The Democrats are generally deluded in their belief that the current level of taxes on the middle-class is politically sustainable. In Hilary Clinton's speech announcing her candidacy she said that the middle class pays too much taxes. She never mentioned a middle-class tax cut again. Presumably, due to pressure from Sanders who pushed her to the left, which severely hurt her chances. Most Democratic politicians are not aware that, by far the best thing government could do for most middle-class households would be to lower their taxes. Thus, in many cases middle-class households will grasp at any chance they think could lower their tax burden and support candidates who promise them a tax cut, no matter how odious the candidates might be otherwise..."
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4067359
5
If Russia really did help Trump win election, we owe Russia a huge debt of gratitude.
2
Justice Democrats is a progressive entity looking to take over the Democratic party. Ousting the establishment will not be easy, but it WILL be done. There is little room for corporate Democrats, they gave us tRump and they must be replaced. The first one to go will be Diane Fienstien. She is not at all progressive and has been in office too long. Alison Hartson will be the new Senator from California and she will win with a Bernie Sanders style campaign and message.
12
Beating Trump on social topics is easy. If "The Resistance" wants to actually get serious about beating Trump, they need to also offer voters an economic advantage, something the Democrats certainly don't do. It should be easy; Trump straight-up sucks at following through on his promises to the working class and quickly disappearing middle class.
17
I simply cannot say more than I've already said. Yes, Americans who voted for Trump made a disastrous choice and we are all paying for it.
Yes, there was a critical mass of Russian propaganda, white rage, anti-Clinton fervor and Trump seen as a change agent or merely a way of protest.
We are where we are as things crumble around us. There can be no sane person denying that the Russians weaponized what they could to sway the election in Trump's favor. They knew a useful idiot when they found one and probably used his greed to lure him and the crime family he assembled into dreams of further riches.
All is under investigation and will be revealed as to what was collusion, corruption and impeachable.
The trouble is, what are our options. I am not going to donate to any campaigns because I did that and nothing changed for the better.
We are stuck but for Mueller's investigation but what about the GOP supporting Trump still for their selfish tax cut and power grabs.
I don't see much light from the Dem side and the horrors of the GOP are well known.
I see the kleptocracy growing because many are now riding that train. I see the soul of this country mortally wounded.
Resistance is fine but it needs teeth, not nicey-nicey.
23
Mr. Blow, you don't need to save the country from Trump. The stock market is up, the jobs are up, the confidence is up, and the quarterly growth is 3%. Whoever is offended by his Twitter activity can simply unfollow it. Same for whoever hate the president, they can tune it out and wait for 2020 to cast their next vote.
This being said, in this article, you prove to be nothing but a soldier for Crooked Hillary, not for a new and uncorrupt Democratic Party.
You keep bemoaning the corruption of Trump's administration, but keep making excuses for the corruption of Hillary and wish Wiki Leaks and Donna Brazile hid the truth for the sake of "the cause." How are you better than the people you deplore? You are shamelessly worse.
26
As far as I'm concerned and the the majority of those who voted in the last presidential election Hilary Clinton would have been an outstanding president for the entire country. The political steps she took to help ensure her nomination and election are no different than what has happened in the past in the Republican as well as the Democratic parties. For example, we consider J.F.K. a martyr, but it's known that his father bought the nomination for his son. The vilifying of Mrs. Clinton is due to a great extent to the fact that our country is still male dominated, and the reason Mrs. Clinton has been able to succeed as much as she has is partly due to the fact that she is a tough politician. In a addition to that, however, is the most important fact that she has dedicated her life to liberal causes supporting the middle class and particularly the welfare of children and minorities. The Democratic leadership should not allow Trump to undermine Mrs. Clinton and the accomplishments of the Democratic Party with distractions intended to coverup his lies and destructive leadership which is destroying our country.
15
Love it how Blow skirts around the issue. He talks about "direct democracy". Yet, Brazille detailed how the DNC was a pawn of the Hillary campaign who raised money on its behalf in return for unfettered control.
Trump was not elected because of Russia. He wasn't elected because of Hillary's feinting or breech of classified information in her emails. Rather, Trump was elected because the "Liberalism has leapt over the Democratic Party".
Debbie Wasserman Schultlz - former head of the DNC, who was replaced by Brazille because Shultz was too close to the Hillary campaign (that's a laugh !) - was famously asked to explain the difference between the current Democrats and Socialism. She hemmed and hawed but offered no answer. No, liberals aren't in favor of public ownership of the means of production (except in healthcare, education ... maybe banks). Instead, they promote the idea of a Class War where those who failed to get an education or get married before having kids have decided that they are entitled to take everything from those who did make the right choices. That's the idea behind Marxism. And in case you've forgotten your history, it led to the Bolshevik Revolution where millions died. Is that really what people want ?
