Democrats need to stop running against
Since 1972 when Nixon employed his southern strategy, the Republican Party and Republican voters have welcomed white supremacists to their party, and they have boldly promoted racist policies. They claim they don’t like Mexican immigrants being in the USA, however, they welcomed Mexican immigrant to come here for decades so they could exploit them for cheap labor.
Republican voters have consistently voted for members of Congress who ran on “free trade”, which resulted in sending the production of American products first to Mexico and then to China and India, that transformed the American economy from a manufacturing economy to a service economy.
Republican voters have voted for members of Congress who opposed Americans working together to collectively fund healthcare cost. Instead, they support a private for-profit health insurance industry that places profits over healthcare and forces millions of Americans into bankruptcy and early deaths.
Republican voters have voted for members of Congress who promoted spreading democracy over the globe at the point of a gun and making the USA the world’s police force, thus having the USA enthralled in never-ending wars and wasting valuable blood and treasure in order to protect and promote the military industrial complex.
In 1994 during the Clinton administration, Congress passed a law banning military style weapons from being sold to civilians. In 2004, Republicans allowed that ban to expire, and in 2008 a right wing conservative court extended a right to keep and bear arms, albeit only in the home, and since that ruling Republicans have voted for members of Congress who continually oppose common sense gun safety legislation to protect innocent men, women and children from being murdered in schools, movies and synagogues. Instead, they have promoted an environment in which the NRA and gun manufacturers have distorted the Second Amendment solely to increase their profits.
In 1970 under the Nixon administration, a Democratic controlled Congress passed The Clean Air Act and Nixon signed it into law, and in 1990 under the Bush 41 administration a Democratic controlled Congress amended that law to establish a nationwide approach to reduce acid pollution. However, since 1994, Republican voters have supported members of Congress who have consistently rolled back environmental regulations and endangered future generations of Americans from having an inhabitable planet.
What have people who opposed the Republican agenda been doing since 1970? For the most part they have wasted votes by supporting third party candidates like Ralph Nader and Jill Stein, and in many cases, they have not voted at all as in the 2016 election. Instead of effectively participating in the democratic process to promote the things that are supposedly important to them, they have simply blamed the Democratic Party, as the minority party in Congress, for things that the Republican Party has done.
The mantra of Republican voters in 2016 as to why they voted for a person with the character, or lack thereof, of a person like Donald Trump, is that they were forced to make a “binary choice”. Their so-called binary choice had many facets. One was whether to vote for a man, or a woman. Another was to vote for someone who had a history of working to empower all people or one who had a history of racism, bigotry and misogyny.
One important issue to these binary choice voters besides not voting for a woman and someone who had worked to empower all people, was to repeal and replace a health insurance program that provided healthcare to people that had never had access to healthcare other than emergency room care. Another important issue to them was deporting to Mexico, immigrants that they had invited to come here for cheap labor for decades, even though the overwhelming majority of those immigrants had established families in the USA and positively contributed to the USA in many ways, including serving in the military.
So in the 2020 election cycle, these binary choice voters are saying that although they know Trump is a sociopath, a racist and a traitor, their binary choice is to support a party who wants to provide healthcare to all Americans without regard to their ability to pay; a party that wants to unite and include all Americans without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation or faith; a party that wants to protect Americans from gun violence and participate with the rest of the world community to do something about climate change that will provide a clean planet for future generations and create millions of jobs in the process, OR still support a president and a party that promotes racism, bigotry, misogyny and disregards the Constitution and the rule of law.
Democrats should not court Republican voters in 2020. Instead, they could do everything they can to soundly defeat Republican voters and the Republican Party along with Trump. Yes, we recognize that Republican voters have a right to support their agenda, and in doing so they will demonize the Democratic Party, Democratic voters and anyone who opposes their agenda. Democrats don’t have to demonize Republicans, but they also don’t have to appease them.
After the Republican Party picked up seats in an off-year election in 2002 when they controlled the White House and Congress before the election, Bill Clinton explained that Americans prefer right and wrong over weak and right.
“After the 2002 election, Clinton had an explanation for those who did not understand why Bush and the Republicans had picked up congressional seats. The GOP victories that year, in which national security was a big issue, were the exception to the historical record of the president’s party usually losing seats in mid-term elections.
“When people are insecure, they’d rather have somebody who is strong and wrong than someone who’s weak and right,” Clinton said.
Simply put, Clinton was suggesting that just because voters think a Republican president has messed up this war, doesn’t necessarily mean that they will vote for the other party to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/01/strong_and_wrong_vs_weak_and_r.html
If Democrats think that what they are promoting, be it healthcare for all, or common-sense gun legislation, or effective climate change measures, or comprehensive immigration reform, or promoting clean twenty-first century jobs. If Democrats think these things are the right things for American, they should boldly promote them and don’t allow Republicans to distort them and lie about them.
Be strong Democrats! Wake up and live; Or lie down and die! The first thing on the agenda to be strong is to impeach Trump based on constitutional principle, regardless of what the perceived political consequences may be.
You are right. I read today that Rick Perry is stepping down as Energy Secretary. People are happy (which is a good thing) but we are only going to get another Rick Perry with a republican senate. Democrats need to take back the senate and hope their focus can be on that.