What will be the best metaphor for the Democrat Party in the 2020 Presidential campaign? The explosion and crash of the Hinderburg? The Titanic being ripped open by an iceberg? The Nazi’s futile stand at Stalingrad? All are apt and relevant in my mind.
Despite more than three years of persistent propaganda by the Democrats trying to portray Donald Trump as a puppet of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Trump has become more popular and managed to deliver on a raft of campaign promises that many doubted would ever be fulfilled. Incomes are up across the board, minority unemployment has fallen to historic, unprecedented lows, the life span of Americans is increasing, deaths from opiod overdoses are down and the flow of illegal immigrants is being staunched.
All of this noise by the Democrats and obsession on trashing Trump has prevented the media from taking a serious look at the release of purloined DNC emails on the eve of the 2016 Democrat Convention. That incident almost always is characterized as evidence of Russian interference. But that was not true. The emails apparently were taken by DNC employee Seth Rich and sold to Wikileaks.
The real truth that has been ignored is how the DNC establishment tried to cook the nomination process in the favor of Hillary Clinton and, at the same time, sabotage Socialist Bernie Sanders.
Well, it is deja vu all over again. Only this time the DNC establishment does not have a consensus choice like the shrill Hillary to rally around. The field of Democrat candidates is a mess. Democrats stupidly went all in on the impeachment effort and, in the process, prevented the usual scrutiny and media focus that would cull the herd of lame Democrats. Not a single Democrat candidate in the running is capable of matching the charisma and entertainment powers of Donald Trump. Hyper partisan anti-Trumpers who deny this fact are like Titanic passenger sitting in the poker lounge dealing cards while the ship is taking on water and insisting the ship can’t sink. Wrong.
Having learned nothing from 2016, the DNC establishment is once again trying to sabotage and undermine Bernie Sanders. They are correct that a Bernie candidacy at the top of a Democrat ticket is a guaranteed disaster for the party come November 2020. But it also is true that Sanders’ supporters are rabid fans and will fight to the death for their candidate. While they were shutout for the most part from the 2016 Convention, that is not likely to happen this go round.
The rise of Bernie Sanders marks the shattering of the Democrat consensus ushered in by the Presidency of Bill Clinton. He is not a Democrat. He is a Socialist and has almost 60 years of quotes and actions that have not been scrutinized by the media nor the public. Imagine seeing the 37 year old Bernie praising the Ayatollah Khomeni and condemning Jimmy Carter and the U.S. hostages held by Iranian radicals in the takeover of our Embassy in Tehran. Yeah, that’s a real winner on the campaign trail.
There is not a single Democrat running now with the aspirational messages and themes that marked the campaigns of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. They eschewed fear and negativity. They embraced hope and optimism. Each dead a version of making America great.
The current crowd of ideological dwarfs infesting the Democrat Presidential field cannot even acknowledge the remarkable, unprecedented performance of the economy under Donald Trump. His fight to secure a new trade agreement with China and with Canada and Mexico, resonates with the blue collar workers that once were considered the foundation of the Democrat Party. Not any more. Those voters are saying adios to the Dems and flocking to Trump.
The Democrats are a cross between a freak show and a clown car. They eagerly embrace murdering unborn children, protecting illegal immigrants, denying inner city black parents the right to choose decent schools for their kids, demanding protections for transgender crazies and disarming law abiding Americans. Those are not messages that reverberate among the working class and those striving to give their kids a better life. Where is the hope.
What is certain is that the Democrats have boarded the train that is going to run off a cliff down the road. And that road is getting shorter everyday. Look for the Democrat establishment to rally around Amy Klobuchar in a bid to stymie the surge to Bernie Sanders. I do not think it will work, but the establishment is going to fight like hell and use every scheme and cheat available to stop Sanders.
There seems to be the prospect in the US of a repeat of our last UK election when Boris crushed the Labour Party.