13
I see four more years of Trump. While the Dems argue.
Donna Brazile is an opportunist who when kicked out of her commentators role on CNN, thought writing this book would be the next best way to mint money. Maybe now Fox will sign her on.
She should get her facts straight first. Bernie was offered the same deal that HRC was. As we all know Bernie is not a real democrat. He wanted to be president and didn't care much for the party. That's why he couldn't be bothered to raise money for the party and didn't really want the deal. We all know he raised a lot of money but it was all for himself. How much of that was spent to elect other democrats, whether it's candidates for the Senate, House or the State assemblies?
Democrats should stay focused on Trump. Stop him from inflicting harm and destroying the country. Stop looking back. Enough of the divisiveness. Look forward to 2018 and 2020, and build winning strategies to take the House, the Senate and the WH back. Time is running out.
15
After running a terrible campaign for Gore in 2000, in which she snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, Donna Brazile now -- to save her own shoddy reputation -- makes common cause with the non-Democratic activists who supported an Independent for the Democratic Party's nomination. Since when must a national party be silent as to who best represents the vision of the party? And why is it strange that a Democratic organization would hope to see a Democrat nominated?
9
Lots of people here slamming Donna Brazile, just because she exposed the ugly truth. Interesting how many readers seem to know the story, considering the Times chose not to cover it until Saturday night - always he hottest night for sure traffic.
16
But didn’t Hillary’s campaign buy the DNC last year? There’s been no word of them having sold it, so we must assume the Clintons still effectively control the Democratic party. A disastrous situation for a party with ambitions of reclaiming power.
Who needs a GOP when “our” side is so good at screwing ourselves over?
All sorts of liars, charlatans, buffoons and manipulators out there in the various media spaces, on both right and left, motivated by self-interest, vanity and spite.
Now, if we can just get Sanders the courage to leave the Democratic Party and take his followers with him. ie….burn down the forest in order to make way for greener pastures.
4
All this handwringing over how the nasty the DNC was out to get Bernie Sanders is pure hyperbole in the context of political campaigns. Do what they may, Sanders made genuine inroads, but not enough to win the game. And it's all about winning. One could add that the Lefter-than-thou extreme was equally nasty and unfair to Mrs Clinton; foolishly so, and dangerously so as things turned out. To the Russian hackers and the nastiness of Assange, you can add them to the mix that fought foully to rout Mrs Clinton. The leaders of the DNC are also politicians and stakeholders, and have a right to evaluate who has the best chance of winning. Bernie ran his campaign his own way, isolating himself from the mainstream, which was rather whimsical in terms of how America in its entirety is governed, and considering that Obama was characatured as a communist! As to the Democrats, while it would be more than nice (as it's more than necessary) to secure the cooperation of the left-end of the party in order to unify it into a cohesive force, the entire spectrum, old/young, Left and Lefter, needs to be accommodated under one tent. Otherwise, farewell to fond dreams of a liberal progressive society, hello to endless civic distress and eventual dsytopia. This is a country that has always been patched together (or patched-over) by ideological compromises, a fantastical hybrid, a chimera. No purist ideology will take control, unless it is one on the far right end of the spectrum.
8
Charles: I challenge you to write a column that examines why and how the GOP preserves unity. There are many factions of the GOP-- rich corporate types, evangelicals, gun nuts. In some ways, those factions have even less in common with each other than democrats do within our party. And yet they have gained incredible traction-- to the detriment of our nation. Dems on the other hand have seemingly no unity. They cannibalize each other; focus on issues of close to zero significance (transgender bathrooms to name one); provide the enemy (trump) with talking points against OUR party (IE donna and elizabeth last week); eat our young (blasting the bernie bros versus trying to get them out to vote); have leaders publicly hang out with celebrities like Bruce and Beyonce instead of finding our own Joe the Plumber; leadership which ignores the very important matters that prevent us from winning-- the undemocratic EC, the 435 member ceiling in the House of Reps; electoral continuity among states, an out of control right wing propaganda machine, ETC. More Americans want the stuff that democrats believe in: a secure retirement for workers, strong public education system, concern for the environment, reasonable gun control. And yet we do not WIN. The GOPs platforms and plans are completely out of step with most of us and yet they WIN. Why? What can we do about this? Where is our UNITY?
7
Too bad you and the rest of the editorial board helped carry the water for Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Madam secretary couldn't get elected dog catcher if for no other reason than the coats of villainy the right wing had painted her with for over twenty years. We wanted Bernie, but you gave us every reason why that was impossible...the same way it was impossible for Trump to be elected. Oh well.
