Here’s the playbook for beating Trump
Dear Editor:
The Trump administration has shown us how much damage malfeasant or stupid occupants of the White House and the executive branch can do, just by exercising the power vested there: through executive orders, control of that branch’s workforce, etc.
Now the “Christian” right is fantasizing that Trump is a Godsent “wise king” guiding us to safety through his towering personal leadership.
Western civilization has spent the last 500 bloody years painfully discovering something better: government based on ethical concepts, like the common good and the inherent rights of the individual, which must be populated by adults who govern using reason based on facts, guided by those concepts. We have less than two years to prepare to dispose of these nihilists who have been vandalizing our country and threatening that wiser vision of government of, by and for a free society.
The Democratic party must avoid having a few dozen candidates exhaust their energy and money in the primary season, trying to cater to all interests based on polling analysis from party-supplied handlers — lest some weak, or weakened, candidate faces Donald Trump, who, unprimaried per GOP party orders, has been gleefully watching the Democrats waste resources while busy finding themselves again.
When the latest Democratic national chairman took office, there was publicized party conversation about whether platform matters. It does. Being a member of a group means nothing; it’s about what you and your group do.
We need to know what we’re running on, and converge quickly on the candidate and campaign best equipped to prevail on that basis against GOP money and tactics. We win office to eliminate the existential threat to our national security and interests, and then deliver better government than they have. Platform suggestions: 1. Trump’s “base” voted for him because the deregulated, trickle-down economy hasn’t served their interests since Reagan and Thatcher birthed it 40 years ago; they only noticed now. They and the other nonupscale public are still looking for what FDR gave their grandparents: access to opportunity, and an economy stable enough to let them earn and keep modest comfort.
But the wealth in industry and infrastructure they should have inherited from the postwar economic boom has been squandered or stolen. U.S. companies eliminated or offshored the jobs they should have had, to cut costs and maximize short-term returns for investors. Right-wing debt queens block useful public spending by tub-thumping that only private-sector solutions are politically correct and will produce “small government”.
2. The systems of multilateral relations like the UN and NATO we developed with other countries after World War II have provided the best framework yet for solving conflicts peacefully. They avoid the war and chaos created by carving up the world into “spheres of influence,” as on the eve of World War I, which the Russians and Chinese are now eager to resurrect. International collaboration best serves our national interest.
3. The carbon-burning economy needs to end, now. No replacing CO2 from coal with CO2 from biofuels. The energy industry can retool to deliver power from clean renewables, or be replaced. Politicians need to find a spine and tell the public that our lifestyles will become more modest, but more sustainable, as we end the habits of extravagant consumption, waste and pollution enabled by 350 years of stealing other peoples’ resources under colonialism, and stop pursuing the re-emergent fantasy of social class. Any discomfort that may cause will be unnoticeable compared to the chaos that will ensue if we fail to act, now. Johannes Sayre
Kingston