Resisting Trump

BC

Trump is President, the Republicans are in control of Congress. There is a vacant seat on SCOTUS. Long live the Constitution! What should progressives, liberals, leftists do now?

1. Confess before God and each other that we are not the Chosen Party; other parties can win.
2. Confess before God and each other that our views are not the word of god.
3. Humble ourselves and once again pay heed to working people.
4. Organize, organize, organize

The vast majority of Americans are working class, and the working class is in trouble. Uppermost on their minds is very basic stuff: a job, an income, a secure home, a community of like kind, decent schools, an acceptable cultural and economic future for their children--stuff that most people want.

Whether the local school has a separate toilet for the 1 transsexual the ACLU is helping, whether gays get married or not, whether upper-middle class and women break the higher glass ceilings, whether adult students in college are warned about trigger words, whether or not legal or illegal immigrants are "welcomed and celebrated", and so on are not their concerns.

Many in the working class voted for Trump because the liberals were speaking words which did not come close to addressing their concerns. Indeed, this "basket of deplorables" recognized the not-well-disguised hostility of many liberals and progressives towards them.

Wall Street and the academic elites isn't the natural home of Democratic liberal, progressivism. It might not even "Main Street" of the upper middle class. It's really the thousands and thousands of boring city and suburban blocks of working people's undistinguished housing slowly sinking in an economic swamp of diminished opportunity amid soaring upper class income.

IF progressives what to recover, recoup the losses which the current conservative regime promised and is delivering on, it's back to the states where Congressional Power comes from. The Republicans have been written off in the past. They recovered by organizing at the state level, capturing state legislatures small district by district, and getting control of census-based redistricting. Liberals, Progressives, and Democrats now have to do the same thing. This will take several election cycles -- the earliest this can be accomplished would be 2020 to 2022 (bearing in mind, the next census is in 2020).

Abandoning Wall Street, though, won't take that long. IF we are fast learners, we can win back working people by actually aligning our policies with working people's interests and concerns by 2018 and 2020.

Arkady

Indeed, this "basket of deplorables" recognized the not-well-disguised hostility of many liberals and progressives towards them. — Bitter Crank

Conservatives have for years been branding themselves as the "real Americans," exalting the virtue of "small town values" (whatever those might be) over "big city values," (or "New York values," as Ted Cruz put it, in what one might reasonably suspect was an anti-Semitic dog whistle). Mike Huckabee drew a distinction between "Bubbas" (i.e. proud Southerners and Midwesterners) and those in the "bubble" (i.e. the coastal elites).

So, why is only one side of the culture war allowed to have contempt for the other?

Saphsin

I joined the North Jersey DSA organization and attended meetings in others, and doing work in organizing.

BC

↪Arkady

Oh, I don't think there is any doubt that Republicans are every bit as good at contempt as democrats, maybe even more so.

There are strongly conservative Catholic legislature districts in Minnesota, for instance, that are solidly Republican because they address the intensely pro-family concerns of conservative Catholics far better than Democrats do. I would NOT suggest that progressives try to form up around this kind of conservative agenda. We should not, can not. Not because we are anti-family, but we just don't share most of the other planks in the conservative Catholic agenda.

Conservatives have natural constituencies too, and their core members aren't the obvious place to begin re-building progressive parties.

BC

↪Saphsin

Excellent! A sticky red star goes on your chart.

Mongrel

↪Bitter Crank

I think the crowd you mentioned would benefit from switching over to choosing presidents by the popular vote.

You can put this star in my chart:

Hamtatro

Trump will be elected a 2nd time, i don't see anyone that could be more convaincing than him since he is clearly just doing what he promised to do during the whole campaign, which is more than rare for an elected president, and this with the likes of the majority of the population, more the medias will dislike him more the people will think that its a real leader, I have fun watching all that shit, and will laugh during the next election, i hope that this crazy clinton bi*** will be back again to see her lose

BC

this crazy clinton bi*** — Hamtatro

So, why do you find Hillary Clinton so detestable?

Hamtatro

↪Bitter Crank

She clearly is a psychopath like most of the peole who work and worked for this government, you probably are a smart guy since you are on this forum, so i really don't understand how you can get fooled by his lies, she look fake, she is fake. Obama is as fake as her and all other politics too, they made war everywhere for their own interest and destructed your coutry as much as they could, look how the world is right now and who is responsible, ofc its not just them, its all politics of rich countries, but for sure clinton is one of the worst, she is directly or not involved in absolutely every recent war , and what about the social and economic side of his politic ( i mean her and his political party ) .

Wayfarer

Aha! A Trump Troll. Like flies to a.....

Never mind.

Wayfarer

Many in the working class voted for Trump because the liberals were speaking words which did not come close to addressing their concerns. — Bitter Crank

Here in Oz, there's a minor party that admires Trump, and stands on a platform basically comprising conservative politics PLUS avowed hatred of Islam - similar to his (one of their people got invited to the Inauguration but was too busy to attend, like a lot of folks, apparently.)

A lot of people are shocked that a party whose platform is seen as racist is doing so well, but my view is simple: this politician (an earnest, cunning and unintelligent redhead called Hanson) represents The Past - the good old days, when everyone owned a home, had a job, a dog, and a clothesline. Australia wasn't multicultural - well, except for the Western Suburbs of Sydney, where all the dagos (Italians and Greeks) lived. So, Vote for Pauline Hanson's One Nation, and go back to how things were! Return to the Past, where everything was safe, certain and secure! It's easy! All you have to do is believe!

People are scared of the future, they're scared of 'innovation', they're scared of Islamic terrorism, they're scared by the fact that everything around them is changing so quickly, their bed won't be in the same place when they go to lie down on it.

In the Old Stone Age, it took more than a hundred thousand years to slightly improve a stone ax. Now the amount of recorded knowledge is tripling every month (or something) and there are more people alive at once, than have ever lived. So those who promise 'the good old days' are on an easy winner. (Never mind that they too are going to be sucked into the vortex.)

Wosret

It's okay everyone, we have Trudeau, he'll save us.

BC

the good old days, when everyone owned a home, had a job, a dog, and a clothesline. — Wayfarer

Clotheslines... natural, ecological, inexpensive, organic, hygienic, convenient, energy efficient, laborious...

The Past - the good old days — Wayfarer

But, as William Faulkner said, ""The past is never dead. ... Actually, it's not even past." We think, "Oh, that was back in the 1950s, or the 1920s, or the 11th century. It's passed and past. It's gone, we don't live there, we don't go there to visit.

But, not true.

And as Otto Bettmann described the past -- compare today's auto exhaust to the 100,000 horses in 1900 New York that dropped 1.3 billion pounds of solid manure a year on the streets and dressed it with 88 million gallons of urine, while all the wagon and cart wheels turned it to a rich brown slurry. In the winter, of course, it froze, and in the spring... it thawed.

51K8GMZQ01L._SX326_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Wayfarer

↪Bitter Crank

You and I both know all that, but apparently there's a substantial number of folks that don't.

All I'm saying is, despite all the rationalisations, I'm sure a large part of the appeal of the Australian party I mentioned (One Nation, often parodied as One Notion), is basically nostalgia and fear of the future (including globalisation, muticulturalism, and the erosion of traditional values.) There was a strong element of that in Trump's campaign also, not that anyone can make any sense out of Trump, really.

tom

Wall Street and the academic elites isn't the natural home of Democratic liberal, progressivism. — Bitter Crank

What!

Have you heard of George Soros? The top donors to the Democrats at the election were:

University of California $1,945,782
Alphabet Inc $1,576,067
EMILY's List $1,362,696
JPMorgan Chase & Co $1,172,825
Citigroup Inc $1,052,604
Goldman Sachs $1,050,821
Microsoft Corp $1,043,660
DLA Piper $1,027,670
Morgan Stanley $1,014,906
Time Warner $974,069
Harvard University $951,049
US Government $850,539
Skadden, Arps et al $842,393
Stanford University $775,885
US Dept of State $769,921
Columbia University $749,070
New York University $714,374
Kirkland & Ellis $705,744
Apple Inc $700,682 $700,682
Comcast Corp $690,510 $680,510

Hedge Funds donated $123,000,000 to Clinton.
Hedge Funds donated $19,000 to Trump.

