still vote for Democrats, and 2020 would have more vote than 2016 or 2008. Neither Socialist, nor African-American, nor college graduates, nor silicon valley, nor women, nor Asian, nor Hispanic would abandon Democrats. They are far too similar to each other, their goal complimentary, and in the end they are too different and repulsed by Republicans.
My prediction is repeat of UK, Sanders (like Corbyn) would win nomination, and lost to Trump in electoral college.
The reason is rural collapse / metropolitan ingathering, the divide between two ways of life are simply too great, and rural votes would win at least this decade, plunging world to deeper crisis.
I think that you will be surprised at just how many blacks and other minorities as well as women and college students will vote for Trump in November. Many are waking up!
Agree about women – at least white women – half of them still voted for trump during the midterm, if I remember correctly.
Not about minorities – at least African-americans – vast majority of their vote will go against trump, as it did during the midterms (I live in Virginia, and have not met any black person who does not hate him). Latino-americans and Asian-americans are very mixed group, though I suspect that majority of them will still vote for democratic candidate. the only group which votes for trump religiously are poorly educated white people (who do it in utter detriment to their own interests). As midterms show, trump lost suburbs, former republican strongholds, populated mostly by well-educated white people.
Thanks for your giving us your prospective, as a right leaning Republican I’d also like to read what you think of my party, heaven only knows there’s plenty of material to work with.
I always enjoy your political posts they seem to put my feelings on the subject out there in a more organized and understandable manner. I like trump but I don’t always agree with his every move. I have no doubt he’ll win in 2020 but what about 2024? I only view the rebublican party as a whole as marginally better than the democrats. I would love to get your perspective on the republican party and even the possibilities you see for both parties beyound this next term.
Yes, Chris, please do one on the Republican GOP’s.
Excellent summation. The Democrats still do not understand why they lost, they have been so focused on trying to take down Trump that they ignored their internal problems. I would love to see a similar article on the Republicans. I don’t see a successor to Trump.
Oh Chris, please do the Republications too! Very good article. I’d love to see the other side.
Own two sense: I agree with PhilippeO that the differences among democrats are not earth shattering. Most are quite comfortable supporting multiple candidates. That is pretty normal in a democracy after all.
Agree with others – your categories are very republican/conservative in perspective. Not sure I would divide things that way, but the exact nature of the categories is not important for your point. Your point is that there are many factions within the democratic party and each faction has a different agenda. Again – somewhat common in democracies and certainly has been the case for both major parties in US for decades (if not centuries).
I think you did not hit upon the real reasons for concern with the democratic party.
1) Disengagement
2) Primary process
3) Electoral College bias
Disengagement for me means that political figures seem unable to relate to people in a way that seems natural. They are too careful in their phrasing, too careful to not offend key groups and few are willing to take real chances with a controversial idea. Real problems are not being addressed while political leaders focus on the same ideas for the last few decades.
The Democratic party of Hillary Clinton/2016 had few new ideas/approaches. Some real problems were targeted, but not in any creative ways. Here I have to disagree with Chris- I think the last three years have led to a storm of energy/ideas for the democratic party. Some ideas are good, some less so. But the presence of so many ideas is fantastic for democracy.
This is the area where Trump really excels – he engages with voters. He feels real, even when what he is saying is clearly false. Nobody believed he would get Mexico to pay for his wall. But nobody cared – it felt real.
The primary process is actually rather bad for our democracy. The process should generate the consensus candidate – the one candidate that best represents the collective value of his/her party. But the process strongly favors the candidate that has the strong support of a group of voters. It does not have to be a big group, but just big enough to get the top 1-2 spots in the early primaries when their are a lot of candidate splitting the vote. Arguably Bernie is that candidate this cycle. He has a strong/stable group of supporters that is large enough to get him in the top 2 of each state so far. But he is the 3rd or 4th preferred candidate for everybody else in the democratic party. Tiered voting in the primaries would do a much better job of pulling out the candidate that is most preferred (Bernie or otherwise). This same dynamic certainly favored Trump in 2016 and McCain in 2008 and probably hurt Bernie in 2016.
