Thought for the Day

[broncofan]

. Given the present situation, either this experience will be unique and not repeated, or the Democrats will be having 'deep talks' with George Clooney, assuming Sean Penn is not interested.

After reading your post and Blackchubby38 I tried to see who is in the running. I found a wikipedia that has all the people being considered and their current poll numbers. The poll numbers probably mean nothing for people who have never campaigned, like Oprah for instance. So much can change as soon as people see what she's like in a new role. Biden and Sanders are right now 74 and 75 years old. They are both functioning just fine, but that is getting a big older since a two term presidency would bring them to their mid-80s. They have Booker in there but not Schiff, whose recent series of interviews I've heard are aimed at a potential senate run. If Democrats go the celebrity route, they have billionaire Mark Cuban and Oprah. I don't know. Interestingly generic democrat does very well against Donald Trump. I wonder if we can get him to run.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...election,_2020

[broncofan]

I think one lesson we've learned from Trump being in office is that actual politicians understand our political system better than businessmen and non-career politicians. For all the talk about inefficient Washington, it's not a business. Running for President seems to align with "entertainment", but I really hope we can just find a talented competent person who can campaign well rather than someone who can campaign well and does not have any experience or competence.

[Stavros]

Broncofan, thanks for the link -if I thought Sean Penn was a joke, I would never have considered Dwayne Johnson, not that I know much about him, I think in most of his films he throws people out of windows? Compared to Clint Eastwood, who knows how to talk to chairs.

You keep throwing out names unknown to me, eg Mark Cuban, but I think the key may be for the Democrats to go for someone who is both relatively young (as with Bill Clinton and Obama) but also someone who is not going to spend the first term acting out their revenge against President Cashpoint but offer an alternative agenda based on what the US will need between 2020-2024 and beyond.

If the Democrats are not careful, then like the Socialists in France and Labour in the UK, voters may wonder what it is that they represent and why they should vote for them -if Cashpoint turns out to be a major disappointment, failing to 'drain the swamp' or significantly change 'America' (other than enriching himself and his and other businesses through legalized theft as brazen as anything found in Central America or sub-Saharan Africa), people may give up on voting, which, together with the campaign to eliminate the Black vote across the southern States, the destruction of the environment and the denial of drinking water for citizens, would mean that the USA is, if not now, on the road to becoming a third world country where faith trumps reason and the rule of law, and the Constitution only makes sense when interpreted through the prism of the Holy Bible.

[broncofan]

Broncofan, thanks for the link -if I thought Sean Penn was a joke, I would never have considered Dwayne Johnson, not that I know much about him, I think in most of his films he throws people out of windows? Compared to Clint Eastwood, who knows how to talk to chairs.

You keep throwing out names unknown to me, eg Mark Cuban, but I think the key may be for the Democrats to go for someone who is both relatively young (as with Bill Clinton and Obama) but also someone who is not going to spend the first term acting out their revenge against President Cashpoint but offer an alternative agenda based on what the US will need between 2020-2024 and beyond.

Yeah I don't blame you for not knowing Mark Cuban or the other names. He's a businessman celebrity like Donald Trump and one I hope does not have political aspirations. I agree with what you say. As a party, we have to figure out the policies that are indispensable to us. Bernie did not support Ossoff who is a bit pro-business but has campaigned for someone who is pro-life. A lot of people would have the opposite priorities if they had to compromise.

But if I had to divide between core issues and those which we want but might have to wait to get, the core issues are civil liberties issues (gay rights, women's reproductive rights), a basic healthcare system preferably Obamacare, and recognition of the reality of climate change with the sorts of actions and commitments to treaties that help ameliorate it. Thrown in that mix we should probably eliminate anyone who wants to carry out regime change anywhere. Yes, tax reform and policies that promote greater egalitarianism are part of the agenda, but I think they're lower on the hierarchy since without basic services you're not in a position to promise more. I think that's just a political reality.

It's very difficult not to just be reactive. For instance, Jeff Sessions our attorney general has indicated he wants to reinstate the war on drugs. It's too easy for someone to look at that and say their policy prescription is "not that". Punishments for distributors and treatment for addicts seems to be the new paradigm and imprisoning people who are addicted to opioids for instance or crack cocaine seems to be counter-productive and even cruel. So much of what is wrong with Trump administration takes place at the operational level, with the people he's hired and the priorities they have.

The person we choose will as you say have to be relatively young, be likable, and have a set of core beliefs that enough people can get behind and still clearly distinguish his agenda from Trump. There is no variant of a Democrat who I've seen who would do anything close to what Trump has already done; both what you mention with the corruption but also just crazy actions and policies.

[broncofan]

Broncofan, thanks for the link -if I thought Sean Penn was a joke, I would never have considered Dwayne Johnson, not that I know much about him, I think in most of his films he throws people out of windows?

