Making the case

by | Jul 28, 2016 | DNC 2016, Editor's Blog | 7 comments

Yesterday, Democrats had a remarkably good day and Donald Trump had a remarkably bad one. In Philadelphia, speaker after speaker, laid into Trump as an untrustworthy con man unfit to serve as President of the United States. Barack Obama ended the night with a speech that may have shifted the dynamics of the presidential race. He laid out the case for his presidency and contrasted a hopeful vision for the future of the nation that contrasted sharply with Donald Trump’s dystopian rhetoric.

Trump, for his part, was urging the Russians to spy on the US. He drew criticism from across the political spectrum while his apologists scrambled to make excuses. So while the Democrats in Philadelphia were making the case that he is unfit for office, Trump was offering a clear example of why he should never set foot in the White House.

It’s far too early to know the impact of this convention on the race, but today feels like Democrats have the advantage. They are on the attack, offering a sharply different message than Trump’s while making the case for their accomplishments under Obama. And unlike Trump’s GOP primary opponents, they’re playing by his rules. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called him a con man, mocked his wealth, and called for electing “a sane, competent person with international experience” instead of his fellow New Yorker.

The contrast of the two conventions is stark. Obama is calling for Americans to come together to solve our problems. He described the arc of progress from the beginning of the Republic till today, from the signing of the constitution to marriage equality. His message was one of inclusivity; we’re all in this together. Trump’s convention was all about him, with B-listers praising him. He told us he’s the only person who can fix what’s wrong with country.

And that’s the real contrast: do we want a country where we come together to solve our problems and move us forward, or do we want a strong man who defeat our foes while we cheer him on from the sidelines.

7 Comments

  1. Rubye

    Fellas who of you play Pokemon GO? Amazing game, yesterday i caught rare pokemon Dragonite using pokebusterbot !
    No ban so far, still using it. You should too.

  2. Eilene C.

    And you are assuming in your last paragraph that the strong man can ACTUALLY defeat our foes, which is probably the least likely thing that will happen, which makes the whole argument even stronger.

    • Eilene C.

      or should I say, a man who THINKS he is a strong man that can defeat our foes… we certainly don’t believe that.

  3. Christopher Lizak

    But things ARE bad and they ARE getting worse.

    Are people going to vote for a candidate who is denying that reality (and therefore has no plan to deal with it), over one who is acknowledging it (even if the plan is a bad one)? I’m certainly no fan of Trump, but he IS the one promising “change you can believe in”.

    I guess time will tell, but it seems an unwise and unnecessary risk to play the whole Reagan “Morning in America” schtick, especially when there is so much economic pain and anger out there right now. Optimism is great, but being a pollyanna is going too far. Reagan made “Morning in America” a “truth” by essentially cooking government statistics to conceal poverty and homelessness, and hiding the unemployed and the mentally ill in a massively expanded prison complex. Hillary appears to have about the same relationship to real facts as Reagan did, and that is not a good thing for those interested in real solutions to real problems. Is Hillary’s plan just to hide the suffering poor? To pretend they don’t exist?

    The German People rallied behind Hitler for a reason. Trump has his speeches on his night stand for a reason. If we fail to address the reasons that united Hitler to the German People in the 1930’s and propelled him to power almost overnight, we risk a repeat of that MIC/globalist takeover of society here in the US. That threat is very, very real.

    And I didn’t hear Hillary condemn that “power-behind-the-throne” even once. I heard her defending it, time and time and time again.

    I guess we should be happy that our plutocrat has the “kinder, gentler, machine gun hand”. But I’m hoping Hillary gets out a little more, like Bobby Kennedy in Appalachia, so she is in a better position to address the reality that Trump is trying to exploit.

