Tag: #2020

  • It’s Happening

    I’m talking about the impeachment inquiry of Trump, and I find it very hard the believe that articles of impeachment will not be drawn up by the House. And there will be a trial in the Senate, which at this moment looks like Trump will be acquitted.

    That is the short and long of it.

    Now, I’m here to talk about the politics of it, and this is my crazy theory how the Democrats should behave if they want to win the 2020 election even with the acquittal.

    First, regardless that the polling shows most people don’t care, if you believe the President broke the law, then you have to go down this path. If you don’t it makes you look complicit.

    Second, I have heard the chatter that through the course of the investigation, the Democrats could change people’s minds and get the poll numbers in their favor of conviction in the Senate. Unfortunately, I believe that past behavior of the Senate is the best predictor of the future behavior of the Senate. Moscow Mitch will lead the acquittal charge.

    The way I see it, Republicans and Trump supports will stay just that, and nothing will sway them. That means what Democrats might lose with an acquittal are moderates and independents, and part of their own base. M and I’s will leave because no one is talking about the kitchen table issues they care about, and the Dem base will leave because it will appear that Trump is untouchable.

    So, how do Democrats win this situation?

    This is my thought…

    Once the Articles of Impeachment are approved by the whole House, go after Moscow Mitch and all the Republican Senators by saying that they are stooges, and will acquit Trump because they are spineless and put party ahead of country. Just like they did with health care, and taxes, and the environment, and all the other issues that matter. Treat the Senate trial as a far-gone conclusion, because the whole game is rigged, just like the economy. Spin it all back to Republican corruption. Even when Republicans will claim, and they will, that this trial is being forced on them as a political stunt, Democrats immediately hit back with that the Republican vote is a political stunt as well because they are afraid of Trump, and that Democrats would love to get back to the work of the people, but corrupt Moscow Mitch won’t let anything come to the floor of the Senate. So, let’s talk about the 2020 election and issues important to America. Just keep on the attack that Republicans are corrupt and the ones who rigged the game.

    Attack, and stay on the attack. Leave Trump alone. Articles of Impeachment was the best that Democrats could get, and don’t be afraid to say that. Admit it, be proud of it, and call out the other side for corruption. Don’t give in, and most importantly, don’t apologize.

  • Whomp! Debate Edition

    Though I would like to watch the Democratic debate tonight, I have to work. Also, I think I might prefer to watch Thursday night football. That is only a half knock at the debate. If this debate was presented better, then I might care more.

    I really don’t like the 10 people on stage, and I have a feeling that Joe, Bernie, and Elizabeth will get the majority of the questions. Not much doled out to the rest of the pack. No one is debating; it’s not like people up there are for or against health care. It’s really about which program do you think is better, and for that reason, I wish they would give the candidates more time just to stake out their positions. Instead, we will get sound bite TV, and though it existed before Trump, now that we live in a Trump political world, you better believe the candidates have several zingers in their back pocket, just waiting for the moment to use them.

    I can already hear someone saying that this isn’t the government we want, but through our actions, this is the government we deserve.

    I really dislike that train of thought.

    I have conservative people use this logic to defend Trump while not defending Trump; Whomp! It’s who we got so let’s make the best out of it.

    What an awful way to accept the world around you. I would want to believe that people want to make things better, and not put up with the crap we are severed.

    Ung… Hopefully something good will come out of this.

  • When It’s All Said and Done

    The second night of the debates are over, and now we all know that people will start to drop out soon.

    I would hope that we get down to 10 Democratic candidates by October, but I still think that might be too optimistic.

    And what does all of this mean?

    I admit that I am an “Anyone Who Can Beat Trump” voter. I would even take another Republican.

    I will also admit that I think Democrats have apologized for far too long that they are liberal and have grand ideas. Those days must come to an end.

    In my lifetime, it has felt like my choices have been either the party that sticks up for the rich guy, or the party that is sorry if sticking up for the poor guy offends you.

    On another note, there seemed to be some hub-bub from pundits about the candidates attacking each other, and how that will be detrimental later in the campaign against Trump. Two things on that. First, since when did Trump need facts or help attacking rival politicians? Like Trump is taking notes or thinking through his attacks for maximum impact. Second, I think most pundits are thinking about the 2020 election as if they were fighting in 2012. They are bringing the wrong tools to the gun fight, and most them are walking into it with wet spaghetti. Reagan’s 11th Commandment doesn’t exist anymore, and voters who pay attention to these debates have come to expect politicians to attack.

    When this is all said and done, the majority of voters are really looking for a candidate who will validate their feels. Then they will worry about details.

  • Another Billionaire Problem Solver?

    I have nothing personal against Howard Schultz. As far as I know, and I will give him the benefit of the doubt, is that he is a good husband and father and friend to all.

    But he is a businessman billionaire. And going into 2020, that is a huge albatross around his neck. Is he going to try and convince me that a billionaire businessman isn’t qualified to be president, so we should elect another billionaire businessman?

    That’s going to be a tough sell.

    He isn’t making his case any easier by going after Medicare for all. (The only point I will give him is that no one is addressing how to pay for it, and he is right to point that out.) But it is completely a false equivalency to compare national health care to the boarder wall.

    There is national healthcare in the world, it does work. And if he is really worried about the insurance industry going out of business, then he should look at Germany’s system of national and private healthcare.

    The boarder wall plays on some people’s hate and racism. That doesn’t work.

    But here is where he has already fumbled the ball; he is trying to defend health insurance companies over patients, because effectively, that is what he is saying. He isn’t even politically savvy enough to at least say that putting insurance companies out of business would unemployed so many people, and that isn’t fair. (That’s a good old solid Republican line…) If he is trying to run as a centrist, and trying to get middle America to vote for him, then he needs to understand that this part of the electorate is living paycheck to paycheck (government shut down just hammered that home) and their experiences with insurance companies is adversarial. People have an emotional response to insurance companies, and his first steps out of the gate shows that he doesn’t understand that.

    Don’t show up to the emotion fight with logic, because you will lose every time. You fight emotion with emotion, and logic with logic, and the best politicians know when each is called for in the argument.

  • That Judge Thing

    The Republicans have made a deal with the devil to get Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. This is the gross world we live in, but there is just about nothing that could have happened yesterday that would have stopped his approval. The goal has been five conservative votes on the court, and it didn’t matter how it happened, but the Republicans will do anything to get the five votes. And that’s the goal post in all of this. And they will get it. Public opinion be damned.

    And that is the calculation in all of this that I just don’t understand. That fifth vote will cost them in the midterms. And then it will cost them in 2020. This may even go on to 2022 and 2024 if major cases are over turned. It makes the Court an issue for years to come.

    But what I really don’t get is that the Republicans have shot themselves in the foot for the next generation of women, if not the one following. For most girls in high school, Dr. Ford looked like their mother, and they just watched as a political party say that her honesty and suffering mean nothing compared to the destiny of a man to be on the Supreme Court. This will last. I know this to be a fact because I was in high school during the Hill/Thomas hearings, and it was clear that a smart intelligent, successful woman amounted to nothing compared to a man. These are the women that are running for office now because they have seen this shit happen before, they have experienced this shit happening to them or their friends, and here we are, doing it all over again. Men will not solve this problem, only women can and will. And why is the Republican party deciding that it is worth alienating just about all women in this country?

    Women the age of Dr. Ford won’t vote Republican. Their daughters won’t. And what makes you think that they won’t teach their sons and daughter to not trust Republican’s in the future.