Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, is a smart man. And
he's noticed something:
Like it or not, a significant number of Americans are actually happy these days. They are making money. They feel safe, and they agree with with the president’s protectionist trade policies, his call for more American jobs, even his immigration stance.
The jobs growth reports, the North Korea summit and the steady economy are beating out the Stormy Daniels scandal and the Robert Mueller investigation in Middle America, hands down.
So you are not going to win back the House by making it all about him.
You, in this instance, would be the Democrats. There's more:
Rather than stoking the base by attacking Trump, Democrats need to come up with a platform that addresses the average voters’ hopes and concerns. Not just the needs of underdogs or whatever cause happens to be the media flavor of the week.
Democrats need to look like the adults, not like another pack of screaming kids on the playground.
And they need to start now.
It's advice the modern Democratic Party cannot and will not take.
19 comments:
Lately, there seems to be a realization from the more moderate left that their focus on President Trump with all their previously useful vilifications of their opponent like racist, homophobe, and misogynist are ineffective, but seem at a loss to actually come up with real ideas that will resound with the average voter to counter what has turned out to be a pretty moderate and effective set of national policies.
I have to agree, it seems unlikely the party will make the transition from a strategy they have spent years building.
What I find amusing is the notion that, not only must Democrats come up with an "adult" (and not in the Stormy Daniels sense) policy, but that they must convince people it is not just another in a long string of lies for the purpose of clinging to power.
Dems might also consider how valuable it could be if a certain former presidential candidate would just fade away.
But to paraphrase, "Little Hillary, Hillary won't go home. But you can't push Hillary around, Hillary won't go."
Dave "Iowahawk" Burge when linking to a NYT article about how libs need to tone it down a bit.
You have a great chance to beat Trump!
"What's the catch?"
You have to temporarily stop being smug, obnoxious a**holes.
"Hard pass."
it's been 15 months into the Trump administration and I'm still waiting for the Hitler stuff to happen...
it's been 15 months into the Trump administration and I'm still waiting for the Hitler stuff to happen...
You gotta admit that relocating the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is the ultimate rope-a-dope. :-D
You gotta admit that relocating the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is the ultimate rope-a-dope.
And the Palestinians are falling (and dying) for it.
It really drives home the fact that you don't have to think to be a Democrat, just /feel/ that you are right. About everything. Always.
My take about the Democrats is that the room is going to feel very warm for them when someone starts finding out how an LA based lawyer is finding tons of dirt on a NY based lawyer, and who's really calling the shots. Avenatti is clever, but I think that in this case, he's too clever by half.
And the Palestinians are falling (and dying) for it.
this is what a resistance looks like.
i have much respect for Arabs of all stripes, and have never met a Palestinian I didnt like (i lived in SoCal's 'Little Gaza' for 10 yrs)... gotta hand it to them on this, they wont give up easy. (and face it, they were royally screwed by the UN in the first place.)
it's a sad situation, without any fair answers anymore.
as per Willie Brown:
as a staunch Republican back then, I spent a lot of energy opposing him. He foiled the GOP at every turn, and was shamelessly blatant about it...
in hindsight, the state was better run back then. the GOP was always just a election shy of taking over, and both sides were kept honest in an atmosphere that moderated the extremes of either party.
Willie Brown, at his core, was a born politician with incredible skill at his game. He wasnt really much of an idealogue.
the FBI came calling during his tenure, looking for evidence/proof of illegal payoffs and bribes in the CA Statehouse. After attempting to bait legislators (from both sides, mind you) the FBI left empty handed...
It came out later, that it was Willie Brown who suspected that shananigans were going on, and invited the FBI in.
I give the man credit. He wanted to keep his house clean (and it was HIS house, without question).
They have been royally screwed by the UN ever since. The leadership keeps them in the camps with the false hope they will return, using them as political pawns. Yes, they got screwed out of their homes, but the other Arab states refuse to accept them. They were offered their own state a couple of times over the years but leadership survives by stoking hate and refusing anything useful. Lots of sympathy for the people, none at all for their hateful leadership. Sorta like Democrats.