    • Jay Ligon

      Hillary acknowledged that large segments of the country were not enjoying the benefits of the economic recovery. We have to remember how we got to here. The economic collapse of the financial markets which occurred in the 8th year of the Bush presidency was the deepest downturn since the Great Depression which began with the crash of the stock market in 1928. The effects of the depression lingered until World War II. The 2008 recession could have been a greater than Great depression but for the rescue efforts of the Congress to bail out the banks. We can’t be happy about it, but the banks were failing.

      Every one of the 50 states was in recession from 2008 onward, and the recovery was sluggish and uneven. Outrageous that the people who caused the recession were the first to be bailed out and the last to feel the effects.
      Democrats had their fingerprints on some of the causes of the recession, but Republican mismanagement was at the heart of the failure of the U.S. economy.

      Consider how our economy would have fared under a Gore presidency, you know, the guy who really won the 2000 election? Gore would never have allowed the massive deficit borrowing that weakened our economy, because he had worked too hard as part of the team that balanced the federal budget at the end of the 1990s and created surpluses. He was not beholden to the billionaires who were Bush’s base.

      Gore would not have invaded Iraq, and the United States may not have been hit on 9/11. Gore’s team was vigilant about terrorism and they were hunting Osama Bin Laden. The Bush Administration ignored repeated threats.

      Gore might have acted on the early reports of fraudulent bank practices and intervened when the banks were losing their minds and throwing money at jobless people.

      Having his hands full with unsuccessful wars and a crippled economy, Obama was busy with bailing out the ship of state. He did so with a Republican majority (for most of his terms in office) committed to obstructing any improvement in the economy. No new jobs was the watchword for the GOP.

      Bernie’s language was integrated into Hillary’s speech, and I take her at her word that she will work for those things. Her prescription for what ails the country is the right one. Or, you can go with the orange-haired conman who never pays his bills and lies when his lips are moving.

      There is much to be done. A massive public works project to repair roads and bridges will do much more Americans in this country than sending billions in cash on pallets to the Green Zone. It would be HUGE, so great you wouldn’t even believe it.

      • Eilene C.

        “It would be HUGE, so great you wouldn’t even believe it.”

        AWESOME! You win my favorite internet comment of the day.

  4. Jay Ligon

    The contrast between the parties and the candidates could not be more stark.

    What is left for the Republicans? Trump has alienated women, blacks, Mexicans, religious people, and traditional allies of the United States. His constituency is quickly shrinking into high school dropouts and the KKK. Trump’s America is small and mean, a nation of predators versus losers, con men versus suckers. The present is a bleak, gray post-Apocalyptic hellscape from which we can escape only by extinguishing democratic institutions and Constitutional government. Trump’s bedside reading material is a volume of Hitler’s speeches and his vision of the new America is informed by his study of the leader of the Third Reich. His speech was classic dictatorial thinking: things are bad and getting worse and only I can save you. Turn your lives over to me, the strong man.

    The Democratic convention has described an America where everyone an opportunity to contribute, a place at the table and job to do. Color, race and religion are not reasons for exclusion but are, instead, facets of a vast tapestry of a big great country. The faces at the Democratic convention reflect the diversity of the American people, not just 18 black faces in a sea of white-haired, old white men.

    The Republicans were so busy spreading hate for liberals, women, LGBT, blacks and minorities, and their symbolic leader – Hillary Clinton, they forgot to bring a plan for governing to Cleveland.

    The message in Philadelphia is uplifting and a vision of an America that works for everyone. It is a story most Americans understand. We go to school, get jobs, help each other when times are tough, kiss our soldiers when they go off to defend us, and worship in our own ways not as the government would prescribe. We raise our children and try to give them a better life than the one we had, and we thank God we are Americans. The government is not an evil entity; it is our commonwealth. The government paves our roads, builds our schools, puts rifles on our borders and helps pay for medical expenses when we are old. If Nazis try to take over, our brothers put them down. If terrorists attack, we will hunt them down in caves half a world away. We are a strong, powerful people, the leadership and the hope of the free world for the past century. The Democratic Party is telling the truth about us. The orange impostor is conning us.

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