It's the Republican Party not President Trump that must be defeated

Dear Friends,

As I have said before (here), we, liberals, are fighting to defeat the Republican Party not just President Trump.  All of the attention is on President Trump and how incredibly incompetent he is.  While he is an incredible embarrassment, he is simply executing on the Republican Party platform.  Here is a letter I submitted to The New York Times which, odds are, will not be published.

David Leonhart in his column entitled "Liberals and the Trump Blame Game" says, "Liberals are not responsible for Trump. But they should be reflective about the fact that they haven’t yet come up with an effective strategy for beating him."  Unfortunately, liberals and the mainstream media are focused on President Trump.  He is a sideshow.  He is implementing the Republican Party platform, and the Republican Party and all of its Representatives and Senators are falling in line with everything that President Trump is doing.  It is true that from time to time a Senator or two or a Representative or two will dissent, e.g. Senators Collins and McCain, but they are meaningless because the Republican Party supports everything that President Trump is doing or trying to do.
From a policy perspective, we, liberals, are not fighting against President Trump; we are fighting against the Republican Party and their platform.  To focus on President Trump and not the Republican Party is to focus on the sideshow and miss the main attraction.  The Democratic Party needs to always link President Trump with the Republican Party and be clear that we are fighting against the policies of the Republican Party.  At the same time, the Democrats need to put forward a truly progressive vision for justice - racial, religious, economic and environmental.  In this way, the liberals can defeat the Republicans and their leader President Trump.

 We cannot afford to focus on President Trump, as enticing as that may be, we need to be clear to the world that he is executing the Republican Party platform.  We need to not only fight against the implementation of that platform, we need to constantly and widely promulgate our own progressive vision for our country and our world.  For two and half decades, the Democratic Party has lost sight of its progressive roots and has failed the people of this country who lack the wealth and power to improve their own lives.  Those people who we, as Democrats, have failed are the ones who elected President Trump, Congressional Republicans, and Republicans in state and local governments.  We can only win them back and with them the control of our country if we put forward positive plans for how to help them.  The Democratic establishment needs to move aside for new faces who are truly progressive and who truly support the core Democratic ideals.

We can win and take back our government and country if we truly believe in and fight for justice - racial, religious, environmental and economic.  In the days ahead, I will write about what I think it means to be a progressive.  The American people overwhelmingly support the policies that make up a progressive platform, they just are tired of the establishment never actually doing anything to give them a real chance for a better life.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal