1. Stop the Bickering — If I read one more Facebook post on how bad Bernie is or how bad Hillary is and how reprehensible their respective followers are, I’m going to die. It’s over. Move on! I swear, if I’m at one more party with friends where this argument breaks out, I’m going to leave the party – even if it’s at my own house! We’ve got bigger problems on our hands right now – in Wisconsin, and in Washington. As Representative Gwen Moore said at the Cap Times Idea Fest panel I was on, “We need forgiveness.” All around. And then we need to move forward together.... Folks, we’re dying here! We don’t have time for your ego spats. Get your stuff together.
2. The Old Guard Needs to Go....
September 20, 2017
From "What’s Next for Progressives in the Age of Trump?”: "10 Steps Progressives in Wisconsin Need to Take"
By Matthew Rothschild, Executive Director of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
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Unfortunately Ann's quote is the only sensible thing the man said. After that it was just "let's double down on all the things that have defeated us !"
1. Stop the Bickering
"Bickering" happens when people can't agree how to do things. Everyone has the same thought: "Stop bickering! Do it my way!"
I was unfair. Point 2 and 10 are good ones, but highly unlikely.
Lose your Pro-Choice religion. Progressives need to discover a conservation of principles.
Moral, including: individual dignity (i.e. character, not "color") and intrinsic value (from conception, not from the time of the stork's delivery), natural, and personal imperatives. Go forth and reconcile.
Here is their program:
5. Advocate for Big Reforms that Really Help People
First and foremost, universal health care: Everyone would benefit from this in the most concrete way. We all know the health crises that could submerge us at any moment, literally costing us our lives and our hard-earned money if we don’t have decent health coverage. And if we go back to the bad old days before the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans will be forced to stay in jobs they hate until they are 65 just so they can get health insurance. We need Badger Care for All, and Medicare for All.
Other issues are crucial, too, and I’m just going to name a few here: People need a living wage, and they soon will need a guaranteed minimum income, since there may not be enough jobs to go around when the robots and artificial intelligence fully take over.
We need college education to be free, and we also need student debt forgiveness. Here’s a shout out to Scot Ross at One Wisconsin Now for bringing the issue of student debt to the fore. The weight of this debt is crippling two generations and stifling our economy.
We need to bolster our public schools, which are the center of community life, and the only thing close to being an equalizer in our society.
We need to legalize marijuana – and to stop imprisoning people for using this drug, which is a lot safer than alcohol and tobacco. Here’s a shout out to Representative Melissa Sargent for championing this one.
We need a Green Jobs Initiative. We should be putting solar panels on every government building and on top of every school bus in Wisconsin, and we should be erecting wind turbines in our state parks and forests. Robert Kraig at Citizen of Wisconsin has been pushing this initiative, to his credit.
And we need to democratize our democracy here in Wisconsin. That means automatic, universal voter registration, as Dana Schultz at Wisconsin Voices advocates. That means fair maps -- non-partisan redistricting (no more gerrymandering!). That means banning corporations and other groups from donating to political parties and legislative campaign committees. That means requiring dark money groups to disclose their donors. That means banning coordination between candidates and outside groups. That means greatly reducing the amount of money that rich people can give to statewide candidates (right now it is $20,000!).
No, here is their program:
Hate white people
Hate men
Hate Republicans
Hate minorities who don't toe the progressive line
Hate America
Hate Western Civilization
Does Scott Adams have some sorta anti-persuasion theory?
This guy is a pro at such. Perfectly insufferable.
I have a one step plan for helping this guy learn how to persuade folks: do the opposite of what his brain tells him to do.
Can you imagine a life where your parties were mostly about politics?
Also, smoothing functions (a.k.a. redistributive change) have short-term effectiveness, for the distributor and receiver, but are first-order forcings of long-term spiritual degradation.
End the war on men, women, and babies, too.
Equality, not "=" (i.e. political congruence).
