Here’s some of what’s changed since Tuesday. Donald Trump is now the President-elect of the United States. The Republican Party is no longer the conservative party. It’s also not imploding like so many people (including me) thought. Instead, it’s now the populist party. The Democratic Party is no longer a well-oiled machine using data and modern campaign techniques. It’s now the party in the wilderness with a thin bench and no clear direction.
Here’s what has not changed. Donald Trump is still unfit to serve as President of the United States. He’s still a bully who flirts with white nationalists and has emboldened hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis. He’s still a misogynist who has spent his entire life demeaning women in public. He’s still never released his taxes so we don’t know what kind of nefarious connections he may have with foreign governments or corporations who will do business the government he oversees. He’s still the man who threatened to lock up his political opponent and sue the press for their coverage of him. He’s no more qualified to be Commander-in-Chief today than he was a week ago.
The national Republican Party has emerged from the election looking a lot more like the North Carolina GOP than the Party of Reagan. Here, small government conservativism takes a back seat to big government authoritarianism. The Republican legislature has usurped local power by seizing local assets, redistricting local political jurisdictions, and overturning local ordinances. Under the guise of “religious freedom,” they’ve allowed government employees to deny service to people because of their sexual orientations. They tried to limit access to the ballot box for minorities and inserted themselves between women and their doctors, ordering unnecessary ultra-sounds and waiting periods for abortions. In North Carolina, Republicans won power as the free-market, libertarian party of Art Pope, but they’ve governed as the hard right religious populists led by Phil Berger and people like Franklin Graham.
If North Carolina’s experience is a guide, don’t expect the fiscal conservatives, neo-cons, or free-marketeers who made up the party of Reagan and the Bushes to exert much influence over Trump and his white-nationalist senior strategist, Steve Bannon. They’ll look the other way while individual rights get trampled as long as they get their tax cuts and deregulation. “Look at the growth” may become the 21st century equivalent of making the trains run on time. There will probably be a few voices from the right calling out abuses, but most Congressional Republicans will turn a blind eye.
The Democratic Party. for its part, has focused so much on tactics that they’ve forgotten the importance of message. Their data machine has cut up the electorate into constituencies and campaign strategists have tried to motivate them with narrow messages while lacking any unifying one. They’ve failed to appeal to the nation as a whole.
While Obama emerged virtually out of the blue in 2004, the party has failed to groom many other new leaders. The chief challenge to the Clinton machine in primary wasn’t a young firebrand. It was a 74-year-old socialist. The next minority leader of the House will be the same minority leader who was elected Speaker of the House ten years ago, but hasn’t been able to win it back since losing it six years ago. Accountability and new perspectives matter.
Donald Trump has exploited the divisions in this country and, so far, has shown no inclination to heal the divide. If he wants to be the country’s leader, then it’s his job to reach out to the people he’s scaring and the ones he threatened. Given all he’s said and done, it’s his responsibility to prove he’s worthy of the position he won.
Contrary to the voices of some, our job is not to give him a chance. It’s to hold him accountable and to resist, as mightily as possible, his authoritarian impulses. It’s our job to protect the rights promised by our constitution. It’s our job to be the nation’s conscience because we elected a man who doesn’t have one.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
You’re right Dis, Democrats could. But they can’t on the one hand because of the party of ‘No’ and on the other, because they just can’t seem to bring themselves to commit to the ‘representing the people’ premise again.
I was listening to George Packer (writer for New Yorker magazine) just the other night and he was talking about how the Democrat party quit being the party of the common or working man sometime in the 1970’s (me: probably post-Carter) and became the party of the professional class. We hear that expressed as the party of the Northeastern elite, but it’s the same concept. Thinking about that, he’s probably not wrong. We’ve had two Democrat Presidents since 1980. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Bill Clinton probably doesn’t invoke an image of ‘professional class’ in the minds of many, but he does epitomize it. The only things he has ever done professionally is be a lawyer and politician. The same is true with Barack Obama. These men have never worked with their hands…not even as a hobby. Their disdain, no that’s a bit harsh, their mild ignorance to the plight and struggles of the working classes shines however. It shapes their gun policy (I’m betting neither has ever fired a weapon) to their economic policies. They see the US as a player on the world stage. We would be of course, were our labor forces not so developed and specialized. Democrats used to court organized labor as an avenue to the working classes and a commonality and bond between them. These two men have either stood by or allowed the dismantling of organized labor in this nation. Like it or not, unions were a driving force behind the rise and proliferation of the middle class in this country.