I'm sorry, but Wall St and the academic elites ARE the Democratic Liberal establishment!

http://observer.com/2016/02/why-wall-street-gives-hillary-clinton-millions-of-dollars/

Agustino

↪Wayfarer

Suck it up Wayfarer - it's not about people being scared at all, it's just that some forms of social organisation ain't working. When I want to control my country's immigration I'm not being scared at all - I'm being reasonable. Just as reasonable as I am when I refuse to engage in injecting drugs and the like - I'm not being scared at all in such circumstances.

You mask yourself as a social conservative, but the truth is you are a liberal and progressive through and through. You don't want to talk about social conservatism using the excuse they are "hot button topics" because you're not a social conservative at all - you're a liberal. At least have the shame and decency to admit that.

Hanover

The resistance to Trump, whether it comes from the media, the marches, the celebrities, or whoever, only strengthens support for Trump, both among his loyal following and those who were previously only slightly leaning in his favor. I really don't think the left appreciates how offensive they are to middle America in what might be the greatest display of poor sportsmanship by a losing team since the goalkeeper on my son's soccer team starting beating his defender in the back because he allowed a shot on goal. That was the best comparison I could come up with, but it is true. A bunch of women wearing pussy hats with the words "Nasty Woman" on their face doesn't convince Mildred from Peoria to vote against Trump, nor does it sway many Hispanics, Asians, or even African Americans (they weren't voting for Trump anyway). Other than forming a kinship among a small, educated, likely underemployed group of fairly privileged folks, all they did was publically express bitterness and offensiveness while ironically condemning public bitterness and offensiveness.

Yeah guys, you are making a difference, but it's not a good one. When the left loses even more seats in the mid-terms, are you going to protest some more in the hopes that you can shed yourself of every liberal in Congress other than a few districts in Massachusetts, New York, and California?

Agustino

↪Hanover

lol one of the few times I agree with what you say.

Cavacava

The Republicans have put the Democrats where they were back in 2008 and the Dems need to mimic the GOP in so far as they have the intelligence to do so, which I think is doubtful. The Dems inability to have a hearing on its choice of Supreme Courts Judge last year is symbolic of their impotence as a political party.

The Dems didn't lose the election, they won the popular vote by a margin wider than most historical presidential elections. The argument that they did not listen to their grass roots is mistaken. They lost in the states where the Electoral votes counted the most. They were out played, out strategized, by the Republican political machine.

The Dems need to elect a party leader that can unify their party not a political crony like Debbie W Shultz. Right now the Dems are trying to decide who will lead the party. The two main contenders are championed by different sides of the party, Senator Keith Ellison by Bernie and Labor Secretary Tom Perez by Hillary. The party's decision will be made in Atlanta in a couple of weeks, 2/23-2/25.

There isn't much of a difference in policy between these two contenders, but the party's decision, I think will help determine whether they have a shot at overturning Trump in 2020. Hillary's choice will keep the status quo, and it will continue to lose major elections, in my opinion. If Bernie's choice wins then I think the party will have at least a chance at avoiding cronyism and may have the possibility of developing a strong challenger to Trump.

I don't think the Dems ought to oppose Trump's choice for Supreme Court Justice on the basis of their own impotence as a party, that's ludicrous. Scalia was a conservative and Trump's nominee is a conservative. If the Dems want to oppose him, let them oppose him and justify it on the grounds that he is the wrong person for the job and not some sort of tit for tat inanity.

The Dems need to move past their failures, not wallow in them. The only way to deal with Trump is to keep him (personally) and his policies in court continually over the next 4 years. So far that does not seem to be a problem and it appears as thought millions upon millions of dollars are being funneled into legal challenges. The ACLU raised more than 24 million dollars over the first weekend of Trump's Presidency.

Metaphysician Undercover

The Dems didn't lose the election, they won the popular vote by a margin wider than most historical presidential elections. The argument that they did not listen to their grass roots is mistaken. They lost in the states where the Electoral votes counted the most. They were out played, out strategized, by the Republican political machine. — Cavacava

There's a deep irony here. Of all those millions of votes cast, there's only a few, "strategic" votes which make the difference between who wins and loses. Many people vote religiously for their party, believing every vote counts. I must vote, I must do my part to keep my democracy strong. These are not the strategic votes. The strategic votes are the people out there who believe that it doesn't really matter whether I vote or not, or who I vote for, I'm just one vote, and one vote really makes no difference. Isn't it ironic, that the people who truly believe that their vote really makes no difference to the outcome, are the ones who actually make a difference.