Address the diverse causes and incentives for mass emigration.
End the man-made conflict(s), especially social justice adventures (i.e. elective processes), period.
That was a brilliant cut after number 2. "Quit bickering," and"you guys leave."
6. Fight for Racial Justice
Wisconsin ranks at the bottom of several scales when it comes to racial inequality. This is not only embarrassing, it’s appalling. Racism that is just under the surface and institutional racism continue to plague us here in Wisconsin. We see it in our judicial system, and we see it in employment, we see it in our schools, we see it in housing policy, we see it in transportation policy. It’s everywhere. As progressives, we need to make the fight for racial justice an integral part of all our work.
Yeah right, double down on the BIGGEST reason Democrats are losing working class whites.
Democrats are such drama queens. They claim they are going to "die" if such-and-such happens, or move out of the country, but they never follow through when it does. Keep your word, Democrats!
The people want affordable and available health care, not financial schemes, especially establishment of monopolies and practices that force recurring adjustments (e.g. recessions).
The program is a rehash. Number 1 is Universal Health Care, which is not a state issue. Education gets a passing mention because they have to, but no ideas because they have none. Then free stuff, plus much more free stuff when the robots take over. Legal pot, because that solves so many problems. And stop putting people in jail for pot possession, which of course has already happened. Green jobs, though they opposed everything about Foxconn, which will bring a tech and green jobs revolution to the state, if we do not screw it up. Wind turbines in the parks and forests--now that is big thinking. Plus rigging the electoral process to their liking.
Yes sir, here is a group ready to lead us in the 21st Century, right down the toilet if we let them.
How about
11: Stop whining about the Koch brothers.
I follow politics and can't remember a damn thing either of them have ever said.
(It's ironic that #10 is "Talk to People Who Don't Agree With Us." Except, I suppose, the Koch brothers.)
The diversity doctrine a.k.a. "identity politics" reinforces denial of individual dignity, and progressed the normalization of institutional and personal racism, sexism, and other forms of judging people by the "color of their skin". Progressives need to reject class diversity and embrace diversity... of individuals.
#5 had my interest:
5. Advocate for Big Reforms that Really Help People
And then I got into the details. It was just a laundry list of give aways, and that don't even poll well.
Here is a Big Reform that is actually good. I am very excited by what Donald Trump is doing with his 2 for 1 deal on regulations. It's brilliant. For every new regulation, you need to get rid of 1 old one. It's the best thing I have ever seen done by a politician, and it's working. This is type of policy that can make a difference. Why did it take Donald Trump for such an idea to happen?
My favorite is #8. Keep calling Trump a fascist while "encouraging resistance" (read - go dress in black and break things to show how non-fascist YOU are) is a sure-fire losing strategy.
It is just Hillary's "basket of delporables". The left, if it could, would outlaw dissent. Remember which political philosophy seems to lead to "re-education camps".
I know people say The Onion has lost a step, but this piece shows they haven't.
The statement was issued by Rothschild after an "idea fest." That was the best they could come up with.
Progressives need to adopt an energy program that selects from a diverse basket of energy conversion technologies suited to purpose, and not cling to gray technologies (a.k.a. "green") that have high margin renewable profits, but circumstantial value, as well as outsourced and suppressed consequences to the environment.
11. Stop digging.
Reconciliation. Rehabilitation. Revitalization.
12. Stop being Commie bitches
"I follow politics and can't remember a damn thing either of them have ever said."
You probably have heard them speaking w/o knowing that they're speaking to you. They spend dough on advertising and such in order to influence our politics. Dough = speech.
Get ready, Ann and Meade. Universal health care, free college education, student loan forgiveness, guaranteed minimum income, Green Jobs initiative are going to be expensive, and we know exactly who Rothschild plans to have pay for it.
The Democrats are out of ideas.
Identity politics and free stuff seem to be the sum of what they are for.