16
The democrats should treat Trump as a catastrophic national emergency and come together to get rid of him, all hands on deck. Enough re-litigating the election, Clinton's dismal campaign, Brazil's this, Biden's that, the corruption of the DNC.
Defeating Trump and the republican Congress should be top, secondary and tertiary priority. There should be no other goal than to rid ourselves of this awful nightmare.
And, by the way, where is Obama?
12
It's not the Democratic Party that's broken, it's our electoral system.
When a candidate can win the popular vote by millions of votes and still lose the Presidency due to an antiquated Electoral College that gives disproportionate power to low-population rural areas, and which was created specifically to prevent a demagogue from gaining the Presidency but abrogates that duty, it's the system that's broken.
When shadowy entities that serve as fronts for oligarchs like the Koch Brothers and the Mercers can funnel millions of dollars to candidates of both parties, preventing any candidate not tainted from getting on the ballot, it's the system that's broken.
When legitimate doubt can be raised about the integrity of electronic voting, with suspicious results that contradict what polls in the area predicted just days before, and always favoring one party over the other, it's the system that's broken.
What we need is not so much a new party as a complete reform of the electoral process, from funding through the counting of votes. That, incidentally, was one thing Bernie had right. Unfortunately, the people who would be charged with reforming the system are the very people who benefit from it just the way it is.
24
It is very interesting to read the comments today. It is a microcosmic view of the problems facing the Democratic party, which is self-delusion.
Yes, the Russians systematically used disinformation to disrupt our election.
Yes, it is possible that the Trump campaign may have actively participated in that disruption. If that is proven, the players should be prosecuted to the max.
These outrages provide a convenient excuse for Democrats to avoid looking in the mirror when figuring out the cause of our national catastrophe. By nominating Hillary Clinton, the Democrats asked the American people to choose for the first time a woman as their president WHILE IGNORING THE FOLLOWING:
*she is the spouse of a former 2-term president. While this may be legal, it nonetheless smacks of Eva Peron and Imelda Marcos as a tactic to avoid the 22nd Amendment. It also (rightly) thenrequires her to justify the actions of her husband-president.
*she can easily be cast as the paid shill of Wall Street
*she is associated with the Clinton Foundation which can easily be cast as an extortion device
*she had no tangible proposals to address the ongoing destruction of the American middle class, the fundamental election issue
* the impact of the Access Hollywood tapes was watered down by her husband's behavior history which is, if anything, more repugnant.
If the Democratic party continues to nominate such candidates, they will continue to lose.
21
"...many of us are crestfallen when any obstacle is added that might impede that effort."
There seem to be a lot of "progressives" who aren't crestfallen at all. Why is that?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article182458866.html
---
A liberal activist group on Thursday labeled Ralph Northam’s campaign "racist," criticizing the Virginia Democrat running for governor a day after he declared that he would not support "sanctuary cities" for undocumented immigrants. ...(Democracy for America) went on to say the Northam campaign was running "the same old, broken, and racist playbook that lost Democrats over 1000 elected offices since 2008." The statement, issued Thursday night, drew a swift and strong rebuke from many Democrats and liberals, including its founder, Howard Dean, who blasted the statement as "incredibly stupid” and one that “discredits” the group.
---
(Yet isn't a faction of progressives critical of Dem view on immigration, as seen in NYT comments?)
From The Daily Beast: "We’ve seen this movie too many times. Don’t blame us if Northam loses, DFA will scream; blame his unprincipled campaign! When someone loses a campaign, people can always point to a dozen factors, and sure, Northam hasn’t run a strong race. But all that is irrelevant to the question at hand. The question at hand is what “principle” DFA thinks it’s advancing by making this kind of showboat move less than a week before an election."
thebea.st/2zgpuCC?source=twitter&via=mobile
2
I would start with the word, Trump.
Democrats have to out trump, Trump.
=============================
They have to come up with their own comic book characters that instantly connect with the media and with the people.
What propelled Trump was his name and his comic book character and his cell phone Tweets. The Democrats still don't get this. Obama and Hillary rambled on and on and they lost the voters. The NY Times did the same thing, with its endless ramblings, on and on.
We remember Trump and his Tweets, because they are short and shocking.
===========================================================
Why can't Democrats wake up? When will they start to impact the media?
3
The 'New' Democratic Party is the party of identity politics, each day further dividing and angering a nation that's growing very weary of being told that practically everything that it says, does and even thinks is racist, homophobic, misogynistic and xenophobic. As long as these priorities are the driving elements of 'new' Democrat doctrine Charles, I suspect that election victories and the power that they deliver to implement 'new beginnings' may be a tad more difficult to come by than you imagine.