I think you're right. During the early 2000s, he was a WWE wrestler called The Rock. His tagline was "can you smell what the Rock is cooking". I'm not sure if hitting people with chairs is a big step up from talking to them.

[blackchubby38]

After reading your post and Blackchubby38 I tried to see who is in the running. I found a wikipedia that has all the people being considered and their current poll numbers. The poll numbers probably mean nothing for people who have never campaigned, like Oprah for instance. So much can change as soon as people see what she's like in a new role. Biden and Sanders are right now 74 and 75 years old. They are both functioning just fine, but that is getting a big older since a two term presidency would bring them to their mid-80s. They have Booker in there but not Schiff, whose recent series of interviews I've heard are aimed at a potential senate run. If Democrats go the celebrity route, they have billionaire Mark Cuban and Oprah. I don't know. Interestingly generic democrat does very well against Donald Trump. I wonder if we can get him to run.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...election,_2020

If he feels up to it, Biden should run in 2020 with Tim Ryan as his running mate. I think they would be able to bring back some of the voters in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

If Biden has no desire to run, then I think a Ryan and Cory Booker ticket could work. The only question becomes who is the running mate.

[blackchubby38]

Yeah I don't blame you for not knowing Mark Cuban or the other names. He's a businessman celebrity like Donald Trump and one I hope does not have political aspirations. I agree with what you say. As a party, we have to figure out the policies that are indispensable to us. Bernie did not support Ossoff who is a bit pro-business but has campaigned for someone who is pro-life. A lot of people would have the opposite priorities if they had to compromise.

But if I had to divide between core issues and those which we want but might have to wait to get, the core issues are civil liberties issues (gay rights, women's reproductive rights), a basic healthcare system preferably Obamacare, and recognition of the reality of climate change with the sorts of actions and commitments to treaties that help ameliorate it. Thrown in that mix we should probably eliminate anyone who wants to carry out regime change anywhere. Yes, tax reform and policies that promote greater egalitarianism are part of the agenda, but I think they're lower on the hierarchy since without basic services you're not in a position to promise more. I think that's just a political reality.

It's very difficult not to just be reactive. For instance, Jeff Sessions our attorney general has indicated he wants to reinstate the war on drugs. It's too easy for someone to look at that and say their policy prescription is "not that". Punishments for distributors and treatment for addicts seems to be the new paradigm and imprisoning people who are addicted to opioids for instance or crack cocaine seems to be counter-productive and even cruel. So much of what is wrong with Trump administration takes place at the operational level, with the people he's hired and the priorities they have.

Its going to be interesting to see if Jeff Sessions gets his wish about the reinstating the war on drugs. Because of the effect the opiate epidemic has had on people in the Rust Belt (many of whom voted for Trump), there has been an "awakening" when it comes to incarcerating addicts. All of sudden they don't want see their children and other members of their family being locked up for committing nonviolent felonies to support their habit. So if Sessions starts it up again, it may cost Trump some support in the 2020 election.

There is also the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party which is supposedly gaining some strength in Congress. So they may not want to continue to throw good money after bad fighting a losing war.

[broncofan]

If he feels up to it, Biden should run in 2020 with Tim Ryan as his running mate. I think they would be able to bring back some of the voters in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

If Biden has no desire to run, then I think a Ryan and Cory Booker ticket could work. The only question becomes who is the running mate.

Smart thinking. I saw Tim Ryan speak recently...about the opiate crisis. He was knowledgeable and did a good job. I agree with what you say below as well. If they let Sessions run wild with that, it will be politically toxic for them.

[Stavros]

But if I had to divide between core issues and those which we want but might have to wait to get, the core issues are civil liberties issues (gay rights, women's reproductive rights), a basic healthcare system preferably Obamacare, and recognition of the reality of climate change with the sorts of actions and commitments to treaties that help ameliorate it. Thrown in that mix we should probably eliminate anyone who wants to carry out regime change anywhere. Yes, tax reform and policies that promote greater egalitarianism are part of the agenda, but I think they're lower on the hierarchy since without basic services you're not in a position to promise more. I think that's just a political reality.

If what you say were to be the main focus of the Democrats in 2020 you will lose again. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but where she lost the Electoral College it was in areas dominated by the 'forgotten' 'White Working Class' where the victory was measured in relatively few states with 80,000 votes the deciding factor. A mean decline in wages has been the driver of resentment, it isn't even clear that globalization has been the cause, which is more likely to be the standard cost-cutting companies have engaged in since capitalism developed, but aided by the absence of union power, and the lack of support for incomes from successive governments who did not want to intervene in the business sector, part of the problem the Clinton administration had because it was so determined not to alienate Wall Street and the major investors wary of 'tax and spend' Democrats of the past (this is the argument also levelled at New Labour in the UK).

