The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
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    Dear Republicans: You Did This. You Fix It.

    By Doctor Cleveland on Mon, 03/14/2016 - 11:31pm | Politics

    Dear Republicans: I know that many of you are upset by Donald Trump's rise. I know that many of you are horrified. But let's be frank. This is your party. You did this. I won't walk through the details. But the thing speaks for itself: the Republican Party planted the seeds for this, cultivated those seeds through campaign season after campaign season, and now they have borne strange fruit.

    You did this. You have to fix it.

    I've heard some talk from various pundits about what Democrats or liberals should do to stop Trump. Some pundits talk about how we should vote in the Republican primary to shore up this or that anti-Trump. Some people have already begun muttering about how the Democratic nominee will need to use restraint against Trump in the general, about not stooping to his level, all of which is simply an attempt to impose rules to limit how the Democratic nominee campaigns. To all of that I say: no.

    The Republicans did this, and the Republicans need to fix it. If you cannot keep Trump from becoming your nominee, we will take things into our own hands by beating him in the general. And don't you dare tell us how to campaign. We will beat Trump by any means required, because the health of our Republic demands it. You don't get to build the monster, lose to the monster, and then tell us all the ways we're not allowed to fight the monster. You beat him yourself, or you let us do it and don't complain about how.

    If you can't stop Trump in the primaries, you need to stop giving us advice. If Trump gets to the general election, it's your turn to listen to us. You need to do your duty to America and vote for Hillary Clinton.

    You don't want to vote for Hillary Clinton, or for Bernie Sanders? I get it; I understand that you're Republicans. In your shoes, I wouldn't want to vote for your party's nominee. But I'm not in your shoes, because my party isn't about to nominate a dangerous and shamefully unqualified demagogue to the highest office in the land. We're deciding between a competent pragmatist and a seasoned idealist. You're about to nominate a race-baiting realtor with florid psychiatric symptoms. Our party doesn't do that. Yours does. There is a price to pay for that.

    And don't tell me that Hillary Clinton is just as bad as Donald Trump. You know that is a lie. And lies like that are how your party got so far adrift in the first place. It's time to stop lying to yourselves and to face the real world. There's no place left to hide.

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    Comments

    Doc, Trump is a feature, not a bug. The Republicans complaining that Trump doesn't represent the Republican party are basically elitists who are not listening to the party's members. Ross Douthat argued in the Times that Republican leadership should step up and deny Trump the nomination even if he goes into the convention with the most delegates. He calls it a moral obligation. I sincerely hope they try and that Trump's supporters destroy the leadership over it.

    What is a political party but the collective will of its members.  If the Republican leadership doesn't like what its members do, the Republican leadership should... leave the party and form their own. If rank and file Republicans want to nominate Trump to represent them in the general election, they should. Those Republicans who are opposed can either whine from the sidelines and hope that a landslide loss will teach Trump supporters to behave in the future (likely) or they should gather their cajones​, leave the party and start a new one (they won't, it's too difficult).

    Yeah, you're right, they're a mess.  Proud time to be a Democrat, whether Hillshill or Bernbot.


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 10:32am

    Trump is a feature, not a bug

    That should be the headline of your next Rolling Stone piece


    by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 2:50pm

    Kind of clichéd though. 

    How about "Trump is a vomiting bulimic; not a gastrointestinal flu."

    ...or

    "Trump is the stench that overwhelms after you eagerly pulled his finger."

    ...just getting started here.


    by CVille Dem on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 3:15pm

    Doc - I agree with you 100% that Hillary Clinton is a far better option than the fascist Trump, today's Torquemada Ted Cruz, and even the seemingly more palatable Kasich.  But we on the left must acknowledge that policies championed by Democrats, not just Republicans, helped Trump's ascent.  Thomas Frank nails it in the March 7 Guardian.

    Left parties the world over were founded to advance the fortunes of working people. But our left party in America – one of our two monopoly parties – chose long ago to turn its back on these people’s concerns, making itself instead into the tribune of the enlightened professional class, a “creative class” that makes innovative things like derivative securities and smartphone apps. The working people that the party used to care about, Democrats figured, had nowhere else to go, in the famous Clinton-era expression. The party just didn’t need to listen to them any longer.

