Saturday, September 5, 2020

Can the Democratic Party Landslide the Criminal Tyrant Trump? by Ralph Nader




“Why can't the Democratic Party landslide the serial corporate criminal and government outlaw Donald Trump? He is a servant of Wall Street and, by his deeds favoring the powerful, a proven ‘enemy of the people.’ Why has the Democratic Party been losing again and again at the federal and state level to the worst, cruelest, soft on corporate corruption, war-mongering, anti-worker Republican Party in history?

“The answers are many. The Democratic Party is indentured to monied interests and is incapable of taking responsibility for its losses and mistakes. Democratic operatives resist organized grassroots pressure and the party excludes/punishes any dissent inside its ranks. The shrinking trade unions that have historically pushed the Democratic Party are increasingly content with crumbs for workers and afraid of union members who have swallowed the Trump lies.

“The two-party duopoly and an electoral system that obstructs challengers from smaller parties lets the Democratic Party stagnate. Unfortunately, the fate of the nation and our Constitutional Republic is in its hands. Joe Biden should be thirty points ahead in the polls against the delusional, falsifying, lawless, selected occupant of the White House who spends most of his time tweeting insults, lies, and fictional accusations when he isn't watching the Fox News adoring bloviators. Instead, Biden's lead is in single digits and he is having a hard time getting the offensive Trump on the defense. Here are some suggestions for the Democratic Party's quivering leaders:
  1. Organize a mass demand for Trump/Pence to Step Aside and let experienced pandemic scientists and managers run the federal response to Covid-19, saving tens of thousands of lives and allowing the economy to recover. Trump's Virus, spreading daily owing to Trump's bungling, fabricating, quackering, chaos, denials, and grinding government scientists through his ignorant, ego-obsessed shredders, requires such a demand. It will encourage more people and state and local governments to be more assertive and insist on professional management and critical coordination by Washington.
There are many Republicans in Congress who privately dread how the daily Trump Virus Show is diminishing their own electoral poll numbers.
  1. Stop Coddling, Aiding, and Abetting Corporate Crooks who are cheating and endangering the health/safety of red state and blue state Americans alike. Demand Law and Order enforcement and greater funding for the corporate crime police. By massively dismantling government law enforcement, Trump is intensifying the corporate crime wave with subsidies, handouts, bailouts, and huge tax escapes. How's that for putting Big Business over Main Street? Let them steal, let them pollute, let them park their profits in tax havens abroad are elements of the Trumpian mantra which he brazenly applies to his own business interests.

  2. Stop Trump from committing big-time violations of our Constitution and our federal laws in order to deepen his dictatorial regime. Trump illegally uses federal employees and property to promote his political campaign – a federal crime under the Hatch Act. He seizes the ‘power of the purse’ from Congress, spending money for unauthorized domestic and foreign objectives thereby violating the criminal statute known as the Anti-Deficiency Act. He fires prosecutors and Inspectors General closing in on his and his crony's crimes and egregious misdeeds.
Take on Trump when he declares phony national emergencies to grab more dictatorial powers making him the largest national emergency of them all. Trump makes it easy for the Democrats when he declares ‘I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.’ Nixon was about to be impeached and convicted in 1974, before he resigned, for a tiny fraction of what the Democrats are letting Trump get away with.
  1. Announce it is time to Vote Trump Out and Vote in the long-overdue Pay Raise. Ending the freeze on the $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage and raising some 25 million workers' wages to $15 per hour would answer the question: ‘Whose Side are You On?’  The House of Representatives has passed a $15 an hour minimum wage bill, though with a long implementation schedule. The Republican Senate, however, blocks passage and it has blocked the $600 a week relief payment to many millions of Americans without jobs due to Trump's Virus.
Shouldn't the Democrats make these contrasting, notorious corporate-driven cruelties more vivid, and more front and center? Repetition is what reaches people who are numb to years of empty rhetoric and who want authenticity. Comparing Walmart's CEO making $12,000 an hour while many of his workers languish well under $15 per hour sharpens what should be the authentic contrast between the Republicans and Democrats.
  1. Make Mitch McConnell, the self-styled ‘Grim Reaper’ toady of big business, who buries scores of good bills passed by the House, the number two Ogre in the campaign. The evil McConnell is the worst suffocator of necessities for the American people, their children, and retirees in American congressional history. The Democrats have listed scores of bills under McConnell's chokehold – such as protections for poor children, fragile worker and retiree pensions (including those for coal miners in his state of Kentucky), lowering drug prices and expanding health care coverage, controlling climate disasters – to name a few. Yet, once again, they have not made ‘Moscow Mitch's’ record (including blocking safeguards for election security and voter's rights) vocal, vivid, and front of center. The Democrats certainly have the campaign money to do so.
The arrogant McConnell is up for re-election against a hyper-cautious conservative Democratic opponent. Democrats should take McConnell's pompous boast ‘The one thing I get to do that the other 99 /Senators/ don't get to do, is decide what we're going to do.’ and flood Kentucky with the truth about this malicious, destructive tyrant of the Senate and his  200 confirmed right-wing and corporate judges. McConnell's lapdog delivery of the Senate has made possible Trump's monarchical drive to repeal the American Revolution against Kings and for ‘a new birth of freedom.’
  1. Last November, 61% of women in a national CNN poll wanted Trump impeached and convicted. Certainly, on their minds was Trump's long history of being a publicly bragging sexual predator and a terrible example for boys and young men. Over twenty brave women have come forward with credible accusations of sexual assaults by lying Donald. Why aren't the Democrats making this a campaign issue and making Trump pay a political price for such disgusting outrages? Democrats can turn the Republican Party's campaigns on ‘values’ against Trump and his apologists.

