An offseason non-football post
From an author who apparently wishes to remain anonymous.
Don’t mess this up for America
Democrats have one job in 2020: Beating Donald Trump. Nothing else matters. If progressives manage to mess this up by insisting on hard-left positions and ideological purity, they will own Trump’s second term. There is a time and a place for everything. When the ship is sinking and you find yourself in a lifeboat, you don’t argue about where you want to go, you head for the nearest land. Further travel arrangements can wait until you’re back in civilization.
The 2020 election is not a normal election. It isn’t going to be about progressives and conservatives. It’s going to be about those who believe America’s democratic institutions are more important than the politics of the day and those who are willing to wreck them for short-term political gain. We who choose to stand with our democratic institutions need to keep our eye on the prize. We can’t afford the self-indulgence of standing on principle and going down in glorious defeat.
Or rather, we must all stand on one overriding principle, that we must install someone with respect for the rule of law and reverence for our constitutional system of government as the next president of the United States. That will require compromise from all of us. The bridge is long and narrow, but cross it we must.
Don’t kid yourself . America LOVES Donald Trump . The far left is playing right into his hands . No way America votes for any of those DEM idiots. I love the way he set them up having to defend the “Squad” They are whats dangerous for America , not Donald Trump.
According to the latest Wall Street Journal polls, Trump has about 43% versus any of the leading Democratic candidates (aka “DEM idiots” as you objectively put it). Trump’s approval rating tends to be mid 30’s and I don’t recall it ever being above the low 40’s. Yet you claim “America LOVES Donald Trump”.
Let’s at least try to keep it real here. I think a fair statement would be that about one third of America LOVES Trump. Another 10% would vote for him even though they don’t love him, or find him childish, disgusting as a person, or generally incompetent, but at least he has an R after his name.
A very clear majority do not LOVE him, have never done so, and never will do so.
Why the need to perpetuate this obvious falsehood?
You are sheltered by living in that left wing haven called California . The faux outrage doesn’t exist elsewhere . We aren’t offended . We don’t call everything racist . We support LEGAL immigration . We support CLOSED borders with legal points of entry . We support Trump. I really like his chances in 2020. The left ( the real racists) are gonna make this too easy.
Whatever man. I guess you speak for America because you say so.
And despite your stupid strawman arguments, pretty much everyone supports LEGAL immigration and CLOSED borders with legal points of entry. It just comes down to defining what is legal and having appropriate and humane implementation methods. It’s just so much easier to attack strawmen than real men though, isn’t it?
Its not a straw man argument at all . Its the message of the left .. You’re left in case you didn’t know it . And get some new material . Trumps message about securing the border is the same as Clinton and Obama . Where was the outrage then ? Its all false .. Alligator tears if you will . Kids in cages my ass
I see. Let’s look at your claims.
“America LOVES Trump.” – False. His approval rating is well below 50%. I guess for you the majority of Americans should not be counted as Americans.
“Only California feels this way.” – False. The majority of population centers across the country feel the same way. But even if your statement were true, are you saying Californians aren’t Americans?
“We support LEGAL immigration. We support CLOSED borders with legal points of entry.” – Irrelevant. So does everyone else.
“The left are the real racists.” – Projection, a la 1984. Let’s just agree that racism is wrong and agree to call it out whenever we see it, and not tolerate it. No you won’t agree to that principle because it would require acknowledging a flaw in your cult leader, something that you very clearly refuse to do.
“Trump’s message about securing the border is the same as Clinton and Obama. Where was the outrage then?” – False. If you think the message and the implementation are the same you are delusional. More importantly, your point is irrelevant because two wrongs don’t make a right.
Instead of whiny puling like “Obama did it too, so there!” instead we can agree on principles. Like: (1) All people should be treated humanely. (2) People who are not felons should not be kept in cages. (3) Children should not be separated from their parents unless they are in some dire danger otherwise.
Is it really possible that we cannot be in agreement on these basic principles?
Once we agree on those basics then we can turn toward best policy to deal with refugees and immigrants. I’ve shared thoughts with you on that in the past and you did not disagree, but it seems that something happens when you allow yourself to rot and fester in your right wing echo chamber. All reason goes out the window and you just become an endless mindless drone of reactionary talking points, probably half of which originate from foreign enemies.
No, White America LOVES Donald Trump
The stock market boom is unsustainable. I have info from a guy who is awesome with charts. He sees Nov-Dec this year for a HUGE pullback, he did not use the word crash…but he eluded to it. It is all the Donald has, and if this does happen, no chance in 2020 for him.