    ---------

    Yet still we cannot bring ourselves to look the thing in the eyes. We cannot admit that we liberals bear some of the blame for its emergence, for the frustration of the working-class millions, for their blighted cities and their downward spiraling lives. So much easier to scold them for their twisted racist souls, to close our eyes to the obvious reality of which Trumpism is just a crude and ugly expression: that neoliberalism has well and truly failed.


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 2:56pm

    That one party---having nothing to offer a modern society and therefore losing badly to progressive causes, chose to adopt a Southern Strategy, downgrade the very notion of effective government and turn people against one another in every possible social context---that that party chose a strategy of obstruction cannot be transformed, in the sense of cause and effect, into a failure of the more successful party by those members who haven't achieved all their aims within the party. To wit: to say that Democrats are responsible for the shit storm in the Republican party is, imo, nonsense.


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 3:24pm

    Does the party that came to power championing poor and working people in the 1930s bear any responsibility if its two most recent Presidents sign off on or even champion "free trade" deals that impoverish the working-class? 

    Does the party that came to power championing poor and working people in the 1930s bear any responsibility if its two most recent Presidents indicated that they will approve cuts to social security payments on which seniors are now more and more reliant?

    Does the party that came to power championing poor and working people in the 1930s bear any responsibility if its President in the 1990s (a) approved further media deregulation that led to consolidation of ownership among a very small group of TV and radio corporations and (b) decided not even to enforce the fairness doctrine thereby paving the way for hateful, racist, misogynist demagogues, including Rush Limbaugh, who stoked the fires of white working-class rage?

    Does the party that came to power championing poor and working people in the 1930s bear any responsibility if its President in the 1990s pushed hard and successfully for more prisons, longer sentences, and cuts to welfare payments?

    Obviously I could on and on OM. But I guess my question to you is what would the Democratic party have had to do for you to agree that it bears at least a modicum of responsibility for the working-class anger that is fueling Trump?


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 4:57pm

    You really have no grasp of reality. You are just as deluded, hateful and blind as the tea party.  I hope to hell you don't get what you want: a Bernie nomination, because if you do we are totally screwed.


    by CVille Dem on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 5:37pm

    Brilliant. Cogent. Persuasive.


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 5:59pm

    Why is your progressive show now only available on the internet, while Rush is followed by tens of millions? And his bust sits in the Missouri State capitol? 

    What did he give the working class?

    He gave his listeners a target, Democrats and liberals as traitors and the enemy, while his Party relentlessly attacked every Democrat who ran for President, and not stopping if they were elected.


    by NCD on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 6:53pm

    I agree to a big extent that Limbaugh's success is due to his serving up fat targets to angry listeners.  That doesn't mean Clinton should have deregulated the industry and accepted the repeal of the fairness doctrine.  I have tried on my show to train blame for America's woes on those whom I believe are most responsible - corporatists, militarists, and theocrats.  But progressives aren't as interested, it seems, in being consistently angry at people no matter how blameworthy they may be.  I also try to rally people to try to solve our problems by voting for the most progressive viable candidate in every election.  Talk radio ratings are declining across the board and liberal talk radio especially has not been a success.  Finally, maybe I'm just not that talented. 


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 7:55pm

    Hal, the Democrats didn't do nothing, they did something, albeit not up to your expectations. As a countermove, Republicans set in motion the societal discontent and obstruction which laid the groundwork for a demagogue like Trump. Ergo, progress, not lack of progress, spawned Trump. Do you see the pattern?


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 7:36pm

    I think Clinton by and large aided the neo-liberal cause and I have set out the reasons I believe that.  Obama's record is better than Clinton's thanks to the stimulus and the Affordable Care Act which were true accomplishments.  But he also has done some harmful things as well - signing off on several "free" trade deals, putting social security on the table, etc.


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 7:58pm

    "...chose long ago to turn its back on these people’s concerns, making itself instead into the tribune of the enlightened professional class, a “creative class” that makes innovative things like derivative securities and smartphone apps. The working people that the party used to care about, Democrats figured, had nowhere else to go, in the famous Clinton-era expression."

    This is an interesting point, Hal.  I don't think we've really figured out where the interests of what I'll problematically call the upper middle class lie. Does somebody making good money, but not a killing, in finance, advertising, law, medicine or media make common cause with a machinist or with their better paid bosses?