  2. The Democratic Party must choose to stand with the people by presenting a solemn covenant that improves all the livelihoods of all Americans and addresses the widespread anxiety, dread, and fear where they live, work, and raise their families. Help make people's dreams of a secure, fulfilling future a reality. This specific covenant would show that the Democratic Party stands for much more specific changes than not being Trump. Make it vivid and memorable, including empowering the people in distinct ways.
“If you like these suggestions, add some of your own, and call or email Democratic National Chairman Tom Perez, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the House Democratic Caucus leader Hakeem Jeffries” (Ralph Nader).

To Contact Chairman Tom Perez
Visit: https://democrats.org/contact-us/
or call (202) 863-8000

To Contact Members of Congress, call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121




2 comments:

  1. #8

    (CNN) “The Senate Intelligence Committee released Tuesday [August 18] the most comprehensive and meticulous examination to date explaining how Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election and the Trump campaign welcomed the foreign adversary's help, revealing new information about contacts between Russian officials and associates of President Donald Trump during and after the campaign.

    “In several key ways, the committee's counterintelligence investigation goes beyond the findings of former special counsel Robert Mueller released last year, as the Republican-led Senate panel was not limited by questions of criminality that drove the special counsel probe. Among the key findings:

    • That then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort was working with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian intelligence officer, and sought to share internal campaign information with Kilimnik. The committee says it obtained 'some information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected' to Russia's 2016 hacking operation and concludes Manafort's role on the campaign 'represented a grave counterintelligence threat.'

    • That Trump and senior campaign officials sought to obtain advance information on WikiLeaks' email dumps through Roger Stone, and that Trump spoke to Stone about WikiLeaks, despite telling the special counsel in written answers he had 'no recollections' that they had spoken about it.

    • That information offered at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting 'was part of a broader influence operation' from the Russian government, though there's no evidence Trump campaign members knew of it. Two of the Russians who met with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Manafort had 'significant connections' to the Russian government, including Russian intelligence, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya's ties were 'far more extensive and concerning than what had been publicly known.'

    • That Russian-government actors continued until at least January 2020 to spread disinformation about Russia's election interference, and that Manafort and Kilimnik both sought to promote the narrative that Ukraine, and not Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

    • That Russia took advantage of the Trump transition team's inexperience and opposition to Obama administration policies 'to pursue unofficial channels,' and it's likely that Russian intelligence services and others acting on the Kremlin's behalf exploited the Transition's shortcomings for Russia's advantage.

    • That the FBI may have been victim to Russian disinformation coming through intelligence sources such as the Trump dossier author Christopher Steele.

    • And that campaigns, political leaders and other influential Americans must be even more diligent in the future not to fall victim to Russian interference, given the extent of Russia's efforts and successes to reach campaign operatives in 2016.

    “The report is all the more remarkable because it was led by then-Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, and Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia. The report provides an exhaustive, bipartisan confirmation of the contacts between Russians and Trump associates in 2016 -- and it was the only congressional committee that managed to avoid the partisan infighting that plagued the other congressional investigations into Russian election meddling…”

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  2. There are 251 articles about Trump ("Drumpf") on this blog to date. They provide thousands of reasons why Biden should win by a landslide. Perhaps the Democratic Party leaders should read them.

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