Electoral college bias is the nature of our election process.
* Demographically urban centers are very heavily democratic and rural centers are fairly heavily republican. Given there is a lot of population in urban centers, that skews democratic voters into a relatively small number of electoral districts.
* The electoral college itself favors smaller population states, giving them a disproportionate share of the voting power (as compared to their population). Most smaller population states are heavily rural – which means the college gives rural (aka – republican) voters more weight.
As a consequence, there have been a number of elections where democratic candidates for President got more votes, but Republican candidates won the election. At other times in our history, this same dynamic favored the democratic party. It is a natural consequence of the small/large state balance built into our constitution.
Oh yes please Chris. I’d love to see you do one on the Republicans, then turn your attention back to this side of the pond and give us a look at out own political animals.
Chris – in answer, takes a look at https://www.willrogers.com/quotes Will Rogers STILL resonates as all too true 80-90 years later as it was then in understanding US politics and the American voter. Underlying truths.
Ben
Ben Sevier
Would love to see your Republican one too. What I find sad about the whole mess is that there are a lot of independents and/or libertarian leaning folks who would love to not have Trump in office, but the opposition party can’t seem to find a candidate for whom any of them would vote – at least not yet.
Read Sean Trende ‘How Trump Won’ at RealClearPolitics.com; it’s in his 2017 archives.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/01/20/how_trump_won_–_conclusions_132846.html
He splits urban and rural areas into huge cities (> 5M people), large cities, small cities (0.5-1M people), large towns, small towns, and rural areas. Hillary carried the huge cities by a lot, the large cities by a bit, and lost small cities and down. Huge cities are only iirc 11 of them, in 7 states. The notion that Trump only carried rural America misses the point, for normal meanings of rural.
The Democrats are not an issues oriented party in the way you paint them; they are much more an identity group party like more or less all European parties. If you are a German small businessman, you tend to be attached to the FDP. If you belong to a union, until recently you supported the UK Labor Party. Read Asymmetric Politics for more on this.
To my ear, your reading of the Democratic Party in terms of issue-oriented groups does not ring quite true.
Best analysis I read of the current 2020 political situation. As an independent voter, I dislike Trump, but am appalled by the Democrats and their pandering with a boatload of freebies. The infighting is destructive to whatever their goal is. They have created a situation where voters will consider Trump as a better alternative to whoever they nominate. The country will not buy what Bernie is offering and, if nominated, Trump will make mincemeat of him considering his history in the 1980s with the Social Workers Party. I second a similar assessment of the Republicans.
Good national analysis.
It is about money. And that is where I think the Democrat fracture with voters exist.
There are very few parents that want their children to fail in school. But the Teacher Unions spend big money to prevent improvements in schools. Polls show 80% inner city parents want school choice. Unions oppose.
The best example I have is on a very local level.
The county supports a local hospital and a couple of clinics for the poor. The council wanted a relatively small property tax increase to add two clinics to better serve outer areas that were predominantly POC.
Three large property owners “donated” to the leaders of 4 POC churches. The measure failed and substantially in the areas of these 4 churches. Coincidentally, the clinics would have been located to serve the area where they were located.
I know the 4 pastors. I know the 3 men.
Nothing was illegal, just wrong.
One major thing worth mentioning to all you non-Americans reading this:
In the US our political parties are not really ‘parties’ like you Europeans know them. They are big tent coalitions of various factions that would otherwise be individual political parties in most European nations. AOC for once was correct in saying “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same political party”.
This is because in most other governmental systems, coalitions are not needed to get elected but only to govern after the election has happened. Whereas in the US, you need to form the future governing coalition just to get elected into office in the first place.
This is why voting third party doesn’t do a damn except maybe kick in Duverger’s Law. And THIS is why the Democrats look as fractured as they are — because they truly are. The GOP has different groups too. But not so many nor are they so inherently hostile to each other.