8. Confront the Fascist Threat
" ......We also need to recognize and respond to the dire threat that Donald Trump poses to our democracy. He is the closest thing we’ve ever had to a Fascist in the White House ..."
That sold me!
5. Advocate for Big Reforms that Really Help People
First and foremost, universal health care: Everyone would benefit from this in the most concrete way.
Ah, no, it is manifestly true that everyone will not benefit from universal health care. At any rate, before you advocate for universal health care, don't you think you ought to clean up the one example of universal health care we already have in this country: the Veterans Health Administration? Once you demonstrate that you can run the VHA, then we'll talk.
Allow me add the previous administration wire-tapping of Trump Tower is/was one of the bigger threats to our democracy.
We could all quit our jobs and let other people pay for our health care! Sweet!!!
"Wisconsin ranks at the bottom of several scales when it comes to racial inequality. "
This is true. And one would think, for a liberal, fascinatingly counter-intuitive, as this has been the case for a very long time, irrespective of state politics.
WI does far, far worse here than does Texas.
A curious and well meaning person would get technical on why, and not simply assume a policy.
LibCong tears sweeten my coffee.
2. The Old Guard Needs to Go
Something tells me Matthew Rothschild does not consider himself part of the old guard.
Demographics of Wisconsin:
The state has slightly less than 6 Million people, 86% of which are white. Only 6% is black.
Ergo, ipso facto, the entire Badger state is racist, and presents a hostile environment for African-Americans.
Wait, wait, wait, ACA is in place so people can retire early from jobs they don't love and get benefits from the rest of us? Society is supposed to provide health care for every person who wants to be in a job that doesn't pay benefits ex. painter, actor, etc.?
10. Talk to People Who Don’t Agree with Us..
8. Confront the Fascist Threat
Talk to people...by calling them fascist. Surely that will work!
tcrosse said...
11. Stop digging.
It helps if you can see that you're in a hole first.
There's nothing to move on from. The execrable Clintons and their DLC/Wall Street party have got to go or there is no future for the Democrat Party. Republicans and right-wingers can be duped into thinking that doing the billionaires' bidding is in their interest. The left is not that dumb, though.
Wait, wait, wait, ACA is in place so people can retire early from jobs they don't love and get benefits from the rest of us? Society is supposed to provide health care for every person who wants to be in a job that doesn't pay benefits ex. painter, actor, etc.?
Lol. Typical right-wing cluelessness: It's important to price people out of the insurance market to the point where hundreds of thousands of them die prematurely every year or else America's ranks will just become filled with unpaid actors!
Identity politics and free stuff seem to be the sum of what they are for.
Hey! What are you complaining about? You already got your nursemaid tittay cheese so FUCK everyone else without bootstraps by which to pull themselves up, right?
Good night all!
So we need to get out of our cocoons, and go do the work of listening to our fellow Wisconsinites who aren’t yet on our side...
Yet? How about learn listening and lecturing aren't the same thing.
There is no bench. Better not lose the old guard...
Hard day polluting your neighbors' groundwater, Humperdnink?
The blog version of Godwin's law in effect.
11. Stop being Fundamentalists about your religious views
religion = belief about what orients human thriving and wholeness
I sympathize with you, Rick. It must really be hard, having achieved a one-party state, realizing that not everyone (and most people outside your ken) actively oppose it.
Perhaps an old Soviet bureaucrat-turned-oligarch could share a vodka with you over it.
"The left is not that dumb, though."
Assumes facts not in evidence.
The difference between the left and the right is that the right supports billionaires in a straightforward fashion, while the left supports billionaires who use rhetoric about helping the poor in order to make more money while keeping the poor still poor.
"Perhaps an old Soviet bureaucrat-turned-oligarch could share a vodka with you over it"
You could get various Californian (a one-party state) bureaucrat-turned-oligarchs to share a drink with you too, if you could get them to stop looking down on you.
Hey! What are you complaining about? You already got your nursemaid tittay cheese so FUCK everyone else without bootstraps by which to pull themselves up, right?
Poor Toothless is white-knuckling that cheap bourbon earlier and earlier. (Taking "Early Times" far too literally, it seems.)
Democrats just aren't diverse enough. That's the problem. They consist of simply two wings: corporatist SJW shills and truly liberal progressive FDR-style old school Democrats.
The Republicans have a broader coalition and cover more ground, demographically. They're actually four parties in one. Namely, the Republican'ts, the Republicunts, the Republicowards and the Republicrazies. A coalition of the impotent, the incompetent, the arrogant and the malevolent.
When they talk about a "big tent" they aren't kidding.
I have a lot less tear of somebody seeking money than somebody seeking power.
Some old rich white guy called Rothchild yacking about "racism" - pathetic.
Wherein Quaestor once again gets distracted by mammaries serving their true purpose: Nourishment.
Or in this case, going to spare use to feed the Young Michael K.
I have a lot less tear of somebody seeking money than somebody seeking power.
Right. Especially when they need to use government offices and tax policy to do it.
Some good ideas, but that's just the icing on the crazy Cake.
Racism, fascism, hatred of white men (unless they're named Rothchild), free college, free condoms, free abortions, free health care, free Marijuana (ideally).
So, who's paying for all the "free" stuff? Probably white men (unless they're named Rothchild).
Isn't it funny how all these millionaires and billionaires are "Progressive"?
Isnt' funny how almost all them are white and probably don't know any black people - but they constantly talk about racism and proclaim their love for people of color?
Isn't if funny how they always talk about the Koch brothers and Corporate greed, but when in power, never seem to do anything big business really dislikes. Isn't it funny how when they leave Government they give speeches on Wall Street for big $$$?
Racism, fascism, hatred of white men (unless they're named Rothchild), free college, free condoms, free abortions, free health care, free Marijuana (ideally).
Good one, Rick!
You could actually use this to define the Republican/conservative program, assuming you replace every instance of "free" with "expensive to prohibitively expensive." (Police-state enforced, optional).
I have a feeling that even most of the right-wingers here DON'T prefer 2008's economy and healthcare plans to 2016's, or Medicare.
Sometimes I'm convinced that y'all fear most is the prospect that saying things you actually believed would cause your faces to melt away like in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
When a top marginal tax cut is paid for with your healthcare dollar, Mark, don't forget to turn the other cheek, too.
"We need forgiveness.”
Forgiveness?? Progressives don't do forgiveness. To forgive is to give immunity to injustice. To forgive is to allow the oppressors and privileged to keep what they stole from others. Progressive justice demands that everything and everyone who went before be laid low from their positions of power.
"The left is not that dumb, though."
Ritmo is proving this to be a myth every day he wakes up and tunes in.
Ritmo is proving this to be a myth every day he wakes up and tunes in.
For example?
Just growing up privileged and elite and fed off of nursemaid tittay cheese doesn't make you smart, you know?
Give an example of something I said that was incorrect. Try to be honest, for once in your exceedingly miserable life.
I was reading the list, and it all seemed like good advice, until he got to the racism and fascism bit.
So, get rid of the old guard, but keep hammering away on all of their talking points.
In other words, this is a re-branding exercise. It's the same soap in the same box, just with new labels...
"... [Trump has] issued an executive order allowing the immigration service to deport not only anyone who has committed a crime, but anyone who has been charged with a crime, and even anyone who is “chargeable” with a crime!"
More lies. No, he has done no such thing. What he has done is issue an executive order that tells ICE to do their job and deport illegal aliens. The EO does not enable them to deport "anyone" - it does not affect resident aliens and U.S. citizens.
Ritmo wants examples of facts but his comments contain no facts. Just leftist opinions and not very intelligent ones at that.
And the facts contained in the Miserable Michael K's comments include.... what, exactly?
Just go cry for your nursemaid, Gramps.
