Why The Democrats Should Use A Light Touch On Trump’s Policy Agenda
Why The Democratic Party Should Use A Light Touch On Trump’s Policy Agenda (or give them plenty of rope to hang themselves with)
Part of the game of politics is what comes after the voters decide. For those on the losing side, whether for a school bond campaign, or a statewide or federal election, the after party will involve frank, and often raw conversations. Much of the verbal intercourse within the angry bowels of PACs and parties, focuses on two questions. what went wrong, and what do we do do next?
Unfortunately, all too often, protectionism, hubris and lack of self-awareness blunt the sharp edges of open and honest discourse. Triteness prevails, and the answers that come out of these confabulations seem always to to have been inspired by the lyrics belted out by Dee Snider in the Twisted Sister track, “We’re not gonna take it.” While it is tempting to jump on board with the sentiment, I have to wonder if better advice can be be found in Pete Seeger’s treatment of Ecclesiastes 3?
A time to mourn, a time to dance.
For as long as I remember, the Democrats, when in the minority, have vowed to fight the majority party and to do whatever they can to stop the Republicans from advancing their agenda. Yes, the Republicans say the same things, the difference being that they have the backbone and ethical fluidity to do it, but I digress. My point is, what good comes from all this fighting?
These efforts by Democrats always seem to turn out as little more than a smoke screen. When the fog light cuts through the gloom, the media describes the scene as a scimitar wielding Donkey stopping an unarmed elephant from getting to church. The Donkey needs to learn when to step aside and let the Elephant pass, when to leave the elephant to its chores. When the light of day shines though the panes of the Clerestory, illuminating an Elephant with it’s trunk in the collection plate, the donkey should be across town, dancing.
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Make no mistake, the Pachyderm will still try to blame the Jenny. Despite their tough guy rhetoric, the right is exceptionally good at playing the victim. When they lose it is due to cheating, when they’re caught red trunked handed the Democrats shouldn’t have been looking. When they are investigated, it is political persecution. When Democrats exercise the few mechanisms available to the minority party, the filibuster for example, the Republicans call it “dirty tricks”. When Republicans use same tactics, or even make up new schemes, like how they thimblerigged Barack Obama out of the Scotus pick he was entitled to, well that is simple retaliation, dont’cha know?
And, as good as they at feigning victimhood they are far better at obfuscation and artful manipulation. Republicans muddle the facts so badly that nothing is clear (is that a collection plate or a Bible). With practiced ease, they paint a picture that shows what they want you to believe and with an eager assist from a complaint corporate mass media, sell it to a public steeped in mistrust.
Given a few minutes, most of those who saw the Elephant siphoning the parishioner’s tithe will be convinced he was just counting the money to see how much the Donkey had stolen. Media is so hectored that it regurgitates whatever the Elephant says, usually verbatim, and almost always without a moments consideration of journalistic integrity. Given one or at most two news cycles even those most skeptical will be asking that the Donkey have his pockets checked. Sadly, elected Democrats never seem to realize that this dance requires two people.
Can I have this Dance…
In the middle of the morning after the recent election I received a text message from my brother. I will call him ‘Stan’, because that actually is his name. For some context Stan and I used to be close but have had an on again off again strained relationship since the election of Barack Obama. I don’t want to use the R word but as much a I like language, I can’t come up with a word that better describes Stan’s outsized reaction to our first black president.
Stan, is what I call a “Nuevo Cristiano”, you might know the type, had his come to Jesus moment in middle age – afraid of gay people, believes women are to be subservient, all that. And yes, he thinks Trump walks on water. Everything that is bad in Stan’s world, including his own felony conviction, he sees as being the cause of George Soros, the Deep State, liberals, the New World Order, and of course, immigrants.
What followed was a string of texts over the course of the day. His messages were filled with the usual lies, talking points and contempt toward Democrats and immigrants and without saying it, me. Eventually came the message that was as frighteningly demonstrative of the white plight MAGA blame game as it was absurd. In the world according to Stan, the Democratic party’s loss was a mandate. No Stan, that’s not how this works. It is MAGA who has been handed a mandate. In fact your party has several mandates:
MAGA has a mandate to deport every single illegal alien, last estimate I saw from your side was 20 million, so let’s go with that;
MAGA has a mandate to also deport citizens if we show support for Palestine;
MAGA has a mandate to greatly increase production of oil so much so that we are energy independent;
MAGA has a mandate to implement 60 percent tariffs on Chinese goods, tariffs on those from other countries as well;
MAGA has a mandate to crush drug cartels by putting American troops on the ground in a foreign country;
MAGA has a mandate to end Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 24 hours;
MAGA has a mandate to end the DOE and leave special needs kids out in the cold.