Chris neglected to talk about Big Labor and the Environmentalists in the Democrat Coalition. They hate each other. Minorities hate other minorities (blacks hate jews and asians and resent Hispanics for eclipsing them as the Dems’ most ‘favored’ minority, etc), and the list goes on and on. Also, the Elites and the Corporatists have been in bed with each other ever since…well, forever mostly. Hillary was a beastette of both, remember. This makes them no different than the GOP elites — which is really what tall the populist uprising in BOTH coalitions are all about, Trump’s & Bernie’s.
But Chris is right in that all of them are in denial. Stage 4 of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome), we call it. And that won’t change even after they get their butts kicked this November, too.
Chris divides the elites from the corporatists when I would argue they are one in the same. As soon as Sanders presented as a viable candidate the attacks on him came in fast and furious. Equating socialism with communism, out of touch, etc. The mainstream Democratic Party is in thrall to Wall Street and the banks, as is the mainstream Republican Party. I voted for Obama twice, but saw him do little for the common person, but let the heads of major financial firms skate after destroying the economy. Obamacare was a gift to corporate insurance and pharmaceutical interests.
The reality is that 50% of Americans own no stock. 40% cannot come up with $400 in cash for an emergency. 500,000 a year declare bankruptcy over medical debt and 25% skip medications due to cost. Over 20% percent of children live below the poverty line.I don’t agree that the Democrats are not reaching out and providing solutions. Healthcare for all is on the table. Free college is a solution to the 1.7 trillion dollar student debt load, much of which is in arrears and about to explode. The elite are terrified that the scam they have perpetrated on the American people might be exposed by the left wing of the Democratic Party.
By way of example I graduated from high school in 1973. I did not want to go to college right away so I answered an ad in the paper saying that the local aluminum plant was hiring. I applied, interviewed, and was hired. My starting wage was $7.50 an hour. Adjusted for inflation that is about $35.00 an hour in todays dollars. It was union so I had excellent healthcare, a defined benefit pension, paid vacation and sick leave. Today that plant is still in operation. The average wage is $18.00 per hour, non-union, and an employee-funded 401k for retirement. At the time I worked there CEO’s made 30-40 times their companies average wage. Now it is 300-400. Public funded healthcare and free college are vilified as socialism, but huge tax cuts for the rich, billions in taxpayer subsidies to profitable corporations are now called capitalism. A growing number of people realize that Biden, Bloomberg, Buttigeig, and Khlobuchar will just be more of the same.
I believe it is not possible to reach Trump’s base. This is made up of scared white people who realize that they will soon be a minority in the US. They fear they will be treated as they have treated minorities in the past. They live in the fantasy that the world will somehow regress to 1960 if they just hold on. Lucky for them we’ll give them healthcare a living wage anyway.
By the way Chris, I love your military science-fiction books and have read them all. I do, however, skip over most of the social commentary you put in them, LOL.
You appear to be as out of touch with reality as the elitists are. I am your age and white and not the least bit afraid of all you say we fear. Perhaps when the left decided to make honor, sacrifice and honesty reasons for derision, the corporatists decided to be all in for themselves. When deriding patriotism and moral behavior became the norm, why fight for those things? The leftists have always been disruptors and success seems to piss them off. Not enough drama. The left are hypocrites and would be the first to howl if they had to live like they are trying to force everyone to live.
Chris,
I agree with most of what you’ve said here but there is so much more. Most of Democrats in power seem to not know or understand the principles this country was founded on. Many of them DO know but oppose those principles.
One of the biggest problems I see with the Democrat party is that they oppose many of the things in our Constitution. The main power in this country is intended to lie with the states and with the people. Too many democrats (and some Republicans too) want the federal government to hold all of the power. This is not what is in our Constitution and not what has made America great. Any of these big social programs that you see being pushed are not even legal unless they are specifically listed in the Constitution as the job of the US government. Anything not listed is the purview of the States. This principle has been violated by those in Washington DC for many decades.