    One thing about the upper middle class is that they watch the news and they speak up.  When Obama suggested, for example, ending preferential tax treatment for the 529 college savings plan, people freaked out and Obama backed down.  Obama's point was that the preferential tax treatment doesn't so much for poor people and really creates benefits for people making six figures.  But, said the people making six figures, "Why is it so bad that we benefit from something?  We pay a lot in taxes and college is so expensive that we need the help to save for it!"  Do our upper middle class taxpayers kind of have a point there? If Democrats won't represent the interests of smartphone app makers, where will those people go? They could easily become cosmopolitan Republicans, after all.


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 3:25pm

    You've created a false dichotomy Michael between the app designers and the American working class. It will not harm upper middle class designers to insist manufacturers build in the United States.


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 4:44pm

    Fair enough. And it won't hurt working class Americans if app designers can save for colllege on a tax advantaged basis.  So, how and why did Thomas Franks issue emerge?  Just what is the point of divergence?


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 4:46pm

    We've been through this so many times Michael.  C'mon.  The issues are writ so large: Trade, incarceration, banking deregulation, top marginal tax rates, media deregulation, unions, Middle East wars, are a few.  The Democratic party - especially its leaders - since 1992 has been on the wrong side of these issues or hasn't fought nearly hard enough on the right side. Your focus on college affordability and 529 plans strikes me as oddly parochial since both private and state colleges were much more affordable for nearly all Americans 50 years ago when the Democratic party was the party of working people.


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 5:05pm

    But the Democratic party's actions on none of these things... "Trade, incarceration, banking deregulation, top marginal tax rates, media deregulation, unions, Middle East wars," really benefited app developers, did they?  I guess I'm trying to figure out exactly how the upper middle class has actually been catered to, the way Frank is arguing?  Doesn't seem like they've gotten much.


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 5:26pm

    Those issues probably had little or no impact on app developers.  Some in the professional class who service the rich and powerful made out spectacularly and themselves became members of the ruling class.  A friend's father who was a partner at a top corporate law firm told a mutual friend that it was obscene how much money he made in the 80s and 90s and of course his top marginal federal income tax rate during this period ranged from 28-40% compared to the 70% he would have had to pay before Reagan took office.

    Other issues that do matter to the professional class were addressed.  I think we are all extremely gratified that the more progressive Supreme Court justices, along with Sandra Day O'Connor, didn't repeal Roe v. Wade.  We do now have gay marriage.  These are important victories but even progressive members of the working-class are probably more concerned with a living wage, affordable housing, education, and healthcare.

    But in the end, I pretty much agree with you.  Pretty much everybody in the 99% is worse off because Democratic party leaders adopted neo-liberal economics.


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 6:25pm

    Oh, yeah, not sure we're disagreeing here at all.  But this class of voters we're talking about, they do tend to be cosmopolitan in their views and so they are Democrats and important Democrats at that.  They have been on the right side of civil rights issues.  But there's a danger and it's this...

    They tend to feel successful but not successful enough. They make most of their money as wages, so they pay a high tax rate compared to say, Mitt Romney, but the government and society tends to view them as well off. This is a group of people who will be very easy to alienate because they feel like they pay the country's bills but get little consideration in return.


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 8:56pm

    I think the professional class is concerned about their children's future, the environment, paying for education, retirement, and healthcare.  Progressive Democrats address all of these.


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 9:04pm

    It's easy to look backwards and out of the context of the times say democratic leaders were wrong. I see them struggling to retain power in the face of a more conservative electorate. Moving forward as much as possible, not much, and mostly trying to hold the line against conservative policy, sometime successfully sometimes not.

    If liberal politicians and liberal policy was what the electorate wanted why didn't Sanders run for president in 1992? He was older than Bill Clinton so could have claimed not just more liberal policies but greater experience and maturity. If America wanted a liberal why didn't the Kucinich campaign take off in 04?

     


    by ocean-kat on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 5:27pm

    Bill Clinton most certainly did not have to approve NAFTA.  He did not say he supported it until a month before the 92 election and then only if certain conditions were met.  Ross Perot had argued against it vociferously during the campaign and manufacturing unions also opposed it.  A close friend of mine who was then working in the textile industry said it would undermine our manufacturing base if it passed.  After Clinton took office, he could have announced the unintended consequences of such a bill would be devastating and therefore he could not support it.