Agustino

↪Bitter Crank

BC's argument is like: you can take all your economic concerns, just give us our sexual concerns >:O

Hanover

The Dems didn't lose the election, they won the popular vote by a margin wider than most historical presidential elections. The argument that they did not listen to their grass roots is mistaken. They lost in the states where the Electoral votes counted the most. They were out played, out strategized, by the Republican political machine. — Cavacava

Right, and the Falcons didn't lose the championship because they cumulatively outscored their opponents throughout the playoffs. And we should probably go back behind every Congressional decision to be sure that the representative majorities were equivalent to the population majorities. And while we're at it, let's throw out every Prime Minister because they were appointed by a hodgepodge of representatives and they didn't even get a single popular vote.

Or, we could say, guess what, the Democrats lost the election, fair and square. I know, I know, they would have won if this were the case and that were the case, but it wasn't, so they didn't. If you really want to know how to lose any support from those who might be inclined to come over to your side, keep being a poor loser. How about getting up, dusting yourself off, admitting you were bested, and standing up to fight the next fight. That's what people do who weren't raised on participation trophies and have actually had to lose at some point in their lives prior to reaching voting age.

And, no, it was not the Republican machine that secured Trump anything. The Republican machine hated Trump, did everything it could to block Trump, and is now trying to figure out how to deal with Trump. What won the election was Trump in all his absurd blazing glory. It was his money, his celebrity, and his saying things like what I'm saying that won him the election. The liberals cannot seem to appreciate that when they have these life changing, emotionally charged moments where they march, make really clever speeches, and condemn whatever it is they condemn, the rest of the nation is rolling their eyes at them.

BC

Have you heard of George Soros? The top donors to the Democrats at the election were:

University of California $1,945,782 — tom

I'm surprised about your first item -- not that they supported a Democrat, but that they made a nearly 2 million dollar donation to anyone. I wouldn't think it would be in their charter to make political contributions to anyone.

The top 1% on Wall Street and wherever else they hang out financially support both political parties. Why is that? Because the two political parties are not highly dissimilar and the 1% has influence over whoever is in office.

The Democrats may regulate more than Republicans, but neither political party has the slightest interest in changing, challenging, or corralling the oligarchy.

BC

The Dems didn't lose the election, they won the popular vote by a margin wider than most historical presidential elections. — Cavacava

The electoral college has been in the Constitution since the getgo, and if you lose there, you lose the election, period. Whatever problems the electoral college solved, it creates the anomaly of popular vote winners who are not elected.

There are pieces of the Constitution which should be removed and parts that are missing, but the worst thing we could do (just guessing) is have a constitutional convention and rewrite it. Who knows what sort of horror show we would end up with.

BC

The Dems need to move past their failures, not wallow in them. — Cavacava

Absolutely. But... can the leadership at the national level do that? It is as important for the Democrats (or any other party) to be active and vital at the state level too -- that's critical for staying in power. Ultimately, the states are where the political talent comes from (or first, in legislature districts, then congressional districts).

The only way to deal with Trump is to keep him (personally) and his policies in court continually over the next 4 years. — Cavacava

Court or jail, which ever comes first.

Cavacava

↪Hanover

And, no, it was not the Republican machine that secured Trump anything. The Republican machine hated Trump, did everything it could to block Trump, and is now trying to figure out how to deal with Trump.

Don't agree with this at all. The Republican rank and file who comprise their political machine got behind Trump after the convention. The Republican Party gets out the vote, as far as I can figure out it has always been able to get out the vote because Republicans are more orderly, more top down than the Democrats.

I remember being in Rotary a long time ago listening to the Republicans talk about their meetings and how remarkably differential they were to their leaders. The Republican's ability to marshal their members is, to my mind, their key to winning.

But of course the topic is how to resist Trump, he is clearly the President. And, I think Dems need to change party leadership if they want to stand a chance of defeating him in 4 years.

Cavacava

↪Bitter Crank

They need to mimic what the Republicans did, which started with gerrymandering their way to optimal Congressional districts. The Dems need to legally challenge the lopsided nature of many of these districts.

It's going to be an uphill march since Republicans now dominate state government, with 32 legislatures and 33 governors.

But, the Dems need a leader who will bring them together and I think they may have a hard time finding one regardless of whom they choose in Atlanta. Either choice will divide the party.

BC

The Republican's ability to marshal their members is, to my mind, their key to winning. — Cavacava

This IS important. The earlier Daley Democratic organization in Chicago ["Vote early and vote often"] was very good at delivering votes. This is done at the bottom, precinct level. A lot of places have no precinct level organization capable of doing any such thing.

BC

They need to mimic what the Republicans did, which started with gerrymandering their way to optimal Congressional districts. The Dems need to legally challenge the lopsided nature of many of these districts. — Cavacava

Right, well that fixing district boundaries only happens every 10 years, so it's a long-term strategy--and one the Democrats have not paid enough attention to. You have to be IN POWER when the census reports are available for redistricting. Then you can do things like slice off pieces of your opponents electorate and put them with your own overwhelming majority. The Republicans can also challenge boundaries in courts, and sometimes the courts end up drawing the boundaries.

Wayfarer

You mask yourself as a social conservative, but the truth is you are a liberal and progressive through and through. You don't want to talk about social conservatism using the excuse they are "hot button topics" because you're not a social conservative at all - you're a liberal. At least have the shame and decency to admit that. — Agustino

I generally vote Labour, which is centre-left, but sometimes Liberal, which is centre-right. I believe in public education, public health, social equity, free trade, scientific progress and action on climate change. I don't believe in open borders, I oppose gun ownership, and I support traditional marriage. That last point marks me forever as a hard-right conservative, I'm told.

What won the election was Trump in all his absurd blazing glory. — Hanover

What won the election was a demagogue:

A demagogue /ˈdɛməɡɒɡ/ (from Greek δημαγωγός, a popular leader, a leader of a mob, from δῆμος, people, populace, the commons + ἀγωγός leading, leader) or rabble-rouser is a leader in a democracy who gains popularity by exploiting prejudice and ignorance among the common people, whipping up the passions of the crowd and shutting down reasoned deliberation. Demagogues have usually advocated immediate, violent action to address a national crisis while accusing moderate and thoughtful opponents of weakness or disloyalty. Demagogues overturn established customs of political conduct, or promise or threaten to do so. Most who were elected to high office changed their democracy into some form of managed democracy

(But of course, he was pushed over the line by folks who don't understand big words like 'demagogue', and who are distrustful of those who do.)

Find one thing in that encyclopedia definition which is not descriptive of Donald Trump. The attacks against media ('the media are all liars') and the judiciary ('so-called judges') are typical of the pattern. However, I think the indications are that the safeguards that the founders built into the constitution to protect the nation against demagogues will ultimately hold, albeit not before Trump has done enormous damage to the social fabric, the economy, and the environment.

Chany

I don't really see how the Democrats are going to pull out of this one. The problem is one of dissatisfaction. It doesn't matter how things go: Barack Obama and his policies (whether they be good or bad) are collectively seen as bad by those with tendencies towards the right and people in the center tend to be indifferent. The Democrats do not really have a platform, at least not on the big issues: security and economy. Well, they do, but they do not have an explanation of anything new or why their current ideas are better than the oppositions.

Economic Policy- What will they do? They need to argue for more demand-side economic policies. Without that, any policy the Dems put out is for nothing.

Security- What are the plans to deal with the drug trade? What the plans to deal with terrorism? This later one is especially important. There is no way to assess the effectiveness of any anti-terrorist policy because we would need to be able to look at the total rate of actual attacks versus attacks prevented. Short of the Muslim terrorist equivalent of Red Dawn, we are not going to know how effective Trump's terrorist policies are going to be. Obviously, that was hyperbole, but there would need to be enough terrorist attacks that greatly surpassed those under Obama in scope and number to even have an angle with this one.

Demographics- What group or demographic can the Dems appeal to, like Donald Trump appealed to the general working class?

Media- This is the big problem. The Dems need direct media coverage of specific hot-button topics on their platform. I do not recall any of that during the general election. I recall a few ads, but nothing that seriously combated the very direct and simple policies of Trump: secure borders, stricter immigration enforcement to combat terrorism, protectionist trade policies to support manufacturing. The Dems need very specific policies like this.

Resisting Trump

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