Now, everything is upside down. The working classes are voting Republican. A man many evangelicals would consider an adulterer and polygamist is President-elect. Our three branches of government will soon be under absolute Republican control and direction. It’s anyone’s guess what is going to happen but it’s almost certain that conditions; living, earning, and economic for those that work every day for another will improve.
The macabre irony of course is that the same people that will suffer are the same ones that put these people in charge to begin with.
mistake. 3rd paragraph, last sentence. Should read “…that work every day for another will not improve.”
Labor unions have become irrelevant because manufacturing has moved elsewhere. The right-wing didn’t want unions from the beginning, and, for most of our history, they were not legally permitted to exist. Blue collar workers now live in a gig economy. They call you when they have a gig for you, and send you home when the gig is over.
Blood was shed in North Carolina, West Virginia (“Bloody Harlan County”) and elsewhere to keep unions from organizing. Labor has supported the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Party has supported labor. The Republican Party has always been the party of the bosses and the plant owners. Union membership peaked at the end of World War II and has declined ever since. Unions workers accounted for more than 36% of the non-agricultural workers at the peak, and they now are at less than 10% of non-agricultural workers.
A campaign of anti-union rhetoric was launched during the Reagan years coordinated with union-busting legal actions that caused an acceleration of the erosion of membership. Former head of the Screen Actors Guild, Ronald Reagan took on the Air Traffic Controllers Union in his first term as President and gutted them when they struck. Big law firms took on union busting and began to follow Reagan’s lead across the country. Unions had battled armed thugs hired by bosses and won, but the army of high-priced attorneys beat them in almost every battle.
The guy with the wrench did not send the plant to Mexico. It was the guy in the suit in the executive suite. Unions became stigmatized and people forgot that medical insurance, weekends, over-time pay, pensions and disability pay were all hard-fought battles won by labor over many years. Democrats have never stopped supporting workers.
Republicans have never stopped searching for lower-cost labor and countries with weak labor laws and weak pollution controls.
International trade has contributed to labor’s woes. Workers in the United States can’t work for the $1.00 a hour that Chinese workers can. We call our local bank, and we meet someone from India or the Philippines because because they work so much cheaper. The President of the United States can’t stop global economic forces, but the Congress can make changes to the tax code to discourage sending jobs offshore. The Republicans will never do that.
The blue collar worker who hates unions and votes Republican is asking the wolf not to eat him.
I know they didn’t grow up in the lap of luxury. However, they also forgot what struggle was and is after college. That can be the result of a benefit or curse (pick one) of an Ivy League education. They made good for themselves and no one can deny that. They forgot to pay it forward. In the formulation of their policies and negotiations, they forgot to take into account the benefit and well being of the people whose jobs were going to be eliminated. They considered some people certainly, but not the vast majority. One of Bill’s staff advisers admitted that when he signed NAFTA, he wasn’t thinking about the jobs leaving. He was thinking about the inner cities and urban renewal. That’s inclusive of the signing of NAFTA and the negotiation of TPP. I voted for both twice and would again. I’m not trying to tear them down or denigrate their accomplishments. Rather, I would have broadened their scope. But that is all hindsight.
Trump by contrast, is all about himself. We’ve said that here, agreed, and there’s no sense plowing the same field again. Sure Mommy and Daddy sent him to military school. He’s now a well disciplined ass rather than being an undisciplined one. Well, he was once well disciplined.
Trump supporters are not about fact checking. That removes the ‘belief’ system of politics from the lexicon. And Trump supporters believe. They don’t know a lot, but they believe a lot. Right now however they know that the Democrats left them. High and dry, left them. Let’s face it, Barack Obama used his organization “Organizing for America” to support his campaigns moreso than using the Democrat Party.
So in this calamity in which we find ourselves, the party has to find a way to attract supporters back. They do it by having a comprehensive fiscal policy, healthcare policy, jobs and wages policy, education policy, and quit being the world’s ‘big brother’ enforcer. We take care of those within our borders and use our great wealth at home first. Charity starts at home…or it should.