The Palestinians are in a box because their leadership put them there. I feel bad for the individual people, but Abbas and the rest of the gang can all screw themselves. And the UN and neighboring counties (especially looking at you, Jordan and Egypt) really have been no help at all.
my good friend Marwan, from Jordan, told me once, when i questioned a few things... 'If you oppose the power forces, they shoot you.' This is why most Palestinians, who really do want to live their lives without malice, are forced to live as they do. They are Palestinian, they dont want to be Egyptian or Jordanian, no more than Sconies want to be Iowans... its complicated to the American mind.
to leave, as many have done to build lives elsewhere, is to abandon your culture, your people, and your tribe... even your faith.
USA is a popular magnet for those who can get here because they can be as American as they want to be (and, yes, they want to be), without feeling the requirement to abandon where they came from.
all this terrorism and shit in the USA... still not ONE Palestinian is tied to any of it... they are too busy running their businesses and treating patients (like one of the Docs who saved my life in 2008).
I feel really bad for those who lost their ancestral homes, but my gosh that was 70 years ago! The people who suffered that are almost all dead, and if the Palestinian leadership was worth it, they would get their state and start doing something with it.
beyond losing their political autonomy over their 'ancestral home', they have lost personal property. Marwan, my friend, is the rightful owner of several acres of land in the Golan Heights, willed to him by an grandfather. When Israel took it over, they vacated all rights to land not held by jews.
this would never fly in the USA, yet we excuse these things when Israel does them...
you see the double standard?
Zionism is racism.
by its nature, it denies rights to those who were born to the wrong mother.
When Israel took it over, they vacated all rights to land not held by jews.
this would never fly in the USA, yet we excuse these things when Israel does them...
you see the double standard?
Zionism is racism.
by its nature, it denies rights to those who were born to the wrong mother.
I'd be willing to wager your home is on the ancestral land of some Native American tribe, probably Serrano or Cahuilla. There were Objibwe and Sioux and other tribes we might not know about who once would have had claim of the land where my house sits. Are you and I racist because of that? Should a member of one of those tribes have the right to return and kick you off your land, or kick me off mine? There is one difference between you and I and the Jews of Israel -- at one point in the past, Jews had the rights to that land, too, but through countless wars and occupations they were driven from it. We can talk about all the legalities we want, but conquest is always part of the story. It simply won't do to pretend what Israel does is somehow worse than what every other identifiable group of human beings has done over time.
What Israel did is simply the most notable and recent (not counting the Serbs, or Tibet) mostly because the remaining Arab states did not accept these refugees when they arrived and because their leaders have KEPT them as refugees for 70 years. Plenty of blame to go around, but as you say, at what point do we let everybody get on with their lives. Maybe it IS like the Democrats, still fighting the last election battle when they could be doing something useful and productive. I don't think it is rank and file Democrats insisting on this; it is the leaders who foment all this anger to keep themselves in power.
Conquest is still the name of the game, though it may take different forms. The UN carved out a pace for Israel in the "traditional" region, displacing Palestinians. The Arabs sought to displace the Israelis by war in the 60s and 70s - and lost more territory. The Palestinians are the skirmishers in an ongoing war that few want to call a war, and they are useful fodder. The leadership that sent its citizens into the guns this week were as cold and calculating as any general. The reconquest of Israel is still page one of the playbook as long as they refuse Israel's right to exist (while Israel goes back and forth on whether they'll acknowledge the Palestinians rights, though talk and action don't often line up).
70 years, though, is nothing historically - barely a blink in time. The core issues appear immutable. The status quo stays in place because it serves the purposes of many leaders on all sides (and there's more than two sides here). One thing Trump has done, for good or ill, is shake the board. We've had 3 or 4 (or more) Administrations willing to play the simultaneous appease and support game. It has not resulted in any progress (however either side might describe progress). Trump has said, by his actions, that's enough carrot, here is some stick. Who knows if it will help?
In North Korea, apparently, the North realized that they love their children as much as those in the South do, and stepped away from the posturing, no doubt with more than a little pressure from China. I don't see Iran putting similar pressure on Hamas any time soon, but there are signs on other fronts that the region is much more concerned about Iran than the Great Satan, and is reforging some alliances. Perhaps Trump's moves are merely to strengthen Israel's hand prior to giving something back in ongoing negotiations.
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