    Regarding Welfare Reform and the '94 Crime Bill, the administration again took the lead in selling these to the American people.  It wasn't just a passive bystander as Republicans jammed it down our throats.

    Clinton certainly could have vetoed the 1996 Telecommunications Act which paved the way for one owner - Clear Channel - of 1,200 radio stations.

    Yes, there was an overwhelming Congressional consensus in favor of Graham-Leach-Bliley repealing Glass-Steagall in 1999 but if Clinton - then a lame duck - had fought and campaigned against it, he might well have stymied the legislation after a veto.  Even if he had failed, he would have tied the bill to the Republican party.

    More broadly, your argument is the President was merely riding a conservative wave and bears little or no responsibility for it.  I disagree.  Leaders steer their country away from the iceberg floe rather than crying full steam ahead. 


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 6:17pm

    You consistently refuse to answer this fundamental question that I think needs to be answered if we're going to understand your views about what happened in the last few decades.

    If liberal politicians and liberal policy was what the electorate wanted why didn't Sanders run for president in 1992? He was older than Bill Clinton so could have claimed not just more liberal policies but greater experience and maturity. If America wanted a liberal why didn't the Kucinich campaign take off in 04?


    by ocean-kat on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 6:29pm

    Don't I have to be asked a question repeatedly before I can consistently refuse to answer it?  Your question is why didn't Sanders run in 1992?  I can't answer that.  Some guesses.  Sanders was a first-term Congressman then and had no national following at all.  Clinton had served two terms as Governor of Arkansas, small yes but bigger than Vermont and had a national following due to a relatively well-received speech at the 1988 Democratic convention.   Sanders didn't feel he was ready to be President.  I'm not sure why that's an important question but okay I gave it a shot.

    Kucinich ran for President in 2008 not 2004.  I supported Barack Obama from the beginning and if I supported him I think probably so did most liberals most but certainly not all.  Why did I support him over Kucinich? 

    Reasons in no particular order: Obama was younger, more attractive, African-American, a better speaker, didn't wear a toupee, seemed to be just as liberal - he was rated one of the most liberal senators, he was a senator not a Congressman, Obama spoke against "free" trade.  He was against the war on Iraq.  His health care plan included a public option.  Like me, I think the Democratic electorate thought Obama would govern more progressively than he did.


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 8:08pm

    Either you haven't paid much attention to politics until recently or you are young and you haven't bothered to learn even recent history. That might explain much about your posts.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Kucinich_presidential_campaign,_2004


    by ocean-kat on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 8:25pm

    Missed that one.  Thanks for graciously and politely pointing it out.  I can always count on you to show class.  I think that's the first thing I think of when I think of Clinton supporters - Class.


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 8:45pm

    Okay, you two.  Let's take it down a notch before somebody says something they regret.  We're talking about a legitimate primary contest between two capable candidates for office, not a Trump rally.


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 9:00pm

    Thanks Mike.  My class crack was inappropriate but I'm sick of getting kicked in the nuts by every Clinton supporter.  On this blog alone:

    NCD wrote: You really have no grasp of reality. You are just as deluded, hateful and blind as the tea party.  I hope to hell you don't get what you want: a Bernie nomination, because if you do we are totally screwed.

    Then ocean-kat throws out the nasty snark here.

    I don't even read PP's obscene screeds any more.  Ramona has called me arrogant on another blog.

    I try extremely hard to be polite but that does not appear to be the case among those who disagree with me.

    I will commit going forward not to make any nasty or personal remarks to anybody here but only if I get the same commitment from those who have used abusive language towards me.


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 9:14pm

    I complemented RMRD on an excellent reply to you, about why he and many blacks trust and support Hillary, which you derided as irrational if not delusional.

    I regretfully mentioned however, that RMRD's statement might make little difference to Hal 'as his feet are planted in an ideological foundation as insubstantial as Sanders record.'

    That conviction being that there is exists an irresistible progressive tsunami imminent in the American electorate that will wash the GOP out to sea.