Um Mike : The blacks love him to and so do the Hispanics . Trump is more black than Obama
Do you even try to verify your statements before proclaiming them? I did a Google on “trump approval demographics”, and this is from the first hit, a Gallup poll in March:
President Trump Job Approval by Demographic Subgroups
White 51%
Nonwhite 18%
But don’t let those pesky facts get in the way of that impenetrable echo chamber narrative.
Using google will only retrieve Liberal stats . #Fakenews. The entire liberal narrative is falling apart Copa . You still have time to join the winning side .
I have to believe you’re just trolling me. Nobody could be this far gone into the Twilight Zone.
Still believe this to be accurate now?
Wow. You and your “guy” were really wrong……dramatically wrong…….180 degrees wrong.
I think the country is far more divided than Trumpanistas believe.
I agree the country is divided . Donald Trump did not cause it though .
I would agree. Causing it, and taking advantage of it / encouraging it / perpetuating / failing to fight it, are two different things.
If I look at the comment section of just about any politics-related site, it looks to me like a good 20% of comments are obvious fake/troll comments. This is clear not just from content but even often from the auto-gen names that are used. They are extremely effective at creating division, and this has been going on for many years. Whether it is perpetuated by extremists in our own country or by foreign adversaries like Russia, China, or Iran, we should still all be alarmed by it and we should all be in favor of clamping it down. It’s not good for democracy no matter which “side” you are on.
No, he didn’t. His ascendancy is the result of it though and he perpetuates that divide, making certain that it inches wider on a continuous basis.
Schumer 38 years in office
Pelosi 32 years in office
Maxine Waters 28 years in office
Joe Biden – 44 years
Yet they blame all of Americas problems on Donald Trump who hasnt even been in office 3 years ?
Come on people – get real
Once again attacking a strawman. You do this a lot. Who is “they”?
I don’t blame Trump for “all of Americas problems”. I blame him for what he has done and what he continues to do, nothing more, nothing less.
And why are you cherry picking a few Democrats and not bothering with Republicans. Oh, because those are the planted talking points you want to echo. Lazy.
The first two I checked:
Mitch McConnell – 48 years
Lyndsay Graham – 28 years
And for the record I blame these Congressional assholes far more than I blame Trump, because Trump is just doing Trump stuff which we all knew he would do. It’s spineless, cowardly, ethically barren assholes like McConnell and Graham who enable and encourage what Trump does and refuse to to anything to stop him.
“They ” are the folks I listed . No bigger scum than Pelosi and Schumer & Waters … well maybe the “sqaud”
Trump will be remembered for ending the Clintons and unparalleled economic explosion . That’s enough for me . All the negative stuff is just hatin … plain and simple
Oh a find a new argument . That Straw man shit is way off base
Okay, I accept that “they” meant the people listed.
As for your prediction of how Trump will be remembered, we’ll just have to wait and see what history’s verdict will be. I suspect it will be rather different than what you think, but neither of us will be around by then to claim vindication.
Your proclamation that Trump will be remembered for “unparalleled economic explosion”, that’s like predicting a hall of fame career for a UDFA running back in his first preseason game because he tripped on his cleats and fell on top of his quarterback’s fumbled ball.
I love you Copa . I really do . We could break bread together but will NEVER agree on this . I’m okay with that
peace out my fellow Steeler lover
Can’t we just all agree that neither a conservative nor a liberal should ever use the present participle of “pule” ever again?
Amen Earl!!!!
Question : What message of the Dems truly represents what YOU want? So far all I see is that you hate Trump . You cant be real excited about the Candidates . Anybody but Trump is not an answer or a solution
I would vote for virtually any candidate of any party over Trump. That is my overriding priority because I believe he is that dangerous, incompetent, and offensive. I’d take four more years of George Bush. I’d take eight years of Mitt Romney. God help me, I’d even rather have Ted Cruz. Call it “hate” if you want. To me it’s not about hate. It’s a recogniztion of just how dangerous he is to our security, our economy, and the planet in general. Frankly it has nothing to do with politics.
Regarding the Dems, any one of them would be fine, whether I agree with their positions or not, because as with most politicians they will operate within Constitutional structure rather than attempt to operate as autocrats. Most of their campaign positions will not see the light of day. Campaign “promises” ought to be called what they really are, which are idealized visions most of which will not happen at least not in a single term.