Most of the people who support Trump want to get back to the basic government structure laid out in the Constitution and the Democrats can’t compete with that as long as they push for bigger government.
All this being said, I look forward to your take on the Republican party!
Carl , look up Wickard v Filburn SCOTUS decision.
They found a farmer who grew wheat and fed it to his cows was subject to the Interstate Commerce Clause.
Even though he didn’t sell the wheat or cross State lines. He fed it to his own cows.
This decision is why we have the Dept of Education. Since you could take your HS diploma to another state, it could be used to facilitate Interstate Commerce giving the Fed jurisdiction. Same with most Fed agencies. ☹️
I have not studied this but I have heard of it. This needs to be revisited by the SCOTUS. They have made bad decisions in the past and many believe this is one of them. This is part of the violations I mentioned above. I (and many others) believe the the Interstate Commerce clause has been abused as a power grab by the Feds.
Yup. Most people when the find out about this think that the person telling them is pulling their leg, spreading ‘fake news’, etc.
There’s been a few more in support of Wickard v Filburn, too.
WvF was SCOTUS caving to the New Deal after FDR threatened to pack the court with more justices…just like today’s Socialist Democrats are threatening to do when they somehow get both the Senate & WH next.
One important thing to remember is that we’ve heard over and over again over the years that this party or that party “is over”. So far, this is almost never the case. Disfunction inside of political parties happens. Hell, It’s “the norm” really. So no, the Democrat party isn’t going away. They may unexpectedly lose a few elections (cough 2016 cough), and they might have some infighting, but eventually they’ll pull things together. Always happens.
I will simply quote Will Rogers “I don’t belong to an organized political party, I’m a democrat.”
It is difficult to give an accurate description, forget about personal understanding, of another country’s politics. I still can’t fully understand British politics. It gets me a headache. When the other country is much alike, yet ever different, than your own knowledge of your country makes it worse. So this is a very credible explanation of why the Democratic Party under its leadership the DNC (Democratic National Committee) is so obviously a delusional mess.
However, I think that most people outside of the United States do not realize the seriousness of the ongoing economic collapse, the increasing corruption, and the growing repression by the militarized police state and the ongoing soft coup by the Deep State.
The real struggle is of the bottom 90% against the 0.01% and their supporters in the 10%
There has been NO effective Left in the United States since the destruction of the three national communist and socialist political parties, then the unions, the subversion by the leadership of what remained which includes several smaller local political parties. Add the purges in most universities and colleges of any non Neoliberal economists as well as anyone of any leadership positions in the Democratic Party not a neoliberal. Adding the shoving of the political economy of the United States from the New Deal being bog standard normal to being seriously labeled first as socialism, then communism, and now some sort of Stalinism. As the writer Chris Hedges said, the Democratic Party became conservative and the Republican Party insane. The American Left has only started reconstituting itself in the past few years.
I will also add that having diabetics die being normal, personally seeing:
the increasing numbers of shantytowns including in the hills and large groups sleeping on the street,
having people fighting desperately to pay off the non-dischargeable student debt(unemployment or disability is not accepted in bankruptcy),
all the good jobs sent overseas or undermined by illegal immigration and H-1B visas
Or the shrinking islands of an archipelago of supposed prosperity (this are the places with both the remaining “good” jobs and the most homelessness as well) in an increasingly economically dead, or at least toxic, ocean called the United States.
Basically, essentially, both mainstream political parties are using lies, identity politics be it racism, transphobia, or any other -isms to deflect from the class warfare of the 10% against the 90%. So when healthcare for everyone especially when we pay twice as much as everyone else, or actual jobs, and housing, and essentially free higher education, which was essentially a reality in the 1960s, is called socialism, an increasingly desperate people say that socialism sounds good. This free market capitalism is not helping anyone I know. Bring it on. For what good are rights if you are hungry or homeless which is a common American experience?