These secondary policy concerns can be addressed after we re-gain majority status. But as long as we let Republicans set the narrative with those secondary issues and turn them into major debate and policy points, we will be unable to lead the discussion or engage in the discussion with the people that needs to take place. We don’t need a discussion on faith, we do need one on how the middle class is going to regain its prominence again. We don’t need political correctness with regard to how policy will affect the direction of the nation. We need to hear facts, progressive and conservative, and let people decide which they support. And it needs to be done in clear concise language without the benefit of pundit interpretation. That is what is meant by intelligent discourse. But Republicans don’t want that. As far as a working class in this nation, I’m really not sure what it is they do want given the regression of their policies toward those people.
Frankly, I think they wanted a landed gentry and everyone else returned to serfdom. Some people just don’t believe that poo stinks until they have their nose rubbed in it. Sadly, I fear that is going to be the litmus test thereby proving what Trump and the Republican party is and is not to the people. A brown discoloration of the olfactory organ.
Not being particularly dense and of average intelligence, I’m at a loss to understand this; could someone explain to me how blowing up the entire party mechanism is a good thing. Donald Trump is elected and we respond by imploding?
This entire mess didn’t just start when Donald Trump announced he was running for President. It started way back when Ronald Reagan was elected. It hasn’t gotten better. Democrats even played a couple of hands in this. Presidents Clinton and Obama enacted or endorsed foreign trade deals that lead to the elimination of hundreds of thousands of blue collar manufacturing jobs. They offered nothing to replace them with. So the sucking sound of the job vacuum has been going on for a while now. As a party, we’ve done nothing to turn that around in the time we’ve been in a position to do something about it. Is it so hard to understand a last act of desperation? Does, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” not hold any relevance for anyone?
Neither have we forced Republicans to own their part of this cluster in the making for the last forty years. We have allowed them to declare Reagan something akin to an apostle. To keep introducing and re-introducing, under the guise of varying labels, trickle-down economics. How many times do we need to see this particular theory not work before we understand it’s not going to work? How many times do we need to see Republicans trounce minimum wage laws and the people that work for those wages? They’re about paying themselves and stockholders, not the people that did the work to enable their wages and stock dividends.
What we have done is bury what is going on under soft smarmy language. If you noticed, Trump didn’t speak using the language of the academic or professional. Quite the opposite actually. Shakespeare he isn’t; that makes it no less effective. Yes, ‘we’ all know that Trump isn’t going to bring steel back, or furniture, or textile manufacturing or a 1,001 other industries we’ve lost to off-shoring. That didn’t stop him from promising their return. He villainized other working class people to perpetuate that notion.
And now we need to implode and this liberal inspired Phoenix will rise out of the ashes. It will soar high, bringing sunshine, Volvos, and equality to the masses. Things that just couldn’t be done with “old guard” democrats and their political machine. It will right every wrong, but most importantly, it will do all this with no money. That’s right, a revolution of conscience and principle done with zero dollars.
I’m trivializing and I shouldn’t just for the sake of a chuckle. This is a serious and dire time we face. Does the party need to re-structure? Doesn’t leadership need to change? If the current leadership can’t re-group and re-focus on what is going on and be inclusive of all ‘just plain folks’ as a whole rather than a collection of splinter groups and interests, then yes, maybe we deserve to keep losing for being that ignorant and blind.
Seems lots of us have not learned the lesson of Hillary’s defeat. And that may portend worse elections to come, if we don’t wake up and rise up against the Democratic Party’s old machine! It’s not just that machine politics has no appealing message (other than, “We’re better than them!”), it’s that it has made us dependent upon corporate cash to run our campaigns, making our elected officials just about as sold-out as their Rethuglican counterparts. And the people can smell it!
Yeah, Bernie may not appeal to the more doctrinaire old Dems, but he sure as hell motivated our base (which felt thoroughly abused by the Dem machine by the time our convention came around!)! And going forward, someone – hopefully, many people – with Bernie-like, non-corporate, people-focused politics MUST emerge to lead our party or we’re doomed to repeats of last week’s results, probably across the board.
And yes, I, too, was amazed the people chose such a slimy liar as their agent of change. But, unless we want to believe half the country voted as racists, we HAVE TO understand their motivation!
