Angry people have become the middle of the political spectrum ~ Geert Wilders (dob 9/6/1963) a Dutch nationalist politician and fan of DJT who has been criminally accused of inciting hatred and discrimination.
Progressive Radio host Thom Hartmann has stated his belief many times that "whichever party first reinvents itself successfully will begin winning elections the way the Democrats did in the 1932-1968 era" [1]. The "reinvention" he refers to is to be pro-worker by opposing sending our jobs overseas.
Unfortunately this past potus election has proven that Thom Hartmann was right. I did not disagree, but I did hope that it would be the Democrats who reinvented themselves. The Democratic potus candidate should have been Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders has proven that he is pro-worker by opposing job killing free trade agreements. Bernie Sanders votes against them.
Barack Obama, on the other hand, championed the job killing free trade agreement known as the TPP. This was after suggesting that he might renegotiate NAFTA during his first campaign. Hillary Clinton (viewed by many as a 3rd Obama term) was initially in favor of the TPP. I say that if Bernie had not run that she wouldn't have flipped. She would have run as the pro-TPP candidate.
Trump, an outsider, was the right candidate at the right time. He ran against the TPP, which White Rust Belt Blue-collar voters knew would cost them their jobs. Trump also promised he'd stop brown people (here) and yellow people (overseas) from stealing their jobs (he played the race card). I'm not saying everyone who voted Trump did so because they're racist, but a LOT of them did.
The Trump presidency was, btw, predicted by former president Bill Clinton. He predicted the ascendency of a Trump-like leader with his New Covenant speeches (a series of speeches WJC delivered "at his alma mater, Georgetown University, in late 1991 to outline his political philosophy at the start of his campaign for the presidency").
| WJC: ...we're offering a new radical approach to economics. Economics as if people were really important. If we offer these hard-working families no hope for the future, no solutions to their problems, no relief for their pain, then fear and insecurity will grow, and the politics of hate and division will spread. If we do not act to bring this country together in common cause to build a better future, David Duke and his kind will be able to divide and destroy our nation. (Excerpt from then-Governor Clinton's 11/20/1991 New Covenant speech). |
Donald Trump offered "hope for the future, solutions to their problems, and relief for their pain" in the form of his rejection of the TPP. Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law, which is why we got gwb [2]. And Obama and Hillary both spoke favorably of more job-killing free trade. Hillary reversed herself on the TPP, although she was pushed/forced to do so by Bernie Sanders.
Now, most of us know that Donald Trump is a con-man who just said what he needed to in order to get elected. But enough people were fooled. Previously middle class workers (White people in the flyover states, by and large) saw their jobs go overseas due to the Bill Clinton-signed NAFTA. And they feared that it was going to happen again. Obama (for some bizarre reason that baffles my mind) tried to sell the same snake oil [3].
He thought he could ram it though before his administration ended, I guess. Hillary Clinton reversed course because of Bernie Sanders. "I've got to be more like Bernie" she decided (because the voters were responding to Bernie's anti-TPP stance). But the damage was done. Nobody believed her. The White middle class who lost (or could lose) their good paying jobs because of job killing free trade didn't believe her (btw, I thought the bill would pass before the Obama administration came to an end, Obama would sign it into law, HRC would be elected, then she'd put the blame on Obama).
She wanted it, but wouldn't touch it (if she were elected and it had not passed) because it would damage her politically. This is why I blame Obama and I blame both Clintons for the Trump presidency. Trump hijacked the Republican Party and "reinvented" it. Thom Hartmann knew whichever party was first to come out against job killing free trade would win. Bill Clinton PREDICTED what would happen if he failed to offer these workers "relief for their pain". But he went ahead and signed NAFTA anyway.
According to Thom Hartmann, "Donald Trump lead a full-scale war against the Republican establishment and elites, particularly through his attack on both their military and their trade policies". Trump, as president, chucked the TPP. An easy campaign promise to fulfill. The military situation we're in is another story.
He strongly opposed continuing the futile fight in Afghanistan as a candidate. Now he sends more troops? Did that disillusion some of the #trumpdupes? I suspect some were disillusioned. Others will continue to believe that anything Trump does is great. Because he's White. According to the racist blogger Rusty Shackelford.
| Rusty Shackelford: Now, now WD... even you would have to admit DJT is so much stronger then the moolie. We are fine with the Pres changing his mind after having all the information presented to him... that's the sign of a strong leader... not a limp wristed dufuss. (8/21/2017 at 9:44pm). |
"David Duke and his kind will be able to divide and destroy our nation", Bill Clinton warned. Now it has happened. At the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville David Duke said "the event represented fulfilling the promises of President Trump". He was talking about White racists "taking our country back" after a Black guy got elected president twice.
Regarding Trump's hardcore base, Jamelle Bouie writes (in a 9/1/2017 Slate article) "it's become harder to deny that people support the president not just for being president, but for his core message of White resentment and grievance" (visit the WYD blog and you'll see what I mean).
Bill Clinton both predicted and helped bring this disaster about. His signing of NAFTA and Obama's championing of the TPP lead directly to Trump. Trump was the "white resentment and grievance" candidate. Of course the majority of us realized that Trump was a huge liar and saying whatever he needed to to get elected (except for the racism stuff. Trump IS a racist). This is why he lost the popular vote (the smart people voted for Hillary).
Trump did get rid of the TPP, however. But Bernie Sanders would have done that. Then go on to champion programs to help people harmed by decades of job-killing free trade agreements. Unlike Trump, who wants to kill such programs (the ACA, for example). Additionally Trump wants to hurt poor people by cutting Social Safety net programs drastically and push through enormous tax cuts for the benefit of the wealthy (he's a typical Republican in this regard).
Bernie Sanders should have been the Democratic potus candidate. I'm not saying I think he would have won, only that I KNOW he would have had a better shot. Hillary Clinton was the wrong candidate (even though I'd have liked to see a woman elected president, and YES, I did vote for her). But Bernie Sanders (with his record of opposition against job-killing free trade agreements) was the better candidate. He'd still of had to contend with the Russia meddling. And, instead of misogyny and Clinton-hate, he'd have faced antisemitism and bullshit about him being a Commie who was trying to buy votes with "free stuff".
Bernie Sanders would have won the votes of previously Democratic-voting Rust Belt Blue-collar workers (people who were with him in the primary, but switched to Trump when Bernie didn't secure the nomination). And that, I think, would have made the difference. There would have been no sabotage from James Comey either.
Footnotes
[1] "From 1932 to 1968, the Democratic Party was obviously the majority party. During that time period, the Democrats had won seven out of nine presidential elections, and their agenda gravely affected that undertaken by the Republican Eisenhower administration" (source: Wikipedia/Timeline of modern American conservatism). This period of time is know as the New Deal coalition. As per Wikipedia, "FDR forged a coalition that included the Democratic state party organizations, city machines, labor unions, blue collar workers, minorities (racial, ethnic, sexual and religious), farmers, white Southerners, people on relief, and intellectuals".
[2] "...it was the 1993 fight over the North American Free Trade Agreement that saw the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party stick the knife deep into the back of its longtime ally, organized labor". (Source: How the Democrats Lost Touch on Trade by Thomas Frank. Politico, September/October 2016).
[3] As per a 4/23/2015 CBS News article, "in 2008, then-Sen. Obama ran as a skeptic of free trade agreements and even vowed during the primary to renegotiate NAFTA"... according to the former president "I think that we had a stretch of a couple of decades where, in part because of globalization, you had manufacturing moving to other places in search of low wages, no environmental standards, no labor standards. So trade deals haven't always worked for us".
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