What's next for Progressives in the age of trump?
1. That they shelve the practices of Progressives for the season and refresh themselves in the truest, more original meaning of Liberal: Broad-minded and open to consider all ideas.
For Starters: consider you are Dead Wrong about who and what Trump is about.
Perhaps actually listen to one of his speeches on the stump, they are all still out there on video, so much Heart — nothing like the estranged Nasty monster implanted in your heads by smooth cool @NPR NewsConditioners
The New You. A true Liberal can't help but love Trump.
3.
the democrat party is a seething pit of lies, corruption, money grubbing, spying,& lying.
We are taxed to death - not enough for the "gimme gimme gimme" left.
Goes to show, the GOP is worst party ever, except for the Dems.
We are taxed to death - not enough for the "gimme gimme gimme" left.
That's right, Dickin Bimbos Sauce. Your $40,000 salary can only stand a few tax dollars before the trailer becomes unaffordable. Good thing that Trump isn't giving any of those dollars back to you and making sure they all go "back" instead to billionaires like himself. But his 15% tax really bothers you, I'm sure. It's way too high. And by way too high I mean nowhere near the much greater percentages of tax incurred by everyone less wealthy than him who doesn't get to live off of carried interest.
Read the whole thing and it's the "same old, same old".
Toothless wrote: Just go cry for your nursemaid, Gramps.
Your jealousy of a man with real accomplishments and actual education is sooo obvious.
Pathetic. Too bad you just couldn't manage that minimum SAT score. Community college is better than nothing — not much better, but still better.
Whatever you say. Queasy Quaestor. I never knew crotchety, entitled and miserable was what I was supposed to aspire to in life. But I can see why you would want to suck up to him.
Any other losers I'm supposed to admire, or just Grampa Nursemaid?
It is going to be a tough 8 years for the progressives at this rate, and maybe 16.
So the Democrats have a plan - we're going to have the income of people on welfare and the medical care of the VA. The people who have been running Milwaukee since 1960 are going to get rid of the racism in Milwaukee. That's Plan A, the Big Nothing. Plan B and so on to Plan Z is the same thing as Plan A but said in other words.
But Trump voters, a new danger threatens the republic. The liberals used to stay in Madison and Dane County. You knew when you were entering the Red Zone. Now they plan to leave the land of Chardonnay and protests and come to your tailgate parties, barbecues and deer hunts. No matter how far away you live, no matter how hard you try to seem weird and uninteresting, xe are going to come there, right to where you are and talk at you. It's called Operation Deplorable. And God help you if you get the gender wrong when you talk to them or use a wrong pronoun or decorate your table the wrong way or celebrate Thanksgiving or say Merry Christmas or believe in "Free Speech" or - well, suffice it to say that there is nothing you can do right. But they'll be happy to talk and talk until your eyes cross and set you straight. In this way they plan win your votes. The election will set them straight on that and then they'll go back to staying in Madison. But before then, we face a long 14 months of Rocketmouth Maddies invading our personal space. Get those voices out of my ear!!!
This guy wants the old guard to move on and let the supposedly deep Democrat bench man the ramparts but offers no ideas other than those the old guard has espoused for years? How does that constitute progress and why does it require new blood?
I would opine that the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign is well and truly hosed with this guy at the helm, but think how much better it would be if Rothschild could be convinced to offer Ritmo a WDC spokesperson postion. The effective selling of Soviet era solutions, endless self flagellation and perpetually flowing free stuff would no doubt benefit from the type of spital-flecked insults that our boy so effectively employs to win the hearts and minds of the denizens of this blog.
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss..."
"That's right, Dickin Bimbos Sauce. Your $40,000 salary can..."
Party of FDR!!! We have all read accounts of his constant mockery of working-class Americans.
"Just growing up privileged and elite and fed off of nursemaid tittay cheese doesn't make you smart, you know? "
Don't tell PB&J!
