Bill Moyers envisions Hillary announcing a Shadow Government

[mnhtnbb]

Imagine that a day or two before Donald Trump’s inauguration, Hillary Clinton, as the candidate who received the greatest number of votes — and after a period of personal reflection and evaluation — addresses the nation.

My Fellow Americans:

On Saturday, January 20th, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States. As mandated by our Constitution, he received a majority of the votes in the Electoral College and thus for the next four years will be given the powers and responsibilities of our nation’s chief executive.

But I believe that I, too, have a mandate, one given to me by the 65 million of you who supported me over Donald Trump in the popular vote, some 2.6 million votes more than he received.

If we are to continue as a democracy, for the next four years and beyond, those voices cannot stay silent.

I urge every one of you who voted for me to help express that mandate and make sure our voices are heard. As each of them comes up for re-election, we will field candidates to run against Donald Trump and his friends in Congress and the statehouses, and we will run against them hard. But until then, let us prepare by joining together as a movement and creating the constituency of what will be, in effect, a shadow government — one that will serve to track and respond to every single bad action undertaken by the Trump administration and its monolithic Congress.

He goes on to suggest she should announce that--in the best British tradition of the concept of a shadow government--a "cabinet" member should be proposed to monitor and comment upon the work of each of Trump's Cabinet members.

What an interesting idea.

Read the whole piece: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/12/06/hillary-clintons-inaugural-address

[treestar]

1. Neat idea

though the M$M might ignore it. Still, having the person Hillary would have picked and saying "this is what it would be like if Hillary were in office" and of course it would be so much better.

[msongs]

2. she is about as deep in the shadows as a human can get so that's a good start. on principle this

is a great idea. so bad to surrender the moral high ground from her and democratic values winning the popular vote, the house total vote, the senate total vote. She needs to come out of the closet bigly and do a victory tour of her own

[Hortensis]

3. She would never do that. Peaceful transition of power is

among the most important of the great blessings of our form of government. Weaken that, and we could wake up to find we were now the Christian Dominion of America under a military dictator. So, whatever she does, it would never be promoted as an alternative "government" of any kind.

[rpannier]

5. It's not an alternative government

A shadow government, in the British tradition, is the opposition having members responsible for monitoring the various Ministries of the Government; the Shadow Health Minister is responsible for keeping close watch on the He34alth Ministry and what its doing and prepares the opposition opinion, formulates ideas, etc
It's not a separate government that undermines the elected one

[Hortensis]

7. The Brits have a parliamentary system. A "loyal opposition"

ready to take over any time confidence in the majority fails is very, very different from what we have. Our federal government is administered by one person for 4 years--period. Congress also serves guaranteed terms; any resignations are strictly individual--and pretty rare, though not quite so rare as an entire party resigning. (!)

Our elections, i.e., our constitutional guaranteed opportunity for peaceful revolution, occur every 2 and 4 years.

[Pacifist Patriot]

12. True, but I'm not sure it wouldn't be a wise idea here as well.

Not in terms of having a cabinet ready to take over, but for the specialization of oversight and commentary. On the fence about it actually, but find the notion intriguing anyway.

[Hortensis]

14. Oh, going to a vote-of-confidence system is intriguing,

but these days, with literally a majority of people getting "information" from or inadvertently influenced by fake news sites, I'm afraid "confidence crises" would be engineered every time the Democrats got in power.

[JHan]

27. A parliamentary democracy sounds great right about now..

And it will break up inertia in Government. Sometimes I think our system is designed for dysfunction.

[Hortensis]

29. The whole Republican government would resign en bloc?

Oh, yes!

We'd get to look on with horror as Charles Koch loaded Trump's cabinet with ideologues and dominionists determined to dismantle the federal government and turn us into a giant banana republic and then kick them all out as soon as their new government was installed. Gee, too bad it's not bedtime, maybe I'd get to dream about it. In a dream it'd be possible to kick them out of state governments too, something England doesn't have.

You know, I actually think our government has performed rather magnificently, even before considering that it was created by men who couldn't imagine the enormous revolutions to come, a world of satellite communications, antibiotics and dialysis, computer phones in our pockets, etc. The form of our government is wonderful. We The People are its great weakness, and that our founders understood full well.

It does need some tweaking. Particularly regarding the use of freedom of speech to take over a nation in an age of mass communications.

[Cha]

4. Hmmm I've thought of that, too. We need our voices heard

Thank you, Bill Moyers!

Thanks, mnhtnbb

[KewlKat]

6. I like that idea. To bad it won't happen.

Too bad the person with the most votes isn't going to be President once again. Too bad MI votes weren't counted in Detroit.......