This means that what the Democrats once put at the top of their policy agenda -jobs and economic growth- has to return to the top of the list. We have debated before the dilemma of modernization and its impact on 'traditional' blue collar jobs, and the dilemma will not go away, but neither will this core group of voters.

The critique of the Democrats since 1968, not just the Clinton era, is that they have lost touch with the blue collar base that elected and re-elected FDR and focused on 'minorities', 'special interest' groups and the pubic sector workers most of whom rely on Federal funding for their jobs and thus look with concern on any Republican promising to cut the Federal wage bill. This doesn't mean that Democrats should focus only on the blue collar vote, if anything, they should be promoting diversity and inclusion as a more accurate representation of the USA as it is today, exposing the narrower interests of the Republicans, particularly those whose Christian fundamentalism may be popular in the south but carries little weight elsewhere. You have to wonder how Democrats can lose when the Republican party has become so partisan, but the reason lies within the Democrats and their failure to engage in spite of all the campaign rhetoric about representing 'all Americans' which is now standard fare and of no real value.

The Civil Rights movement that has been under sustained attack since the 1970s, was a benefit to all Americans, not just because it ended segregation in many forms and gave people the right to vote, but because the long term objective was to bring people at the margins into a productive relationship with the economy as well as civil society. But Democrats have allowed their opponents to hi-jack the achievements and present them as a victory for marginal groups at the expense of society as a whole. The attack on 'political correctness' thus tries to present the achievements of the 1960s as a a failure, citing welfare as one example, yet more and more women are now in the work-force earning money for themselves and their families, and are also better represented in many areas of public and commercial life (and indeed, the military), and the same is true of Black Americans, Hispanics, the LGBTQIAN/B and so on, but the irony is that with the attempts across the US to derail or undermine or even crush the achievements of Civil Rights, they have still not gone far enough.

But the Democrats ought to own this agenda and insist that it is better to bring previously marginal groups into the centre of the economy because everyone benefits from increased activity, and by definition that must include the 'traditional blue collar' worker. The idea that one has replaced the other is at the heart of Bannon's view that 'his America' of White Christians, the people who he believes created the USA, is wrong, but the message is not getting through.

The 2016 election was unusual because people voted against something, rather than for it, whereas in the past the candidate with a positive message was the one who scored over the critic looking back at past failures. I don't see how this current administration can deliver on jobs and economic growth when the claim that lower taxes will encourage growth is worn-out and void of hard evidence, and the tax cuts as announced so far are mostly designed to benefit the President and his friends, some of whom in the corporate world don't even pay the current rate of corporation tax anyway.

There are alternatives, but I think the key must be to re-recruit voters at the foundations of past Democrat success without ditching or sidelining the issues around minorities, civil liberties, or climate change that you recognise as important. The opposition has been given a gift in the form of the present administration, so far useless, dis-jointed, indifferent to real needs, corrupt and incredibly expensive. But shining a light on these failings is only part of the task, the other task is to offer a real alternative, and you need credible candidates with credible policies to achieve that, and that must mean moving on from 'yesterday's men' (and women).

[trish]

While we are 3 years away from the 2020 presidential election, the Democrats still haven't had a viable candidate they could nominate step forward yet. Between that and 67% of the country saying that the party is out of touch, they're in a heap of trouble. What makes it worse is that I get the feeling they don't think there is anything wrong. They're still clinging to the argument that Hillary won the popular vote. So their thinking is that it wasn't the message that was the problem, it was the messenger.

The Dems message was economic and social equality, modernization of the energy and other industries, infrastructure maintenance and development (including roads, bridges, dams, power grid, water purification and transport systems, improve on the affordable healthcare act, take action on global warming, automation etc. etc. etc. All these issues were hit upon. I doubt if you can think of any that weren’t discussed by Hillary and the other Dems over and over again during the campaign [although Bernie was sort of a one note charlie, he (fortunately) was the candidate]. The problem is not the message. It was a far more positive, goal oriented message than the paranoia and anti-science crap that Trump and the other GOP candidates were pushing. The problem was the channels through which the message was transmitted: the noise created by Trump, the Russians and the independent eastern european producers of fake news simply dominated the media. Who really gives a damn that Hillary used a personal server for her unclassified business, now that Trump is using his personal phone for everything and holding security meetings in the public restaurant at Mara Largo?

I’m not sure Americans even give a damn anymore about the message of any party. We’ve become tribal. We vote lifestyle. Just keep us entertained and we’ll vote for you.

I agree with Bronco that Cory Booker and Adam Schiff may be strong contenders. Also Elizabeth Warren, although she’s as old (at least in the same ballpark) as Hillary and Trump. I think the electorate’s going to be fed up with old folks by 2020. Still, I’d like to see the Dems run a woman.