Aside from the overriding need to eliminate Trump, the following issues are important to me. I put Trump elimination above these only because none of these will be addressed as long as he is in power and allowed to strut and titter by his sycophant enablers in Congress and elsewhere.
1. Serious global action needs to be taken on the environment based on best availble science, and the US needs to lead that effort to ensure that we don’t shoulder the burden alone.
2. Action must be taken on the healthcare problem, either shoring up ACA or moving to something different. Right now the only efforts in play are to make things worse.
3. Someone needs to get serious about containing the national debt. No candidate from either party seems to remember that this is a problem.
4. I’d like to see some genuine rational thinking applied to immigration policy reform. That does not mean building more walls and cages.
5. I’d like to see grownups work at rebuilding our tattered international alliances, re-establish neglected diplomacy and deteriorating intelligence networks. I’d like to see us remember the difference between allies and adversaries, and setting policy accordingly.
6. I’d like to see a major, sustained effort at cracking down on foreign meddling in our elections instead of smirking and looking the other way.
7. I’d like to see reform to remove unfettered corporate money flowing into our political system before we become overwhelmed by oligarchs like a banana republic.
8. We must have an end to the absurd notion that the POTUS is above the law. I don’t care who they are or what party, there must be checks and balances. We have all largely looked the other way when various president have done bad things (Nixon, Bush, Clinton come to mind) but now we’ve got a guy with no principles and no shame, a conman who is in it for his ego and his bottom line and for nothing else. This is putting us at great danger, and we have to prevent it from happening again, no matter D or R.
I’d like to believe that everyone would find agreement on the above, as none of these things are inherently “liberal”. They are things that are important to solve for the health and security of every citizen of the US, and in some cases, everyone on Earth, and to secure a future for our grandchildren.
Sadly, rather than serious, intelligent debate about legitimate alternatives, what we are going to get is a lot of slinging of scare-words like “socialist” and “open border”, etc., that are more about sending dog whistles to the base than solving big problems.
BTW, left extremists are just as nutty as right extremists, though they strike me as not as existentially dangerous. More like gnats than killer bees.
I don’t understand this at all, Copa …. you honestly believe that free college, open borders to all and free health care to any/all illegal immigrants is safer, more secure and economically sound than the current configuration? I appreciate your efforts Ben, but I believe most are well past this bridge you speak of and each party is willing to die on their hill — regardless of the ridiculous freebees that are offered or lack of presidential speech in a tweet
“you honestly believe that free college, open borders to all and free health care to any/all illegal immigrants is safer, more secure and economically sound than the current configuration”
I’m quite certain that I never addressed any of these things, either for or against. In fact I have stated repeatedly that nobody is in favor of “open borders to all”, and I’m mystified why this talking point keeps coming up from people on the right. Immigration reform and open borders are not the same thing. Let me be as clear as I can be: I am NOT in favor of open borders and I don’t know anyone who is.
Regarding free college, I don’t have a position on that as I have not studied the issue in any depth. That would require a serious analysis of cost/benefit. Obviously the cost would be significant. Would that be outweighed by the benefit of building a broader, deeper workforce for competing against China and India in the decades to come? Would the economy have a net benefit as those young workers would have more discretionary income to spend and save rather than go toward debt servicing and often bankruptcy? Would this produce more teachers, more engineers, more investors, etc., and have a positive upward spiral for the country? Or would it just produce more self-entitled bums? I don’t know the answer, so I decline to pontificate on it, but it’s worth investigation.
Regarding free health care to illegal immigrants, I’m not in favor of it. In fact I am not in favor of free health care to anyone, especially our elected representatives. “Free” has never been an issue for me.
I have no idea how you determined from my 2nd and 4th bullet point that I favored “free health care” to anyone, much less illegal immigrants. I stated that we need serious work on both health care (insurance) policy and immigration policy. The desired outcome of that serious work should be better, more cost effective health care for more people, fewer people using emergency services for primary care, and a reduction of illegal immigration (though not necessarily in immigration per se). It seems obvious to me that these are all things worth working hard to achieve.
What we have instead is a lot of empty sloganeering, fear mongering, extremist dog whistles, etc., and not a lot of pragmatic solutions. We are being gamed by moneyed and foreign interests to act like ideologues, yelling and screaming at each other rather than calmly looking at all sides of these complex issues and gravitating to pragmatic compromise solutions. It’s pathetic.