And this is just a shortlist of the MAGA Mandates
Democrats ONLY responsibility, Stan, is to hold your party to these and the other promises they have made. And while Democrats need to enforce the MAGA Mandate, and hold them responsible for it. we bear no responsibility at all to help the Republicans. There is little to nothing Democrats can do to stop MAGA from tearing the country apart and selling it for scraps, and little to nothing is what the Democrats should do. Republicans have a big job ahead. Far be it from us to stop you.
… you just might find, you get what you need
A lot has been written, both before the election and after, not only about the direct effects and likely externalities of Trump’s agenda, but also the folly in believing that a) these things can be accomplished, and, b) that they will have the promised effect. For example, oil industry experts have cautioned that Trump may need to pump the brakes on his expectations in regard to his promise to “Drill Baby Drill” and his claim that this will lead to energy independence. These companies are not going to drill just because Trump tells them to. Oil prices have been on a downward trend which is expected to continue due to the supply glut accumulated during Joe Biden’s term.
Perhaps nothing has gotten as much press as the Immigration plank of Trumps platform. The preponderance of that press has focused in his plan for massive deportation and the benefits he promises will come as a result. It is not hard to see how this will lead to crops and other foods rotting in the fields – and at the factory, delays in construction projects, and worker shortages in prime sectors of the economy
What IS hard to see, is any path that leads to Trump fantasy being fully fleshed out, or there being anything but chaos, violence, and bloodlust in the execution of his cherished scheme . Nevertheless, it is vitally important that Democrats do not block whatever path is taken. Don’t file lawsuits or join those who do, no matter how egregiously you believe the law is being broken. An exception being to protect the civil rights of American citizens. To understand why I believe this, lets take a look at the largest chunk of Trump voters purely on the context of deportation. These fall into three groups
First, there are those people for whom inhumanity is the point. Ripping apart families and the beatings is an added bonus in the effort to rid the county of the undocumented. Stephen “Forehead” Miller, and Trump himself come to mind.
Next we have the Stans, who feel that whatever violence is wrought against “illegals” is justified. After all they are stealing our benefits and taking good paying jobs. In their view, collateral damage, even including civil rights violations against citizens is inconsequential when weighed against what they see as a more noble goal.
And last but not least, are the Trump voters who think that their flag bearer only meant the ones who cause trouble will be deported. Surely those who are married and have stable families, business owners, the nice Mexican lady down the street who plays organ at the church etc. will be left alone.
These voters are the true believers. It is a safe bet that vast majority of the people in these groups honestly think that deportation will bring about the some or all of benefits Trump promised, namely higher wages, lower housing costs and reduced crime. For these people, maybe the only way know for sure that a glowing red burner is hot, is to put their hand on it. Democrats owe these voters the chance to touch the scorching element.
Yes, Democrats should absolutely vituperate the plan vehemently, while at the same time, they should also express plainly, emphatically, and loudly, that they expect the deportations to be done humanely, that even one citizen having his or her rights violated is too many. But the Donkey must not dissuade the Elephant from his chosen rounds.
They subjugate the meek. But it’s the rhetoric of failure.
One of the greatest ironies is that no small number of Trump voters are among the people who will directly experience the adjunctive harm of Trump’s election. 37 percent of Latino voters and 32 percent of Muslims chose to return Trump to the White House and the bully pulpit. This despite Trump’s demonization of those two groups during his previous foray which brought an uptick in hate crimes and bias against Muslims and people of Latino descent. The El Paso Texas Walmart shooter, an avowed Trump loyalist, admitted he went gunning for Mexicans hoping to give them incentive to go home. His rampage killed 12 Americans citizens, one German, and 9 citizens of Mexico, who were in El Paso stimulating the economy.