Everything else is mainly unimportant and since neither party intends to reform the system for the welfare of most Americans, but actively impedes reform, I am recall JFKs observation that make peaceful change possible make violent revolution inevitable. Since even Richard Nixon would be labeled a communist today and Bernie Sanders while not a socialist is a Democratic Socialist to the left of Nixon, I think that some sort of civil war is coming. An attempted coup at least. Hopefully we will not get the violence, often lethal, in the 1880-1890s used by white supremacists when overthrowing some Southern city, county, and state governments.
I am rather a strong supporter of civil and social rights of all kinds, but I have spent days being hungry and seeing homeless children, so some of this socialism, perhaps even communism sounds good. And please, don’t insult my intelligence by calling FDR’s New Deal socialism. It wasn’t.
And everything that I just bloviated about can applied to the Republican Party with some of the details changed.
Anerica Began as Thirteen divided colonies, we have always been devisive, our states our people distintly different. After our great war, after France freed us from Great Britian, we did not come together our first constitution gave us a Federal government that Rhode Island could defeat. We started over with our current constitution and solved that issue. We did not come together, We could not agree on slavery, we could not make ourselves content to follow our better natures on any given day. We formed two major political parties, and fought many a civil war in congress and the senate. We for the most part held our constitution as sacred as our bibles. Our political parties are not uniform blocks of logical people, Sorry Spock.
Our states have always been a place to carry out mini experiments, for our economic laws, solutions to law enforcement, and ways to move our technology forward. Ofcourse Corperations have taken from the States some of this methodology. We as Americans don’t like to change anything, but our enemies will always change. This drives us to change, and what we do is what Rome did all those years ago. Need a decent ship, steal your enemies, copy it, and make many more of them. My example here is Aircraft carriers, The UK made the first ones, the UK made many of the major improvements of them right up unto today. America copied them, and along this path made chages that made sence to us. One cannot fault us, we had a Aircraft Carrier with Twenty Battle Stars, the Enterprise of WW II. Why would we not copy some of its features into the next one? Put Ideas to work that we thought of from the expierence we had from using the ones we had. Why would we ignore the improvements the UK made at the same time. We didn’t.
The Sherman Tank of the same era, that ever so weak described Tank turns out the be second tank responsible for winning WW II, the first was The T-34 of Russian fame. And we copyed a couple parts of that Russian Tank not the least the sloping armor in the front, but its easy to build in the factory, and repair on the field. The actual best tanks were never in enough quanity, and their air support from 1943 was utterly lacking. And their war was to fail, one bloody fight after another.
Now it is obvious that the Military’s base structure, and a political body’s structure are amazingly the same, they are etched in stone from the past. They both must change as the longbow falls away from use to favor the musket, so must politics face new challanges. Starting with a hundred ideas is a weak posture, but it is soon all to soon that we strip the chaff away and come up with a few core ideals that are far more sound than the ninty eight before. The UK has had a similar system probably with fewer ideas to strip away. So there is always the process, it is always fighting with the past, and it sometimes is a bad idea that makes it through, look at history. Look at the bloody battlefields that were born of an ideal that was bad, look see victory fail us, and we keep the bad idea alive. Look at the fall of Kings, Empires, and the small farming peasant, when the old that was faulty finally falls away to dust.
Now what I see as current, 2016: Two canidates came to run for President, two of the worst people on Earth, there was no correct canidate. Russia interfered with the election and is proud to think that brought to fruit something good for its country.
The elected President, (Trump the coward) ignored the constitution, told lies that he was following it, and we all became little childred squabbling over Russian table scraps.
Trump, the liar, went forth and has brought terrorists against America into the latin countries of Central and South America!! WHAT??? what terrorists? Well it goes like this you don’t terrorize something you like or idolize. At least not in a manner that you think of as terror. Well we have done a good enough job to dash alot of feelings, and good will beliefs to these people. It is no large step from hatred to vengence, and lashing out towards what caused you so much harm. Time will prove me right, as a pound of love will not wash away even the smallest amout of hatred. Any rate you put on this thought of mine, we did ourselves no favors in our recent actions, and it falls to both political parties. People have stero vision not stero thoughts.