Larry, what I particularly value in your contributions is your analysis of evidence. Certainly the DNC leaks issue is of interest here, as would be more on Clinton’s private e-mail server, Uranium One, the bipartisan corruption of and in Ukraine–the Bidens, sedition and the security state, FBI and FISA malfeasance, the FISC’s own misconduct in not responding the Nunez memo, implications of the Wray apology for the Durham investigation.
Political views on the wonders of Trump and foibles of Sanders are available elsewhere. I don’t contest the validity of writing on these things, just telling you as a reader where I find your talents best employed.
Best wishes, and with thanks for your efforts to date.
I wouldn’t beat the drums for the economy quite so loudly, the percussion might burst the bubble that is the stock market, inflated by Fed funny-money.
How many construction cranes will fall silent or be reclaimed by their rental agencies when the Fed tightens the spigot?
Maybe it’s having been raised by parents who lived thru Depression: “Be saving in the time of plenty.”
Or the academic study of Tulip bubbles and the real world experience of housing bubbles.
Be very careful with your finances, ladies & gentlemen.
—
Otherwise, well done, Larry Johnson: Dems are James Dean playing chicken — Rebels without a cause.
I recall that following 2016 and Debbie W-S claim that yes it was a smoke filled room in which they decided on the candidate the DNC was going to choose, The reformists, outraged by this fame fought hard to revise the rules, winning some battles, but not others. So, for instance, the superdelegates will remain but may not participate in the first round. Perez is a hard-liner and is going to do everything in his power to stop Bernie, as is, of course, Hillary.
Trump’s mistake was taking ownership of the economy when it was starting to soar, then pumping cheap money into it and inflating bubbles. As a result, when it crashes as it surely will, the Democrats will tie it around his neck.
The Democrats have embraced identity politics which will destroy any chance of electoral success in my opinion. That is what happened to the British and Australian labor parties last elections and it is also the reason for HRCs failure in 2016.
Furthermore, first generation immigrants don’t want to replicate their culture, they want the American dream. Their grandchildren might want to “identify” as hispanic, etc., but not their parents or grandparents. Identity politics only plays in the white middle classes.
Sir;
I guess I’ll have to be the one to stand up and “take one” for Sanders.
We are in agreement that the present iteration of the Democrat Party is a freak show. However, the Democrat Party once ruled America with a semi-socialist program. This was after FDR saved unfettered capitalism from itself. Remember the Bonus March and all the outright violent strikes? On each wing were such luminaries as Father Coughlin and Huey Long. The New Deal and then WW-2 saved America from ruin.
That said, I’ll state that Sanders is no Trotskyite. He does not call for the destruction of the government. Indeed, he seems to want to return the American governing system to that which ran America under such “Commies” as Eisenhower and Truman.
Bill Clinton and later Barak Obama sold the American working classes a bill of goods. Most policies that these two enacted mainly benefited the upper classes, not the formerly traditional Democrat base, the working classes. Despite the paper improvements to the American economy, most “average” people are seeing their standards of living fall. The anger at that, and the dawning realization of having been sold out by the Democrat Party can be credited with helping Trump win in 2016, that and the abysmal campaign run by the Clinton organization.
I’ll end by mentioning a saying from antiquity: “Moderation in all things.”
We live in interesting times.
Democrats are simply harvesting what they themselves have sown – several generations of teacher-union dominated public K-12 indoctrination – they are harvesting their own self-generated rabid Bernie Sanders supporters. Could they not see this was coming?
ambrit
There is noting moderate about Bernie. He can’t even tell the media how much his stargazing would cost.
ambrit,
While I’m a fan of social security and the CCC I don’t think FDR “saved” America from the Depression and there is some evidence that he might have made it last longer than it otherwise would have.
“Moderation in all things.”?
None of the Democratic candidates, especially Bernie, promise that. Just look at current life in California or the recent legislative action in Virginia. Moderate is the last thing we can expect any of them to be.
According to Rolling Stone, Sanders leads in donations from the US Military:
“No other 2020 candidate for president, including Donald Trump, can come close to matching Bernie Sanders’ level of support among members of the U.S. military, to go by the most recent campaign finance data from the Federal Election Commission.
Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines have donated a total of $185,625 to Sen. Sanders’ 2020 campaign. By comparison, they have given $113,012 to Trump, $80,250 to Pete Buttigieg, $64,604 to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and a relatively paltry $33,045 to former Vice President Joe Biden, according to Doug Weber, a senior researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-sanders-leads-trump-all-2020-candidates-in-donations-from-active-duty-troops-946188/
This could change if, as I suspect, Trump pulls peace deals out of his hat before the election with Iran and N Korea.
Larry – I thought congressman Smallball’s interview on NBC w/PMS was the perfect metaphor for the impeachment hearings. Lots of noise and noxious gas, but over quickly.
“The New Deal and then WW-2 saved America from ruin.”
A popular meme which is wrong on both counts. When the New Deal programs ended due to sunset provisions just before WW2 the nation promptly plunged back into recession, and at the end of WW2 this nation’s economy was a total train wreck, with grossly excessive debt and consumer goods all but totally unavailable.
What brought this nation to prosperity was the conversion from wartime to peacetime production, a vast supply of labor due to returning servicemen, and a world manufacturing capacity that was destroyed almost in its entirety by war, with our capacity alone able to produce the goods needed by the entire world.
Crackpot conspiracy theories aside, Trump won in 2016 because he eked out a series of razor thin victories in three states (WI, MI and PA) that have gone for Team D in recent elections. I think his total margin of victory in all three of those states combined was something like 60,000 votes. That alone was the electoral equivalent of rolling snake eyes, and doing it three times in a row.
But there’s more – not only was Trump running as an outsider against the odious HRC, she didn’t bother to seriously campaign in any of those states. Obnoxious as she is, had she just made a little focused effort, she’d probably be president today.
And boy howdy, is she obnoxious! In Michigan alone, if the people who otherwise voted a straight Team D ticket but left the “president” section blank had voted a straight Team D ticket, HRC would have won Michigan. She’s that unlikable – people actually went out of their way not to vote for her. I have no idea whether she could have won Wisconsin or Pennsylvania similarly.
Furthermore, after getting elected, Trump hasn’t done a whole hell of a lot for the average frustrated working people in those states. The electorate were already seething with white hot incandescent rage in 2016. That is what made Trump a possibility in the first place. The public have only gotten madder since then.
In other words, a Trump victory is far from assured.
The Republican Party has recovered reasonably well from the Trump shock; the Comey/Clapper/Brennan reaction to it has ruined the reputations of their respective institutions among people who are even minimally knowledgeable about how these institutions should operate; the reaction of the establishment fourth estate has left it in disgrace, reducing its stature from estate to partisan hack for the Evil Party; the Evil Party, attempting to find itself in a shattered mirror, is full blown in the midst of a nervous breakdown with too many identities to reconcile. Foaming at the mouth over Trump will not address its real problems, even less will deplorablizing half the country. Only time will tell how much damage it does to the national fabric thrashing about in its fury.
Sid,
Are you the Crackpot Pot calling the kettle black? Have you been asleep for the last three years? Your claim, “Trump hasn’t done a whole hell of a lot for the average frustrated working people in those states” is beyond ridiculous. If Democrat leaders embrace your kind of nonsense they are most certainly dead politically.
In Trump’s last two rallies, held in state’s in the grip of winter weather, had combined ticket requests totaling more than 300,000. Hell, the Washington Redskins could not draw 100,000 fans if they gave away tickets and offered free blow jobs from cheerleaders. We’ve never seen anything like the Trump appeal. Yet, people like you keep trying to pretend it is not real. Good luck with that.
