Let the Election of 2016 be the burial of Post Partisan politics practiced solely by the Democrats

[Bill USA]

There has been considerable discussion about how the Disaster of 2016 happened. One item that I have not seen mentioned is the Post Partisan Faith as practiced by President Obama. In the latter part of 2009 and into 2010 many of us Democrats were getting very confused, wondering which side of the aisle President Obama sat on. This confused many Democrats and continued throughout his administration. I think this lead to voters confusion as to what the Democratic Party stood for. I think this played a part in the election results.

I hope that in the new year we can pronounce this 'Post Partisan' politics fantasy as dead and gone. This has to be done to establish clearly what the Democratic Party stands for -- the working people of America are the strength of America.


Democrats must own their values, Tea Party-style, not shift even more toward the mushy middle

There’s a tradition in Beltway circles that whenever the Democrats suffer a harrowing electoral defeat, it’s because their party didn’t do enough to win moderate voters. This tradition also dictates that when such losses occur, the Democrats can correct the problem only by shifting rightward.

On the other hand, when the Republicans suffer a big loss, as they did in 2008, the conventional wisdom mandates that their party reach out, not to the middle, but to its right flank.

In practice, this dynamic rarely works for the Democrats and almost always works for the Republicans. But as we endlessly debate the best route forward, it’s crucial to bear the following in mind: First, Hillary Clinton is closing in on Barack Obama’s margin of victory in 2012, even though she’s not the winner of the Electoral College.

Second, if 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin had gone the other way, Clinton would be the president-elect today and the postmortem discussions would feature garment rending over the destruction of the Republican Party at the hands of Trump and his coalition of deplorables. In other words, the consternation over what to do about the Democratic Party wouldn’t exist but for a wafer-thin margin.

[font size="3"]This is all to say the alleged Democratic apocalypse is overblown, at least in terms of major glitches within the party. The shift in Republican control over state legislatures, governorships and the U.S. Congress is less a consequence of the Democratic platform and more about the rise of conservative media, conservative propaganda and, yes, fake news. The dominance of Fox News and talk radio among older GOP voters has clearly escalated a backlash at the state and local level against the ascendancy of President Barack Obama, thus weaponizing the political tradition of counterbalancing the party of the president with the opposition party. This effort has been greatly aided by a GOP that’s learned to actively embrace its fringes and the social conservatism that plays best in the heartland.[/font]
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