Ritmo's latest blast almost makes his whole riff on us deplorables resentment of our betters look like projection....
Naaah!
Clueless.
2. The Old Guard Needs to Go
Should try term limits - except that is a Republican thing. For the Democrats, public office means wealth and power. Good luck getting the older generation to give that up voluntarily.
4. Be Authentic
Good luck there too. That would inevitably require admitting that the purpose of politics for at least the more influential Dem politicians is wealth and power, at the expense of the poor whom they exploit to that end.
5. Advocate for Big Reforms that Really Help People
Goody, more money and power by trading free stuff to the poor in trade for their votes.
- Universal Healthcare - "free" VA healthcare. Trade paying for it for long lines, rationing, and bad care.
- Living Wage - essentially setting the minimum wage well above the marginal utility of many workers, increasing unemployment and automation, while driving companies out of state.
- Guaranteed Income - necessary because you have just made a lot of people unemployed. Of course, someone has to pay for all the people staying home watching TV, playing video games, drinking, and doing drugs. And ignores other social problems this would likely cause, such as increased out-of-wedlock births, violence, etc,
- Payoff Student Debt - Reward bad decision making. There is a good level of reverse correlation between economic value of degrees and student debt. Which essentially means that this would reward people for getting art history, gender studies, and social justice degrees, while living beyond their means, partying a lot, etc.
- Bolster Public Schools - Nice sounding, but from a Dem, means increasing the power and income of the teachers. Maybe even reversing Gov. Walker's union busting. Have to lie here, because the truth is that Dems inevitably put the welfare of the teachers and administrators above that of the students. Otherwise, they would be Republicans, and support the educational reforms of Darth Walker.
- Green Jobs - Squandering money needed elsewhere to enrich the cronies of the party leaders, while virtue signaling.
- "democratize our democracy" - automatically register everyone to facilitate massive voter fraud. In short, set up a system where electing Democrats is made easier, thus facilitating the graft and corruption endemic in their politics.
6. Fight for Racial Justice
The problem is the demographics. Maybe WI can import a bunch of Somalis from MN. Or gang members from the south side of Chicago.
7. Debunk the Corporatist Ideology
Seems to have forgotten that the Fascists were historically socialists. And ignores that the group acting the most like Fascists of yore is Antifa.
9. Register and Motivate Progressive Voters
Wasn't registration supposed to be automatic already?
Everyone has a plan until Scott Walker punches them in the face.
Whoops supposed to have been:
7. Debunk the Corporatist Ideology
Not being a good little statist and socialist like the author, not quite sure what he is after here, except that he hates the Koch brothers and wants his own boondoggles. Inevitably much bigger ones, of course (see above).
8. Confront the Fascist Threat
Seems to have forgotten that the fascists were historically socialists. And ignores that the group acting the most like Fascists of yore is Antifa.
Progressivism is mental illness from the sounds of it....
8. Confront the Fascist Threat
He essentially defines fascism as white nationalism. Which really translates into white working class, which was p, for better than a century and a half, the backbone of the Democratic Party. He is, essentially suggesting that the party abandon its traditional base to the Republicans. Politically, I don't see this as a viable electoral strategy. Just not enough POC and LBGTxyz in WI to compensate for their loss. He is, in essence, willingly consigning the WI Dem Trump voters to the Republicans in perpetuity.
"Blogger tim in vermont said...
Ritmo's latest blast almost makes his whole riff on us deplorables resentment of our betters look like projection....
Naaah!"
Easy there buddy. That's the Crème de Menthe talking.
1. Mind your own business.
2. Keep your hands in your own pockets.
3. ?
Quaestor said...
Toothless wrote: Just go cry for your nursemaid, Gramps.
Your jealousy of a man with real accomplishments and actual education is sooo obvious.
I never read any "Toothless" - I guess he's the "Ritmo" that Michael K. is obsessed with? - but K. really is just a pompous old blowhard.