I believe that, for the most part, Trump voters responded to his claims he heard them, felt their pain, and would help make the system work more fairly for them, which used to be the claims we made to motivate our base and which Bernie rode a long way towards victory! Instead, in a very clear way, we chose to offer the people more of the same and topped our ticket with a person who represented that perfectly AND whose character was roundly mistrusted for many valid and invalid reasons.
Obviously, if only by demographics, this election was ours to lose. We have no one to blame but ourselves, including the way we allowed Rethuglicans to get away with massive gerrymandering and voter suppression. We didn’t hammer at the unfairness of their behavior (an argument Americans respond to), nor did we fight hard enough for economic justice, probably because our leadership is just as bought off by corporate sponsorship as the other ossified party’s leadership obviously is. That those creeps just caught an almost magical break that brought them back from the brink (and may lead the world to the edge, if we’re not very, very lucky), does NOT mean that we need remain in the thrall of the inhuman values of powerful corporations.
We need to support a thorough sweep of the DNC, embrace an honest populism, and once again become the Party of the People!
A purge of Democrats? What could go wrong with that? The news of partisan in-fighting on the left will strike fear in the hearts of the fascists. Get a pitchfork and torch to show them you mean business.
Great, thoughtful article, especially love the last paragraph.
It occurred to me as I read your comment about Jack Kennedy or Roosevelt, that if social media had existed at the time of either of the two, I doubt either would have passed muster with those who select nominees, nor been elected if they had. They were hardly models of propriety in several areas, despite brains, education and I think a deep love of this country. Neither was above a good bit of back room wheeling and dealing. Strange that this country seems to want Boy Scouts to run for office, but then Trump wins. We want authentic conduct from candidates and punish severely those who seem otherwise, but until Trump unleashed his ranting, and Bernie his 60’s rhetoric (somewhat updated admittedly), most politicians spoke with about as much clarity and directness as a Martian transplanted to earth. I am not sure issues make much difference to many voters at this point, and even if the press had done a good job of covering the policy positions of Hillary Clinton, it might have been totally ignored. Trump created a “brand” and sold it. Madison Avenue should take lessons.
Trump did not create a brand that sold. He understood the audience and played to it.
This is continuing failure of losing Democrats — still after Nov 8 and still on this blog — to grasp that Trump’s campaign was just the campaign that understood the electorate better. There wasn’t anything inherent about Trump that voters wanted other than that he portrayed himself as listening to more of them than his many opponents’ campaigns were.
Good gravy, people. It’s not rocket science. We’ve seen this before. Remember 2008?
Surely the “Obama is the 21st century FDR” is a joke.
Obama made no attempt to do anything at all in his first 100 days – except to pass Romneycare (now called Obamacare), which was the Republican alternative to Hillarycare. Nor did Obama come from a very powerful and influential political family, with the ability to tell his peers that there must be reform or else the whole game would collapse. Nor has Obama aggressively gone after his opponents and whipped up their own constituents against their obstructionism the way FDR did. Nor has he tried program after program after program to help the American People, discarding what doesn’t work and accepting anything that will.
For two years Democrats controlled everything, and they did nothing.
Obama passively accepted that he would not be allowed to govern – and he hasn’t.
A certain paradox, isn’t it Norma? And I don’t believe you to be wrong. Candidates have to be vetted, polished, groomed, and have a record that often as not includes military service (an officer; enlisted need not apply) and a family background in politics. In other words, the public want a Saint or at least someone who could qualify for Sainthood. They are to work miracles, demonstrate restraint, diplomacy, insight, have the patience of Job, the tact of Alexander, and apply the wisdom of Socrates and Solomon.
For whatever reason, a plurality of people in the higher Electoral College vote states thought Donald Trump was that man. He isn’t, he won’t be, but if everyone were rational thinkers, used car salesmen would be out of work too.
Donald’s brand, his rhetoric, his chest thumping, his threats, are all part of the smoke and mirrors illusion that is Donald Trump; empty suit, no substance. Think about a Bantam rooster strutting around the yard. You’ve got Donald.
