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  Here is a letter I submitted to The New York Times which, odds are, will not be published.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

Vote for Hillary Clinton

Dear Friends,

I have been trying to figure out how to write a post in support of Hillary Clinton.  As you all know, I would have much preferred Bernie Sanders, but that is not a choice now.  I thought that Bernie's speech at the convention was great.  He has now written an op-ed in the LA Times (here) entitled: "Bernie Sanders: I support Hillary Clinton.  So should everyone who voted for me".   It is similar to his convention speech and outlines very clearly not just the reasons why Donald Trump should not become President, but why we should support Hillary Clinton.

As he says in the final paragraph

I understand that many of my supporters are disappointed by the final results of the nominating process, but being despondent and inactive is not going to improve anything. Going forward and continuing the struggle is what matters. And, in that struggle, the most immediate task we face is to defeat Donald Trump.

While I disagree with many of Hillary Clinton's policy positions, have concerns about her tendency to slide to the right, do not believe that her incrementalism is what the country needs right now and am very concerned about her hawkish foreign policy, I also agree with many of her positions.  We should all focus on the reasons that we can support her.  Despite her incrementalist tendencies, she is clearly moving in the right direction on healthcare, the economy, education, Wall Street reform and trade.  Her nominees for the Supreme Court will be important proponents of getting the money out of politics and preserving a woman's right to choose as well as being intelligent and thoughtful people.

Much has been written lately about how Secretary Clinton should campaign in light of how Donald Trump campaigns. While she needs to point out how incredibly bad he is, I think that she should be making the positive case for why we should support her.  She needs to generate enthusiasm to vote for her not just getting people to vote against Donald Trump.  If she is clearly pushing the truly progressive policies that she adopted during the primary,  she should be able to gain support from Bernie's supporters.

We need to keep the revolution moving forward.  We need to elect Hillary Clinton.  Then we need to hold her accountable and work to get true progressives elected at all levels of government.  This plan is one that I am looking forward to working hard on.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal