Replacing Trump with Corbyn

How is a British politician going to replace an American President? Unless you're moving to Britain?

 

@101101: I envy your optimism. I’ve been politically entuned for nearly 20 years and if it’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that expecting the kinds of changes you’re talking about will not come from either of the major parties. And there will be no third parties to save us either. Trust me, net neutrality is gone and not coming back ever again, the tax cuts are permanent, and both parties are throwing our rights and liberties under the bus. It has a lot to do with how the political class and billionaire donor class view us. We’re not people to them. We’re a mindless nebulous mass to be manipulated.

If you don’t believe me, ask yourself this question: why can tax cuts pass with a simple majority of Republicans, but you can’t even pass a meager tax increase with a super majority of Democrats? The answer is because they both answer to their real constituents: the billionaire donor class. The fact is that we have a far right party and a center right party. We don’t even have a center left party let alone a left wing party.

 

@101101: I’m having a bad day today, so take this for what it’s worth:

I think your faith in millennials is misplaced. Given that they are predominantly part of the technocratic class, they are, more often than not, anti-union and anti-labor. Otherwise google, Apple & amazon would be unionized. Even the boomers who were by and large hippies and “socialists” eventually went overwhelmingly for Reagan. They either turned Republican or became “Reagan Democrats.”

I suggest you read Naomi Klein’s book “This Changes Everything.” In the last chapter, she talks about past social movements. One of the most interesting aspects was that oppressed groups, wether ethnic or labor, got improved legal status but not improved economic status. (One specific example is the abolitionist movement where slavery ended and former slaves got legal status as free people, but reparations went to former slave owners in a sort of reverse reconciliation. Even former colonies were forced to pay colonial governments or risk armed incursions). History shows that economic circumstances rarely improve for the majority at the expense of the elites. I expect that this will remain true.

 

I'd like to think that we can flush some cons, and a headline I saw today is encouraging (Republican membership is declining since Trump while Democratic membership holds steady). However, if Dems follow their historical pattern, they'll take that to mean that they need to run Republican-lite campaigns. Frankly, I think these defecting Republicans will do the same as a lot of the Democratic base who feel disenfranchised...not show up to vote. Largely because they feel disenfranchised. I know because I'm one of them. Last year, I voted, but I left a lot of blank spots on my ballot because the choices were bad or ugly. And I can't write in anyone (outside of President) because California's top two vote system (designed to push populists out and keep only corporate politicians) doesn't allow write-in candidates.

I think a better historical corollary is the 1910's and 1920's. Obama was basically like Woodrow Wilson without the racism, making a show of populism while secretly siding with bankers and corporate elites. Trump is basically Harding without the good looks. I'm waiting for the next Black Tuesday when things will REALLY get bad!

 

Point of clarification: I meant that I'm someone who's disenfranchised, not that I'm Republican. No way! Never have been, and unless they have an amazing change of political identity that shifts them further left than the Dems, I never will be! I'm not holding my breath for that to happen since neither party has ever really been a leftist populist party.

 

Trump is utterly unlike any previous president, thank goodness! We've never had a president who was actively trying to sabotage and/or destroy major portions of the government, or one who is utterly indifferent to what's good for the country, and utterly indifferent to America's global reputation and influence, in favor of his own self-aggrandizement and enrichment.

It's going to take many years and major efforts by future administrations to repair all the damage Trump is doing to this country and its reputation. I only pray that none of the damage he has done or will do is irreparable, and I pray every day for a swift end to his disastrous, depraved, and possibly treasonous occupation of the White House. I'd much rather see him removed as mentally incompetent, under the 25th Amendment, than impeached and convicted, because removal under the 25th could be accomplished much more swiftly and without nearly as much unnecessary drama.

 

True, Harding wrecked the government by being incompetent. Trump has that magical combo of both actively wrecking the government AND being incompetent. As much as I’d like him to go away (and the 25th would be a more palatable process), let’s not forget who would take his place...Pence. In fact, the current Presidential line of succession is fugly and awful. The one positive thing about Trump, such as it is, is that he’s unintentionally exposing how most politicians and their operatives work and is so willfully wrecking and starving the public sphere and so willfully robbing the poor to provide for the rich (vs. previous politicians and Presidents who were more covert about it) that he is raising the ire of the public to the point where we might have a sliver of a chance in booting out of office a large majority of pro-finance and pro-corporate politicians, on both sides of the aisle, throughout the country.

Wow, coming from me, that almost sounded positive! Now for the negative...I’m not holding my breath. I’m too damn cynical to believe anything will improve for the better any time soon...if at all. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I strongly suspect that the military/intelligence/security industrial complexes have contingency plans for progressive politicians to prevent them from dismantling their apparatus. I’ve been considering moving to Europe, but then I recently discovered that neo-nazis have started occupying seats in various parliaments for the first time since WWII. That’s alarming! I’m starting to think that there will be a new fascist era soon. I’d say “God help us all” but if there is a God, He’s probably given up on us and moved on to species’ with better prospects.

 

Your comments read very much like what one of my best friends says, one who wants El Trumpo to stay in office long enough to ensure the Democrats have a clean sweep in the mid-terms, to ensure Democrats control both the Senate and the House before El Trumpo is removed from office.

I can sympathize with the motive behind that argument, but I think El Trumpo is so damaging to the basic institutions of democracy and law-and-order that I think every day he remains in occupation of the White House is disastrous for the United States of America, and therefore that destruction should be ended as swiftly as possible.

And yes, I realize that Pence would be very far from an ideal choice for President. He's one of the crazy hard right wingnuts who is so far removed from reality he actually believes someone can "pray the gay away".

But then, Bush Jr. also suffered from the fault of preferring his wishful thinking to reality. That's why the U.S. wound up making an unprovoked and unnecessary invasion of Iraq, with the excuse of stopping Saddam from making imaginary weapons of mass destruction; and the Bush Jr. administration performed that invasion with far, far fewer troops than were necessary to keep order in the country after Saddam's regime was toppled, again due to wishful thinking and willfully ignoring what the experts were telling them.

However, altho Bush Jr.'s administration was damaging to this country, and reduced our standing in the world, Bush Jr.'s administration did not actually endanger basic democracy or the rule of law, as El Trumpo is doing. El Trumpo's administration is tearing at the basic fabric of our democracy. I don't see Pence as someone who would actively try to sabotage major governmental institutions or sabotage the U.S.'s standing in the world just to further his own self-aggrandizement. I think Pence's actions as Veep have shown he would prefer a far more reasonable path than El Trump's intentional destruction of democratic values and governmental institutions. In short, Pence shows no sign of wanting to become a dictator, or of attacking institutions and destroying traditions which would restrict him from becoming a full-blown dictator, as El Trumpo does on a daily basis.

Those who think that the U.S. could not possibly fragment into warring factions such as we see in Iraq or Syria or Somalia or Rwanda... They need to think again. They also need to read Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here. I'm entirely serious about that; here's a link to that novel at Project Gutenberg Australia:

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
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