The short of all the American dirt coming out in the wash from both parties, is simple. We let the Russians, the Trump, the lies, and our pain at not being number one, the best, the supreme, show the world we are filthy people. We let Trump tear apart all the standing things that we bled so much for in the past be ripped out, and made evil. That is our word, Trumps cowardly deeds, our diplomacy, our desire to throw tantrums instead of standing up in a political process time worn to be devisive, combative, and ultimatily comprimised to a working solution. We are a broken political system now, we have been broken before, but that was in a time when people were fewer and tougher. American’s as most of the world has lost much of what kept our ancestors alive. Where nothing was given, it was a world you gave your all to every day, made what you could, traded for what you needed, and counted a good day when at the end of the day you had a full belly for the nights sleep.
Well we are here, where we don’t see the short of things, the short of electricty, food, water, a place for our children, or how close we are to these edges. I am not going to predict the future, for example the election is for Trump, the destroyer, to loose, not win. It will be his own mouth, his own hand, and his past actions that will bring him down. It is not for, or can the democrates to win; for, even if they do, they only work in opposition. The opposition that America was born in, and thrived from to this day. And to make it a point, our ability to work in opposition is very near this edge of no return.
This is only my narrow view of what really is in front of us, I mean take a wonderful board etch in it the streets of London during the time of Sir Author Conan Doyle, mount it proudly upon a wall. Tell me to paint the wall, and I have some wall paste, and I apply it, and the board made with such care and beauty, this board along with the wall. It is all painted over, and we no longer know that the bump in the wall was something to look at and make you pround to see a London that was, that is now only smooth, and a painted over board on the wall. For America it could be the constitution, thus done, as we are not minding it very well, or very far from our wall paste and paint.
Thank you for reading my humble opinion.
Wyley Foster
The last election I felt that the push from the left was that you HAD to vote for Clinton no matter if you thought she was up to the task. She was female and not Trump therefore you must vote for her. This year it’s anyone but Trump. Give me someone who shares my viewpoints and I will vote for them. If I refuse to choose someone who I feel is incompetent, dishonest and beholden to big business I will. Guess what! I am not talking about Trump. Don’t tell me I am a evil person simply because I do not agree with your viewpoints. It is supposed to be a free country.
Oh and inpeachment? Slick move. You just doomed the next democrat president to a similar fate.
“Oh and inpeachment? Slick move. You just doomed the next democrat president to a similar fate.”
That’s right. I told ALL my liberal friends that. They just ignored me or changed the subject.
TDS rots the brain.
}}} Don’t tell me I am a evil person simply because I do not agree with your viewpoints. It is supposed to be a free country.
Evil? No. A total fool, if you vote for a socialist, which is all the Democrats have to offer? Yes.
If you cannot in good conscience vote for Trump? OK, I can accept that.
But if you imagine you CAN, in good conscience, vote for a socialist?
No, you’re too much of a fool to be allowed to vote. I can’t stop it… but you should stop yourself.
}}} The Socialists believe – rightly or wrongly- that Bernie Sanders was cheated out of the nomination in 2016. They’re on the alert for any signs of a second rigged nomination – and Iowa provided all the proof they could want.
Oh, there is zero question there was a rigging. There was a court case over it, after the fact. In it, the Democratic Party claimed — IN COURT no less — that it was a corporate entity and there was nothing in its by-laws which said that the nominee had to be the one selected by the plebiscite… And the court (rightly) agreed. The Democratic Party could nominate whoever they selected in back-room deals reminiscent of the Boss Tweed era.
So the Democratic Party openly acked that it was not in any regard, “Democratic”.
The fact that this was pretty much ignored says all you need to know about those registered as Democrats. They are sheep with zero sense.
There was no question the “party elite” of the GOP despised Trump and hated his guts. But if they had attempted to ignore the vote and, in back-room deals, the GOP voters would have been in full and open revolt.
And therein lies one of the true differences between the voters of both sides. The Left may talk down at the Right’s voters, but there is zero question which of the two is the clueless ignorant bunch.