    I wish it were so, and appreciate your efforts to educate the public on progressive issues, but as Voltaire said, sometimes 'perfect is the enemy of good'.


    by NCD on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 10:23pm

    I have never expressed the conviction that "there is exists an irresistible progressive tsunami imminent in the American electorate that will wash the GOP out to sea."  What I have said is we have a chance to nominate and perhaps elect a truly superior candidate.  I am saddened that it appears we will not do so.

    Regarding your claim that I "derided as irrational if not delusional" your comment or RMRD's reply, please cut and paste.  I have no recollection of expressing any such derision.

    I assume you stand by your claim that I am "deluded, hateful, and blind".  I am disappointed that you have chosen not to try to reduce tensions or to take back this personal attack.


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 10:41pm

    Okay.  I went back to find the specific response in which you claim I derided RMRD or you as irrational if not delusional.  Here it is the thread in full except for my quotes from the Nation which were at the end.  The bold text reflects quotes from RMRD's post to which I am responding.  Perhaps you can identify the sections where I derided anybody.

    -----------

    "You see the Clintons as the problem. I see the GOP and their front runners as bigger problems[.]" 

     

           I interpret this to mean we both see the Clintons as part of the problem and the GOP as bigger problems.  If this is what you mean, we agree.

     

    "The Clintons are nowhere near the top of my list of dangers facing the black community. It is telling that they are your focus." 

                I am focusing on the Clintons now because Hillary is running for President and for the reasons I have set out ad nauseum I believe she would be a much worse President for all Americans than Bernie Sanders.  Regarding the Republican candidates, they are all loathsome.

    "Given the fact that Sanders has been an ineffective Senator, why should I trust him to be able to do anything."             

                 We obviously disagree on whether Sanders has accomplished anything.  I have listed various successes here on several occasions but never very prominently.  So here goes again:

     


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 10:51pm

    I think my comment was a very fair observation. 2004 is not ancient history. I don't see how anyone could claim to be paying attention to progressive politics and spend so much time criticizing Bill Clinton as not being progressive enough without knowing Kucinich ran in  04. I also think it's fair to ask if Hal suddenly began caring about liberal politics when Bernie decided  to run. I've been watching this show and reading about it long before Elizabeth Warren hit the scene. There's a decades long tradition here that Hal doesn't seem to have followed


    by ocean-kat on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 10:06pm

    I've set out a number of very specific examples where I believe Bill Clinton's actions harmed poor, working, and middle-class Americans.  You have failed in my view to explain away these instances. 

    Regarding 2004, I directed communications for Montgomery County, MD, for Kerry which had several thousand volunteers.  In the primaries, I remember distinctly Howard Dean imploding.  Dennis Kucinich was a non-factor.  He got 0 delegates.  Yes his hat was in the ring but he had virtually no impact.  Are we playing gotcha here or is this about debating ideas?

    On another note, at this blog you disputed my claim that single-payer healthcare was essential to help workers in this country by invoking examples from France and Germany.  I thought your examples were weak and pointed out why.  At no point did I insult your or suggest you are ignorant.

    I believe you have also argued repeatedly that Clinton did not violate any regulations when she used a private email server at the State Department.  I have demonstrated that she in fact did violate the rule requiring her to maintain her emails at the agency without insulting you.


    by HSG on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 10:20pm

    How the living hell did this turn into another Bernie-vs-Hillary fight, when the post has NOTHING to do with that?

    I spent the day at a research library (and I don't get many days like that, so have to make the most of them), and I came home at the end of a long day to find this thread of needless intraparty vituperation.

    Can I not blog on days or weeks when I can't afford to spend a big chunk of my workday moderating comments? Because I can't afford to do that. I used to feel guilty about not posting enough, but now it looks like I can't even post as much as I have been.

     

     


    by Doctor Cleveland on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 10:27pm

    Okay. I'm locking this thread.

    There are plenty of threads to have the anti-Hillary fight in without hijacking this one. And generally speaking: check yourself.


    by Doctor Cleveland on Tue, 03/15/2016 - 10:50pm

    Cville Dem, I'm issuing you a ToS warning for the "deluded, hateful and blind" comment.

    NCD and ocean-kat, no warning, but your comments veered into ad hominem territory. Please focus on the comment, not the commenter.

    Hal and others, please be mindful of the post topic. There is no need to escalate every thread into another argument about the Democratic primaries.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 03/16/2016 - 10:34am