Go watch Joe Rogan on YouTube interview Bernie Sanders . He outlines calmly how he plans to pay for all this free stuff. He wants to take apart the super wealthy . His plan is for Wall Street to pay and pay dearly. His plan is for Amazon to pay and pay dearly
To be clear Copa, I wasn’t responding to any specific bullet, but just general statement you wrote indicating dangers to security and the economy …. and the promises being made by the Green New Deal and the other free everything being offered by Sanders seems a bit dangerous to me
TPBB: “To be clear Copa, I wasn’t responding to any specific bullet, but just general statement you wrote indicating dangers to security and the economy …. and the promises being made by the Green New Deal and the other free everything being offered by Sanders seems a bit dangerous to me”
Not necessarily disagreeing about the promises you mention. What is odd, though, is I never mentioned Sanders or the Green New Deal, so why are you assuming I am in favor of either? The only thing I’ve said about Sanders is he would be far better than Trump (as would anyone) because he would not be an autocrat and would work within Constitutional structure. I’m not worried about over the top campaign promises because very little of it would stand a chance at implementation, and that’s a fact. (For example, Medicare for All will never happen in the near term. I could see it being extended to 55 year olds who pay a premium for it, and that would be a good thing as it would have the effect of reducing insurance premiums for everyone younger than that. It seems like a genuine win-win-win to me.)
So I didn’t discuss the things that you mentioned. What I did is I listed a bunch of principles that I think are important, none of which ought to be objectively controversial as principles. Any controversy should be based on implementation.
For example, improving health care access and reducing health care cost should not be controversial as a goal. I cannot comprehend why 100% of the population would not be in favor of both of those things, other than I guess insurance and pharma lobbyists who stand to gain by keeping the status quo. The only controversy should be in the best way to go about achieving it. Obama tried to approach it as a statesman, by using a Republican-designed model, but of course as soon as he put that forward it got labeled as Obamacare and was vilified by the very party that invented it. Make no mistake, ACA is a Republican-designed model and it is not a model that is at all liked by leftists. Yet Republicans have worked really hard for the past decade trying everything possible to kill it while putting forth absolutely nothing as an alternative, and the result is increasing attention being given to leftist alternatives. You could cut the irony with a scalpel.
I’ll tell you another irony. I have been using another Republican model for my insurance, called a “high deductible health plan” linked to an “HSA account”. This is a plan that would be loathed by leftists, yet I find it actually works very well. Instead of paying a huge premium for a more typical plan that has decent coverage, I pay a very small premium for a plan that covers practically nothing except catastrophic situations. The money I would have spent in premiums instead goes into my HSA bank account on a pre-tax basis just like a traditional IRA. The less frequently I go to the doctor, the more money remains in that HSA account to grow and be available for use as retirement income. I find that we end up keeping more than have of those funds, which otherwise would be in the pockets of an insurance company. This is excellent for people who have the means and discipline to fund the HSA account.
So yeah, that was a Republican idea and it actually works well, so I give credit where it’s due. But if they succeed in killing ACA the result is I won’t have insurance at all, and watching Trump cluck and titter with glee at the idea of killing ACA really is a sickening thing to see, and it’s even more sickening knowing that my Republican friends seem to be perfectly okay with that, even taking pleasure in the pain being applied to strawman enemies, not thinking about how this would hurt copanut and other real people. WTF has happened to this country that we can take such pleasure in destroying others?
Bernie wants to tax every stock trade to the tune of 2.4 trillion a year for “free college” and forgiving existing debt . His point is k-12 is free and is no longer adequate in todays world.
is there a way to remove abenn’s political post from my front page???
I can only assume you’re referring to the HEART plan that was introduced in 1993, which was largely opposed by many republicans, which has similarities to the Obamacare in place today, but also has its differences — and it was introduced by some dude from Rhode Island – I don’t recall his name
And if Sanders’ plans or promises or whatever they are will be expected to never hit the floor or be passed, then else can we expect he won’t get done. I’m sorry I ever responded to begin with …. now a big deal is being made over Ellen being seen with George W and she’s taking a lot of hat for it — oh the humanity! WTF is wrong with people?!
Mitt Romney has the backbone of a chocolate eclair. It is easy to standup after the shooting has stopped. If he truly had any principles other than political calculations, he would have given his speech a week before the vote and attempted to convince other senators of his supposed position.
I am not impressed.
We finally agree!