As far as what Donald understood, well, I’m not sure he understood a great deal. He understood he was appealing to the un and under educated. He understood the appeal of a ball cap. He understood the “those that know the least know it the loudest” parable of politics. He also understands the ‘herd’ concept of human nature. You give the people about 15 seconds of general bullshit, no details, and for some reason they will follow you into bankruptcy and the poor house simply because those words generally illustrate their dim view of the world. Why, if it wasn’t for Mexicans, the minimum wage, voter rights, Jews, Catholics (any non-Protestant), and Obamacare, the US of A would be a pretty good place.
That’s all Trump understood and he talked about it using simple relentless metaphors that the herd understood. He didn’t have to listen to the masses. That would imply some level of empathy. He has none. He just had to open up his mouth and moo. They heard him, understood it, and responded.
Insofar as change is concerned, Trump supporters don’t want change; they want regression, repression, and a return to the status quo pre Brown v Board of Education. They like the specter of McCarthyism and Government oversight; as long as its oversight on something they don’t want.
In some parallel universe, the point has to be made and illustrated the Republican party is not the friend of the working man…regardless of color. That was the divisor used in this election. That point has to be hammered home so hard that it won’t be forgotten for at least 5 generations; the hard lessons of The Depression. That way, they won’t be forgotten so suddenly.
Right now though, I’m not sure words alone will do the job. We Democrats need an object lesson to drive that point home. Sadly, we’re going to have to wait for it to happen along first. I’ve a feeling though that with Trump, it won’t take too long to materialize.
BRILLIANT!
What a bunch republican crap! We have had a republican House, Senate, Congress, and Supreme Court – up until Scalia, thankfully, went on to wherever his type goes.
God help us. Mike Pence would be president. That would be worse, quite frankly, than the man who defines himself as “Christian. Conservative. Republican. In that order…”
Pence is even worse than Trump because Pence has conviction about his beliefs.
A quick history: Republicans said “no” to everything for 6 years. No job bills, no Wall Street regulation, no immigration bill, etc. Even shut down the US government! Used Citizens United to their benefit down the ballot repeatedly. Democrats lost ground in the 2010 & 2012 elections. It was said then that the Democrats needed to change their game & play like the other kids to win.
So they changed. Played the game. But failed to account for the outsider candidate who blamed all the Republican obstruction on all career politicians, even those in his primaries. Who could, without a voting record himself for comparison, sway the election simply by saying, “Why didn’t you fix it in all your years as a politician”? (An aside, that is exactly why Sanders would have lost to Trump too.) Even Democrats & Sanders supporters bought it.
So here you are advocating that Democrats in DC, again, play the same game as the other kids did. Just that the game changed. I don’t think it will work any better this time unless Democrats become as loud or louder than Republicans have been with blaming others the last 6 years & find strong, fresh candidates. They have to get out from DC politics & demand full attention from the press all the time. It’s going to be hard with the Trump circus in place. But that is what has to happen for change to happen.
The election of Donald Trump may have brought this entire debacle to fruition. There is consensus here that this outcome has been in the making for a long time. As far as what happens next, it’s Trump’s agenda. But the real problems and the real solutions lie elsewhere.
Trump has been a catalyst for a lot of things; good and bad. His election has brought to the fore problems with our electoral process. How we as a nation tend to sweep problems away and cover them up rather than debate them and find solutions. How we as a nation have failed in finding a way forward for the nation as a whole and not just niche groups and causes. How we have sold ourselves to the highest bidder with regard to our own economic stability and focused instead on a globalization model that we as part of an overall scenario, can’t win playing.
Donald Trump can’t do a thing without Congress funding it. He can talk, he can cajole, he can tweet until his little thumbs (no pun intended) fall off. But without Congress signing off, he’s got nothing to do and nothing to do it with.
The real culprits however lie in Congress and the Legislature of every State House in the nation. Paul Ryan epitomizes that concept. He is now prepared to move his agenda forward to wipe out one of the greatest social safety net programs ever devised. Why? Because he can. Mitch McConnell has already eluded to the fact that there are more important things on his plate than “infrastructure.” In other words Mitch doesn’t care about roads, water lines, or sewer systems. Simply put, Mitch doesn’t care about whether you or I make it to work, to school, or have clean water to drink. He and the rest of the dullards in Congress will however. The same holds true for our legislature, just change out Ryan and McConnell for Berger and Moore. Berger and Moore might be working on different policies, but they are all pushing toward the same end.