@ambrit; Sid F:
Yes. The older conservatives who comment here don’t get the appeal of Bernie Sanders. I mean, that he went to the Soviet Union back in the bronze age is the best criticism they can come up with? The Soviet Union was dissolved almost thirty years ago, for pete’s sake. (Something the current corporatist Dems seem to have forgotten in their faked up Russia-Russia-Russia hysteria, but I digress). In a nation that is eating its young in so many ways, not least subjecting them to perpetual debt servitude (thx Joe Biden), Sanders’ message of tangible benefits for ALL CITIZENS, especially wresting control of the medical system, a public good, out of the hands of the filthiest profiteers in the world to benefit everybody has a universal appeal.
Just wait – if the Democraps don’t succeed in cheating Bernie out of the nomination like they did last time, he will be hard for Trump to beat. If they do cheat him in favor of Bloomberg or Klobuchar, Trump will get the largest majority ever.
I’d say even odds of either occurring.
Trump is hated by academics, administrative state (the bureaucracy), media, Hollywood, career politicians and various hangers-on.
Add all of their votes up.
Maybe enough to elect a Congressman.
Ah, you say:
“It’s the influence, not the votes.”
All of these groups are pretty much loathed by the electorate,so their noise-making is an echo chamber.
Too funny that the Democrats starting drawing the Marxist super hero on the wall back in the Obama days and, now that it’s jumped off the wall and is actively stomping around in the party and taking heads, they’re in a panic trying to figure out how to make it 2D again. The Ds are experiencing well deserved karma. John Kerry says Bernie must not be allowed to win the nomination and might even run to stop him. A party in total disarray with nothing to offer but madness, hate and failed ideology.
BTW, the economy is not in a bubble and is not going to implode or anything like that, though I’ve noticed that such dire predictions are becoming the latest lefty talking points; just more negativity from the usual suspects.
divadab
How was YOUR Intourist visit to the USSR? You think a communist can be elected? There are that many college kids and professors?
Colonel – never went near the USSR other than its pavilion at Expo 67. I’m a capitalist, never had a govt job ever, run my own retirement money because I have no pension, having worked in the corporate world where I was part of the crew that replaced pensions with 401k’s. Which works for me but not for most. Government pensions much better for most people, eh?
I think you have a too narrow view of who supports Sanders. Do you not think most people are disgusted by the corruption and self-dealing of our political elites? Say what you like about Bernie he’s not in it for the money. Where every other candidate is devoted to weakening or destroying any federal program that benefits all citizens equally, he wants to extend universal programs. Just that makes him the only candidate worth voting for. Medicare for all is his idea and he’s the only one who is serious about it. The rest are liars. And your man Trump is already packpedaling on his promise to protect social security, which the Republicans have been gunning for forever.
@Larry Johnson: Look at income inequality statistics since 2008. For that matter, look at the number of Americans who cannot scrape together $400 without borrowing or selling something.
Trump is popular among a segment of Americans. Never said he wasn’t. In my own state, there are plenty of people who view the man as a near-deity and treat the slightest criticism of the man as blasphemy.
But will that be enough to get Trump re-elected? Maybe, but it’s not like people who wholeheartedly support a given candidate get two votes and people who are lukewarm only get one vote.
Bill H- Depends upon how you define economic ruin. Link goes to US unemployment rate. It dropped from about 25% in about 1932 to 10% in 1941, then down around 2% in 44-45. So if you think an economy is bad if you cant find work, that problem was clearly made better. Kind of what you might expect with a wartime economy.
https://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1510
Real GDP grew almost every year after 33, except for 38, until the war ended. 46 was a bad year then growth took off again. Agree that putting all of those returning soldiers to work was key to our prosperity and it helped that our industrial base was intact.
ambrit,
I also want the Democratic Party to return to the days when it was the party of the working man.
I support some of what they want to do but the identity politics is a big turnoff for many people who would otherwise support them, as is their movement towards a virtual open borders policy.
What Sanders and Warren want will cost too much and never get through Congress yet its idealism is appealing. The more moderate candidates have their appeal but aren’t doing so well; maybe they will do better as the race goes on. Trump has many faults and I criticize him every day yet I just might end up voting for him over immigration.
Both parties are far apart on some big issues. Obama and Trump were both stymied by their inability to get legislation passed and used executive orders too much. I expect a repeat of that in the next four years whoever gets elected.
Sid, I’ll bite. Where does Bernie plan to get all this money he will be spending? Specific funding streams please, not vague generalities? Under what degree of mandate and/or voluntary confiscation. Can he do with by Executive Order or does he also need willing Congress.
Sir,
I wouldn’t be surprised if the voters elect the avowed socialist who would be labeled as the communist candidate for president.
The real question is what shenanigans the Democrat establishment come up with to prevent Bernie’s nomination. We’ll see how well he does over the next month through Super Tuesday. The polls show him surging.
Bill H,
How dare the US put more than 10% of her population into uniform to fight a world war where a million of them became casualties, 400,000 dying! Why think of all the money that could have been made supplying both sides. Then the problem of transitioning to a peacetime economy after spending 43% of GDP per year on the war could have been been avoided. It’s not like there was a more important principal at stake than making money, keeping the debt low, and having consumer products abundantly available.
Sid Finster,
as for the popularity of Trump … the hubby of a cousin (both have a PhD in Chemistry) became a partner in a large US consulting corporation and moved to Texas, where he now lives in a lovely (occasional flood, frogs, snakes and alligators aside) gated community. The man likes Trump and thinks he does a good job.
Given the point that he likely is a millionaire now he may have an easier way to see it that way than a rust belt worker (whose rusty jobs were deliberately off-shored and, despite Trump’s habitual penal taxery and tweeting, very very very probably won’t come back).
The by Trump so called “Mr. Apple” said the same thing about Trump’s dream of MAGA ‘All American I-Phones (AAIP?) and All American Apple Comps (AAAP?)’ a while ago. So to speak – that party is over and I can stop breathing till im blue in the face and it won’t change.
I disagree with his view of Trump and his policies and choose do not discuss it with him or my cousin to prevent messing up the general “extended family peace”.
In the job I have a georgian colleague (nice guy) who (for to me inexplicable reasons) is a fan of Shaakashvili (IMO an unfriendly caricature of a bad politico) and so I also choose not to talk about it with him for the same reason.
Sid Finster,
#re: “But will that be enough to get Trump re-elected?”
Well, so far Trump has managed to basically kill off (so far just politically) every potential competitor in his party, with Mc Cain just dying away.
Trump likely will no hesitate a second to throw no longer useful “tools” under the bus if he feels it neccessary (bad news for shadow foreign secretary Giuliani).
As for the rest, there, however late, is Romney, but Trump has already starting to insult him verbally and on tweet for daring dissent publicly. That’ll go on and get worse the closer the election date comes.
Except for him – who’s there in the GOP to challenge Trump?
Hardly Mitch McConnell. He is about 78 already and then in impeachment was a … Trumpist extraordinaire. If he went into the next election, and would be elected, he’d be brisk 80 then and people will perhaps bet whether he’ll survive the end of his term.
Well, Trump himself is a guy who has a hard time to handle dissent
treasonor disobedience and pretty much freaked out when he noticed that his wife dared to watch CNN on Air Force One (and not, as ordered by Trump, dumb up herself with Hannity & Crew on FOX).The GOP problem, nevermind actual Democrat chaos, is that they don’t have an alternative to Trump left, and practically and strategically that is a problem.
Democrats today use the buz word they are for “working families”. Not sure if this means they support child labor or not, but that is their favorite call sign.
What this means in California is a two government union job per family which puts them soundly in the Upper 10% income wise – threshold being $250,000 a year in income -easily achieved with two $150,000 government union jobs per family.
Don’t believe this taxpayer-funded income disparity is happening in California?
Look up the website “Transparent California” which lists the full compensation packages for all government employees at any level from schools, city councils and theSacramento behemoth.
Yet again, Democrats target others as the enemy when they are the ones guilty of doing the very same thing – except using OPM to reach their own Upper 10% “working family” goals.
why trump still be a president?
——- Jakarta
He be elected. this not Indonesia.