8
Charles, I chuckle at your feeble attempt to show courage - "my focus now is on protecting the country from Tump..". Really? And, you quote a liberal-biased publication - Newsweek - to justify your belief that Trump is the most corrupt, etc., etc.?
What truly amazes me though, is your delusional belief that the Resistance is strong and resolute when Brazille's book and DNC's inability to raise enough cash and win seats at the local, state and federal level is abysmal. You may want to reconsider how well positioned you guys are...
9
If a majority can make a mistake then it is a mistake to let the majority decide. Where does that leave Democracy then? Kind of puts us in an embarrassing spot, I imagine.
3
Repeating the same diatribe about Trump for the umpteenth time with limited mention of the Democratic Party's very real issues and problems renders the headline of this column misleading in terms of it's connection to the actual content. Some of us are waiting patiently for columnists like Blow to write an article that is 100% about the Democratic Party righting itself and solving the Trump/Republican Majority problem through the most realistic channel that exists. Winning elections! Donna Brazile has done us a favor. Yes now is the time to address the problems of the DNC. Yesterday or last week or last month would have been better though.
13
It all comes down to finding the next president. Ideally, someone with the same broad appeal of Obama, probably late 40s or early 50s in age. I don't see this person right now. Who will it be? Hope he or she steps forward soon.
7
Russians didn't cost Hillary the election. She and the DNC did that all by themselves.
And American liberalism is morally bankrupt, in no position to 'resist' anything after they championed the same policies as Trump's.
Donald Trump is just like President Obama where it counts.
Like Obama, Trump ran on a platform of ending the war in Afghanistan and bringing the troops home. And, just like Obama, he lied.
His military strategy is just like Obama's, just with even more bombs.
Trump has shown little to no variance from Obama when it comes to broader counterterrorism efforts.
Draconian surveillance laws? Once again that barbarous orange monster is trying to keep stuff the same...as under Obama.
Trump wants to deport illegals, just more, so he can beat Obama's record as deporter-in-chief.
Trump derides the press yet Obama prosecuted more whistleblowers, leakers and journalists than all previous presidents combined.
Trump's right-wing healthcare plan is an extension of Obama's recycled right-wing healthcare plan from the 80s that was produced by the Heritage Foundation, whose main funders are the Koch brothers and Exxon Mobil.
Trump wants to kill innocent civilians with heinous, illegal drone strikes, just a tad more so he can beat Obama's record there, too.
Tax cuts for the rich? Obama made Bush tax cuts permanent.
etc. etc.
Trump is not destroying Obama's legacy, he's expanding it.
And all you Obama/Clinton sycophants are the reason Tump is in the WH now, not the Russians.
10
Don't forget about voter suppression and the redistricting of voters in most states to favor Republicans. It is a steep hill we climb to achieve change.
15
I’m not Sure what Mr. Blow wants other than impeachment. He still can’t get over his chosen candidate who understood the workings of the White house after eight years with Bill, elected senator from New York, and appointed Secretary of State, could possibly lose. To make things more horrible for him, she lost to a self-promoting, braggartly, reality show host. Oh My!!! He wants to believe that the Russians did it. But Comey said there was no evidence there was any cooperation with Trump, and could find no evidence that even one vote was changed by the Russian activity. So far Mr. Mueller has not reported anything else. In fact, he seems to center on Money Laundering that had already been investigated four years ago by the FBI and has no connection to the election. There was a a report he is looking to something else that has no connection to the election for Turkey. Mr. Blow might want to read Shattered or Donna Brazil’s book to see why the election was lost. It sounds a little like Mr. Blow would like a third Party made up with an Alt. Left group like Warren and Sanders. Other than that, there doesn’t seem to be any real point to the Op-Ed except to blow off steam about being wrong about last year’s election.
6
"Liberalism has leapt over the Democratic Party. Liberalism has its eye on a new beginning, while the mainstream party is stuck looking backward and bickering. The Resistance isn’t part of the old Democratic Party; The Resistance is the new Democratic Party, or at least its future."
Thank you Mr. Blow for acknowledging the changes to come. The rigor of birth is difficult, painful, and often, with regret for the events that led to the process. Nevertheless, what emerges is something to nurture, grow and launch into the world. For better or worse, we could not have gotten to this place without the current Democratic Party, to whom we owe thanks. We also need them to open their arms. If not, step back and let the future be realized.