":Be authentic" --> Yes, Hillary Clinton was authentically horrid. Nonetheless, authenticity is over-rated. How about, umm, pragmatic?
"universal health care ... People need a living wage, and they soon will need a guaranteed minimum income" --> Is there a constituency for more free stuff? Well, yes, but eventually you run out of other people's money. Or, the Golden Goose waddles off before it can be gutted for its golden eggs (and where are you going to go for these after you've killed the Goose?).
Reducing actual costs (of higher ed., medicine, etc.) seems far more promising than making these "affordable" with ever-increasing subsidies.
"Wisconsin ranks at the bottom of several scales when it comes to racial inequality. This is not only embarrassing, it’s appalling. Racism that is just under the surface" --> There's a whole lot more interest in equality of opportunity than in forcing equality of outcomes (aka "reducing inequality"). Few would mourn the death of "disparate impact" law.
"We also need to recognize and respond to the dire threat that Donald Trump poses to our democracy". --> Most of us recognize that the unhinged reaction to Trump represents a far greater threat than Trump.
" Register and Motivate Progressive Voters" --> Even if they're not eligable to vote (early and often, etc.)? Motor Voter!!
"Talk to People Who Don’t Agree with Us" --> BUT no one wants to talk to you anymore. Not when the implicit threat is nasty verbal accusations ("racist," etc.) from your "good cop" enforcers, plus "I'll smash your face" backup from your bad cops.
Can you say "delusional"?
After 8 years of Obama weaponizing the Government, this fellow has the audacity to say:
Confront the Fascist Threat
We also need to recognize and respond to the dire threat that Donald Trump poses to our democracy. He is the closest thing we’ve ever had to a Fascist in the White House, and I use the “F” word advisedly. For two of the calling cards of the Fascist are bigotry and hyper-nationalism. Trump has displayed his racism for all to see – during the campaign, by going after Muslims and Mexicans, and with his outrageous comments after Charlottesville. And Trump boasts about being a “total nationalist,” and he plays on feelings of aggrieved national pride, which was a standard trope of Hitler and Mussolini. That’s what “Make America Great Again” is all about – fueling this feeling of diminished glory (while also taking a swipe at the black man who was in the White House before him). Trump has no respect for our democratic institutions: He calls the media “the enemy of the people,” he mocks the judiciary, and he’s issued an executive order allowing the immigration service to deport not only anyone who has committed a crime, but anyone who has been charged with a crime, and even anyone who is “chargeable” with a crime! I worry that if there’s another attack on the United States – and it doesn’t have to be anywhere near the scale of 9/11 – Trump could take our democracy down. I don’t have tremendous faith in our storied system of checks and balances. Chile had a democracy for 100 years, and it died in a night. It’s not for nothing that James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence, said recently on CNN that Trump is “downright scary” because Clapper understands, he said ominously, “the levers of power that are available to a President.”
While we, Wisconsin progressives, understandably want to rescue progressivism in our state, we also have to make sure that the whole project of democracy in America does not go down the tubes in one fell swoop.
The Toothless Revolutionary said...
Democrats just aren't diverse enough. That's the problem. They consist of simply two wings: corporatist SJW shills and truly liberal progressive FDR-style old school Democrats.
The Republicans have a broader coalition and cover more ground, demographically. They're actually four parties in one. Namely, the Republican'ts, the Republicunts, the Republicowards and the Republicrazies. A coalition of the impotent, the incompetent, the arrogant and the malevolent.
When they talk about a "big tent" they aren't kidding.
TTR shows everyone how to argue in good faith. Critical thinking +1 for "Republicowards." That was an especially good argument. The left obviously has a clear understanding of what their political opponents want and is willing to rationally discuss solutions.
I just for the life of me can't figure out why democrats are losing so badly in elections nationally.
The thing about progressivism is that they have to continually lie about their motives. They're losing because people-whoda thunk it-don't like being lied to.
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