Saturday, October 19, 2019

Trump or Warren?

NYT Trump or Warren   Laurie shared this excellent piece by David Brooks.  It will be interesting to see Trump can still win if a lot of Law and Order Republicans put our values ahead of the party line.

 I'll steal it for your convenience...

"This is a memo for the politically homeless. It’s a memo to those of us who could never support Donald Trump but think the Bernie-Squad-Warren Democratic Party is sprinting too far left. It’s a memo built around the following question: If the general election campaign turns out to be Trump vs. Warren, what the heck are we supposed to do?

The first thing we could do, of course, is pray for a miracle. Maybe the Democrats will nominate one of the five B’s or the K: Biden, Buttigieg, Booker, Bennet, Bullock or Klobuchar.

These candidates are pluralists, not purists. They make many voters who disagree with them feel heard and respected. They practice the craft of politics, building majority coalitions to get things done.

If the party nominated one of those six, you really could see the Democrats gather progressives and moderates into an enduring majority coalition as the Republicans recede into old, white, rural obsolescence. You could see movement on a range of issues where large majorities are already stacked on one side: guns, climate change, reducing income inequality, expanding health coverage.

But right now, Elizabeth Warren has the momentum, and so those of us who feel politically homeless may face a stark choice.

For many, supporting Warren is too high a price to pay, even for ousting Trump. “There is no universe where I will ever vote for Donald Trump, and there is no universe where I could ever vote for Elizabeth Warren,” Jennifer Horn, a former chairwoman of the New Hampshire G.O.P., told The Washington Examiner. And you can see why so many people have that reaction.

First, there are Warren’s policies. On trade, she’s a protectionist. Her 10-year, $34 trillion health care plan isn’t paid for. Her student debt cancellation plan is a handout to the upper middle class. Her campaign seems to not acknowledge the inevitable trade-off between economic growth and high spending, high taxes and high regulation.

Second, she’s one of the few Democrats who could actually lose. As Yascha Mounk notes in The Atlantic, Democrats won in 2018 because they won back a lot of nonpartisan suburban office park workers who found moderates they could vote for. When you remind independents of Democratic support for abolishing private health insurance and decriminalizing unauthorized border crossing — two key Warren policies — they become six percentage points less likely to vote for the Democrats. Trump will tell voters: You may despise me, but she’ll destroy the economy.

Third, a Warren presidency would be deeply polarizing and probably unsuccessful. Warren’s policy ideas would make any progressive-moderate coalition impossible. She’d try to govern with her 40 percent partisan base, just as Trump has, which is no way to pass big legislation.

Fourth, there is a wave of insular intolerance coursing through parts of the American left. If given executive power, some progressives may use it to cancel any culture or faith other than their own.

And yet, if it comes to Trump vs. Warren in a general election, the only plausible choice is to support Warren. Over the past month Donald Trump has given us fresh reminders of the unique and exceptional ways he corrupts American life. You’re either part of removing that corruption or you are not. When your nation’s political system is in danger, staying home and not voting is not a responsible option.

Politics is downstream from morality and culture. Warren represents a policy wrong turn, in my view, but policies can be argued about and reversed. Trump represents a much more important and fundamental threat — to the norms, values, standards and soul of this country. "

Last week, Trump all but greenlighted the ethnic cleansing of Kurds without an ounce of remorse. He normalizes dishonesty and valorizes cruelty. His letter to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reminds us yet again that we have a president whose professional competence is at kindergarten level. Once a nation has lost its heart, mind and soul, it is very hard to get these things back.

Furthermore, Trump is an unprecedented threat to democratic institutions. Over the past few years, I’ve thought the progressive fears of incipient American fascism were vastly overblown. But, especially over the past month, Trump has worked overtime to validate those fears and to raise the horrifying specter of what he’ll be like if he is given a second term and is vindicated, unhinged and unwell.

In their book “How Democracies Die,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue that authoritarians undermine democracy in several ways. They reject the democratic rules of the game, the unwritten norms we rely upon to make the political system work. They deny the legitimacy of their political opponents, using extreme language to deny them standing as co-citizens. They tolerate or even encourage violence, threatening to take legal action against critics in rival parties.

Trump has been guilty of all three sins, and given a second term he will feel free to stomp where up until now he has merely trod.

This election is about whether we can hold together as a functioning nation, across our economic, racial, geographic and ideological divides. In such circumstances, a bad option is better than a suicidal one."

27 comments:

  1. It's just like Weimar Germany. "Hitler is a really bad guy, I know, but I just can't stomach the alternatives."

    --Hiram

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  2. That is kind of feel about Warren. 😁

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  3. Elizabeth is a decent person. She is somebody whose picture you could put up on the wall of an elementary school classroom without shame. I think that counts for something.