Trump’s rhetoric has sharpened and it’s scope has broadened. His most loyal followers have responded. After the Former President claimed that Haitian immigrants in Springfield Ohio were eating the pets, the town experienced several days of bomb threats. Even after J.D. Vance admitted that the claim was made up, Trumpers insisted there was proof it was true. As evidence they offered a video of a women who had actually been arrested for eating a cat. Never mind that the woman was not in Springfield, nor was she Haitian, or even an immigrant. Facts do not matter in Trump world, only the word of the leader. Trump has since promised to deport those and other Haitian refugees, despite that they are not here illegally.
During my conversation with Stan, I reminded him that I have an immigrant daughter in law. As expected he fell back on the talking point that she will be fine since she came in legally and she is a citizen. Of course, Stan ignores that the Trump team is threatening to use denaturalization as he sees fit. Yes, it is a fact that the law that allow citizenship to be stripped from those who have been naturalized has been in place for more than a century, but it was designed primarily for cases of terrorism or war crimes and has historically rarely been used. The Trump team has plans not only to “supercharge” the process, referring vast numbers of people for scrutiny, but also to broaden the conditions under which citizenship can be revoked.
My Son’s wife has become a naturalized citizen, before that she had a green card. She comes from Europe, not South America. She is a hard worker who is well known and respected member of our small community. Of course, I hold out hope that her legal status will stop her from being deported, but none of that makes her immune from being shackled and detained. Though my daughter-in-law’s Eastern European accent is far less pronounced than when I first met her, I doubt the nationalists desperate to help Trump and his hard-liner Border czar Tom Homan make the quotas they promised will give one moments thought to her origin.
Just as it is impossible to ensure that no Dolphins or Whales are ever caught in fishing nets there is no doubt that mass deportation efforts will snag citizens, both naturalized and natural born. In regard to Trump and company’s coming immigration measures, the sole realm of the Democratic party should be in minimizing this egregious harm as much as possible by responding to these incidents with prompt, unequivocable and vocalized disdain, providing free legal assistance including bringing suit against the United States, and immediate monetary relief for emergent needs of those illegally detained, or otherwise affected. The Democratic party should not use proxies for this, rather make it the focus of the party and its leaders. Democrats need to be careful that efforts to rescue and provide relief are limited to citizens and that it does not seem to be an end around way to stop the deportation process.
You got to roll with the punches to get to what’s real.
When the removal of “illegals” doesn’t yield the wonders these voters were counting on, there is no chance they will blame Trump? Instead they will cast aspersion on Democrats, the media, space lasers, corporate regulations, the new world order, global elites, Dr Fauci, Fluoride, transgender people, even jock itch without ever turning a critical eye on their leader. Sadly they will also never admit that the policy itself was a bad idea. insisting instead that there just have not been enough people removed – the same way some claim that a flooded carburetor just needs more gas. This was the thinking among Hitler’s Nazi Party, as chronicled in the famous writing by Martin Niemoller, “First They Came For The Socialists…” The question is who will Republicans go after next?
Hypocrisy being a constant bedfellow of MAGA. it should also come as no surprise that, when the well greased deportation machine churns out higher food prices, construction delays, and lack of availability which will make the Covid-related supply problems look tame, the media and Maga rank and file will also put the blame squarely on Democrats. but for a different reason.
When the violence of families being ripped apart plays across social media and news channels they will hue and cry, asking why the Democratic Party did nothing to stop this. They will have conveniently forgotten that they adorned their pickup beds with the monochrome American flags, signifying that they will give no quarter to Democrats who stand in their way. That they are willing to kill at the behest of their leader. They will deny writing posts declaring Democrats to be inhuman, the enemy of the people, and threatening civil war.
The old adage, the the best defense is a good offence presumes that there is a valid first attack. In this case that was the election. The Democrats couldn’t quite rally for the win despite a demonstrably better economic plan and a platform promoting a far more positive view of America. There is lots of speculation as to why Republicans prevailed. Whatever the reason, the Democratic Party lost, and it needs to act like it. Stop claiming the Republicans have no mandate because the vote margin was tight. Instead remind Republicans that they have a mandate, one that you disagree with, but intend them to carry out. Republicans asked for this dance, and America accepted. If history is any indicator the best thing Democrats can do is get off the floor and let everyone see what a terrible dance partner the Republican party is.
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