So push back starts now. Mid terms are coming up in two short years. I realize that everyone is sick of hearing election rhetoric and electioneering. So am I. But if we fail to strike back while the iron is still hot, the focus and the passion will be lost. It’s time to start back. These Republican legislators will continue to impose their will on us without benefit of our input because they feel they have been given a mandate to act as they have simply because they were elected. It’s time they were shown otherwise. They want to rant and talk down to everyone else about how they are in public service to lead; well, it’s time they were educated on the concept of “representative democracy.”
Here is the time to take a page from the Tea Party play book. It’s time to motivate, agitate, and aggravate. If we take back Congress and the Legislature, Donald Trump’s honeymoon with Congress is going to be a lot shorter than what he thought it was going to be.
Now is the time to start.
Excellent post and one which I agree with. Unfortunately, until we repeal Citizens United and special interest influence, our democracy is dead in the water. We keep re-electing the same faces and they keep doing what they do best—–a well-intentioned minority fighting a losing battle against a ossified and corrupt majority. What the left needs is a liberal ‘Trump,’ but maybe that was Bernie Sanders who our party scoffed at. They’re not scoffing anymore.
So you think the reason for liberal election defeats was “Citizens United” and big money from “special interests influence?” Were you comatose for the past year or did you just chill out of the recent political campaign?
It was Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party that benefited from big money and special interests. Her campaign out spent the Trump campaign by almost 2 to 1. Democrats raised more and spent far more on TV ads, data collection, the “ground game” etc, than the Republicans. Yet the results across the Nation show that, in an honest election, big money cannot overcome a popular mood agains the “establishment” and the status quo.
Even in NC, Roy Cooper raised far more money from out-of-state “special interests” than McCrory did. But it seems that in a liberal’s mind set, special interest money in political campaigns is ok as long as it goes to support liberal candidates. Such a double standard is beyond typical liberal hypocrisy. It is pure sophistry.
Ebrun, No, I was not inferring that Citizens United and special interest money cost Democrats the election. I was saying that Citizens United and special interest influence is costing our country its DEMOCRACY.
D.g., I am shocked and stunned that you don’t appreciate my comments. I always assumed you had a flexible mind that was open to different points of vie. LOL
One of a handful of excellent posting re the Trump regime. The question I think many are struggling with is what form their “opposition” takes. Mine will not be with Bernie. I like him, but his message was always out of sync for me with much of today’s reality. This country, like it or not, is enmeshed with much of the rest of the world in a way that affects most of us every day. Bernie seemed way out of his depth on that score. Protests are good, but they do not accomplish the day to day work of resisting, of finding better solutions to very real problems, especially economic ones for so many. Those votes for Trump I can somewhat understand, although I think they were naive to believe he could fix anything or actually cared enough to do so. My inclination is to say that working locally, and seriously, is the best choice for the next few months while making it crystal clear to every elected Democrat, that they roll over and play dead at their own peril.
I suspect Trump does not care how Congress treats him, and that kind of work will be left to Pence, whom many like. I would not make a bet on Ryan staying as Speaker, but anyone dumb enough to replace him will probably have no more chance of corralling the Tea Party House member than he or Boehner had. That disarray may mitigate the damage they can do, but not by much. My sense of the Senate is that there will be a lot of complaining and back stabbing about whose fault all this is, and eventually Schumer will make peace with Trump. In my experience, Sen. Schumer’s concern for civil rights is rather limited, especially when it comes to the power of government to spy on folks. Not a long step from that to other repressive matters. However, he does have to respond to New Yorkers, who do not share those impulses, so will be interesting to see him dance that tune.
Ultimately, I don’t think any impeachment articles will be forthcoming. Even if anyone thought along those lines, there would be little support from the spineless GOP members of the Senate or House for that kind of action. Had they any backbone, they would not have wobbled, avoided, and mostly finally caved to the Trump phenomena.
Folks at home will blame the Democrats, the media, and the elites — anyone but themselves who voted for Trump & Pence for all that will go wrong.
Thank you for this eloquent summary. It reads a lot like a eulogy.
Well said, Thomas. My take on it is much, much darker.
Great post, Thomas.