[zippythepinhead]

8. I say to Trump what McConnel said about Obama

I hope trump fails. Filibuster, filibuster, filibuster should be the democrats mantra.

[mnhtnbb]

9. IMO Dems really need to come together to provide a united resistance

to the Trump regime. All the negative energy being put out blaming and finger pointing
needs to be harnessed for a positive response going forward to thwart the damage
that Trump is going to do to this country.

We need to focus on the future and the idea of a shadow government is really interesting.

[Sorceress]

10. Very interesting.

I think this idea has potential. Not necessarily in the sense of trying to take over but, rather, a technique to oppose and counter the Trump/Repub regime. We have to find a more effective way of combatting the Repubs. They get away with fake news stories, corruption and lies. Yet, Dems can't even breathe without being brought up for investigation. The double standard has always existed but it has hit an all-time high recently.

We have to become more creative in our strategy. I say give it a go. Unfortunately, I don't think Hillary would ever go for it. She wants to go high and try to unite the country. I get it but Trump cheated and changed the rules. I fear if we keep playing by the old rule book, we will continue to lose.

[mountain grammy]

11. 65 million Democratic voters

plus the apathetic. Surely we can find candidates who can win fucking elections from the ground up. And we better start local, because, it seems, no matter how huge our numbers, we continue to lose. Something is rotten here.

And, the resistance must include support for liberal radio.

To sum up:

Our eyes are upon you, Donald Trump. As we work to protect and better our country, you will hear from us, loud and clear. We will not be complacent and we will not allow the trampling of our republic to go unchallenged.

[mopinko]

19. i have been screaming that. rw radio

is a pox on our democracy the likes of which this country has never seen. traitors all of them. and i hold them exactly responsible for this debacle.

i still hold a grudge against john kerry and the entire class of '04 for failing to take out a single damn election ad on air america.
the whole thing was a scam anyway, i admit. designed to fail.
but jeebus people. this was worth building. it gave us rachel maddow and al franken.
we really need our own radio. those red expanses have nothing but bullshit info to go on.

[Javaman]

13. the right wing racist would go apeshit

it would become open season on anything not white and male.

personally, when tRump gets his ass handed to him in 2020 don't expect the right wing fascists to go away quietly.

they will use his loss as a reason for outright violence.

they are scraping hard for a fight over...what I don't know.

[Coyotl]

15. How about calling it the "Majority Government" instead.

[brooklynite]

17. ...because symbolism isn't important?

We didn't win the Election under the rules we have. We are the opposition until we win another one.

[brooklynite]

16. Nothing wrong with a Shadow Cabinet...

It allows the opposition Party to assemble knowledgeable people to represent the Party's positions on critical issues, and provides a framework for a future Cabinet when the Party wins an election.

HOWEVER, it should not be Clinton's Shadow Cabinet; she's not our Party Leader at this point, and will likely not be the Democratic nominee in 2020. This would need to be a Party/DNC decision.

[LeftInTX]

26. Agree

[Lifelong Protester]

18. I am intrigued by the idea

I would like voices (chosen ones) to voice opposition. But we won't be able to agree on who chooses, I fear.
A shadow government should be chosen by to opposition. Is that HRC?

[mnhtnbb]

25. Perhaps it could become a function of the DNC?

[TheFrenchRazor]

20. not a bad idea; i am really tired of repig losers "winning." nt

[Hekate]

21. KnR. Bill Moyers is a great man--it's an interesting idea.

[dooner]

22. The term shadow government

Shadow Government has somewhat shady implications, unless you are already familiar with the British term.
A better name might help it find broader acceptance. How about Alt-gov (ha!) or People's Cabinet..

I think the British system of shadow government is brilliant, but not sure Hillary is the right person to announce it or lead it.
Maybe the new DNC chair (tbd) should be the one to introduce it?

[lonestarnot]

24. You are over here posting at "Democratic Underground" LOL And you are worried about "shadow

government"? LMAO

[dooner]

30. well... laugh all you want but

to serve any useful purpose, a "shadow government" would need to be heard by a broader audience than just Democratic Underground readers.

[lonestarnot]

23. Well I am waiting to hear from her!

[JHan]

28. I really wish we had a parliamentary democracy..

Anyway, we need strong voices and a coming together of purpose, and staying true to core liberal values .

We should be crafting policies and a message to prepare ourselves for the future, not only counter Donald Trump.

First thing: Trump's infrastructure plans: If Democrats capitulate on Trump's pork belly projects and not expose it for what it is I'll be disappointed..