    --Hiram

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  4. Remember our site motto.

    The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

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  5. It should be an easy choice, even for a conservative, as Warren won't be able to enact any of her plans.

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  6. When the DEMs pick someone, then I’ll give it more thought.

    Maybe they will come to their senses and back someone more moderate.

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  7. It is to laugh. All Democrats in the current field, regardless of appearances, live in a fantasy world where every good thing flows from THEM commanding it from on high. It isn't that they lie as much as they are simply living in some fantasy of their own making, where wishing makes it so. And if you don't like what Trump is doing, then take up his efforts in Congress and actually solve the problem, instead of just endless obstruction and persecution.

    Remember, at least 30 Democrat Congressman and 6 of these Democrat "hopefuls" will have to vote on Trump Impeachment. Remember how that worked FOR Clinton?

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  8. The House will impeach. The question is if there are enough republicans in the senate who will put law and order before party / politics?

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  9. If Obama had use tax dollars to support his campaign and his personal lawyers efforts to dig up dirt on opponents you would have been seeking impeachment.

    But it is your guy... Apparently it does matter...😮

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  10. "All Democrats in the current field, regardless of appearances, live in a fantasy world where every good thing flows from THEM commanding it from on high."

    Of the People. By the People. For the People.

    Moose

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  11. "And if you don't like what Trump is doing, then take up his efforts in Congress and actually solve the problem, instead of just endless obstruction and persecution."

    The Senate Majority leader gleefully calls himself the grime reaper, refusing to even debate any measure he unilaterally decides he doesn't like, withholds confirmation hearings on Garland's Supreme Court nomination, and openly shares with his supporters that he'd ignore his own justification for doing so if it happens again when a Republican is president and you try to say claim Democrats obstruct and persecute?

    Wow.

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  12. *grim reaper. Whoops.

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  13. By the way, I like the idea of McConnell as the "Grime Reaper"... :-)

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  14. Who the Democrats nominate is to a certain extent not the point. This election is a referendum on Donald Trump. How can you tell? Because in every poll where they've tested Democrats against Trump, Trump polls the same no matter who they put against him.

    Last week's Fox News poll has Trump at 40% nationally against all three of Biden, Warren, and Sanders. The most recent Quinnipiac poll has Trump between 40-42% against those three. The Minnesota Poll had him between 38-40% against the top three plus Klobuchar. A poll in Florida today had him at 42% or 43% against the top 3 plus Harris and Mayor Pete.

    This election is about four more years of Donald Trump or not.

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  15. But how do we square this with his incredibly consistent approval numbers?

    ~42 to 44% for a long time... I mean until that drops, DEMs are going to have an uphill battle unless key states rebel.

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  16. I think it's entirely consistent. People have largely decided if they are in or out on Trump at this point.

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  17. But even the disapprove just stays at ~52%.

    You are correct though that it is higher than initial disapproval numbers of 48%.

    I assume all the folks like me who thought he would "grow" into the position have had their dreams squashed by the petulant child named Trump. :-)

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  18. More of us were smart enough to see through the con man.

    Moose

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  19. A shift of just a couple of points gives you a whole new electoral college map, though.

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  20. Moose,
    I am not sure I would call him a con man...
    He has probably delivered on more of his promises than many Presidents.
    The challenge is that he is so petulant, abrasive, attacking, self serving and untrustworthy that it keeps him from accomplishing even more.

    Sean,
    Agreed. It will be interesting if the Senate does not toss him out of office.

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  21. Which promises are those?

    Moose

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  22. So, he promised to dismantle our standing in the world and destroy our environment, among other horrific things. Good on him for keeping them, I guess. The intelligent among us aren't so easily fooled into thinking those are good things, however.

    Moose

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  23. Beauty is apparently in the eye of the beholder....

    And those beholders see a politicians who tries to follow through with the promises he made to them.

    Many of us realize that:
    - ignoring China's questionable business practices for decades was a really bad idea.
    - allowing millions of illegals and asylum seekers to displace American workers was a bad idea.
    - burdensome regulations, taxes, etc that make it easy for foreign firms to under cut US businesses was a bad idea
    - letting the US fund and be the "world police" was not good

    Trump definitely has his flaws, but he also has gored some very unhealthy sacred cows.

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  24. "he also has gored some very unhealthy sacred cows"

    Problem is, now we've just got piles of dead cows lying around because he hasn't actually delivered any solutions on these issues.

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  25. Which dead cows are you concerned about?

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