13
The Democratic Party and the Republican Party have become captives of minorities of the electorate able to control each with agendas which are not supported by a majority of the electorates. The Democrats support justice for minorities, non-conformists, and women while disparaging all who disagree with them on those and on many other issues from abortion to gun ownership, meanwhile keeping silent about issues arising from global economic issues and the challenges of changing demographics. FDR kept together a vast diversity of groups by focusing upon some common concerns and catering to some rather despicable ones like segregation in the South. The current Democratic Party has become so insular that they just cater to their base without any effort to bring more into the tent. If people are pro-life but want to resolve economic disparities and care for the needs of all with social support programs, they are rejected out of hand. If people live in rural areas and do not feel the need to eliminate guns from the country or to restrict them until they become useless to anyone, they are rejected out of hand. The Party is becoming an exclusive club.
2
The boor is insufferable, Mr Blow. He and his ilk who deign to lead free people into a corporate fiefdom . are . to . be . reviled. To that legacy, I say "God speed".
Thanks to our free press, the catalog of every self-dealing malfeasance shapens a patriot's sword. The louts will fall, and honest service will be a patriot's shield.
Those with authenticity should aspire to the selfless service of leadership, Mr Blow. Ms Brazile's account was rendered useless when she agreed to nondisclosure. An introspective "firing a shot across that bow" of Party pridefulness was undone when she succumbed to her publisher's call to "Aim lower".
Even a lost opportunity can be a lesson about those snakes who will arrive with the temptations to elevate one's pride.
1
That's some mighty fine hand-wringing, Mr. Blow. And it seems to have been written un-ironically, as if we haven't had hundreds of the same indignant editorial in the last year. I don't suppose you or others of the Democratic intelligentsia have any actual ideas to fix this horrorshow? The party has let half of the time between the 2016 elections and the 2018 elections elapse without so much as one significant announcement regarding its plans or platform. If this is the best we can do, we won't be winning many elections and honestly, won't deserve to.
8
So you've got someone who puts out a book explaining what's wrong with the party that caused us to vote for someone else, and /your/ idea is keeping it quiet? Looks like it's going to be a long decade.
11
You don’t understand Brazile at all. If you’re still defending Hillary Clinton, you’re part of the old Democratic Party.
16
I have come back to town to vote tomorrow for Northam, but he has been a very weak candidate not really running for anything except that he's old school democrat which I don't think he actually is, but there's a very real possibility that Gillespie will take Virginia tomorrow, a blue state by eligible voter count, because the leaders of the dems are stuck in the past. If you're not inside the dem party leadership bubble it's startlingly clear that they do not know how to run a campaign and win. They need to run on issues and create excitement. None of that has happened. That's how Obama won. I hope that Brazile's book does burn down the old party establishment as it has shown no instinct for evolving.
5
I’m looking forward to the time when internet shopping brings down my little bricks & mortar establishment— probably next June when the lease runs out.
I’ll be free to be more active— not just in comments & some ancillary activities but in demonstrations, perhaps voter registration in swing states etc.
Right now I can use some help - anyone a sketch artist? I could use your help to flesh out an idea. Here it is, inspired while streaming live feeds of the Women’s March last January:
Think of Lady Liberty, now in a defiant stance, her torch aimed forward with the flame burning bright into the darkness before her.
At the front edge of this darkness is a braying head of Trump. Behind him are his followers like Bannon, Gorka, maybe a shirtless Putin on horseback, & the others complicit in this attempt to end our democracy.
Lady Liberty is not alone: she’s supported by a scrum of people, many with pink hats, others with green cards in their pockets & many others still. The scrum of people has each upon the shoulders of others, echoing the shape of the soldiers raising the Flag at Iwo Jima.
About the canvas would be vignettes of earlier efforts in our History- perhaps the Signers of the Declaration of Independence looking up from the table in alarm, & others: Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address, Martin Luther King & his Freedom marchers at Selma etc
I can’t draw or even read my own handwriting. If we can sketch it out, maybe someone can take it from there.
5
Haiku for Charles
You are a bright light
In the encroaching darkness
Keep shining for all
6
American voters had lousy choices presented to them by two corrupt political parties. These parties risk falling into obscurity because 45% of the voters now represent themselves as independent.
No, a year ago, at least for me, the choice was: not voting for Hillary and Clinton, Inc.; or, voting for Trump. I chose the later for two reasons:
1) Payback for treatment of Bernie Sanders; and, 2) of the two terrible candidates, Trump seemed most likely to accomplish little and thereby cause the least harm.
Hillary pushed the health care mandate while looking the other way when insurers jacked up premiums. And, she would have found some way approve the TPP regardless of public opinion. To her, we're just a bunch of illiterate rubes. She's special, don't you know.
9
I am an “old line” democratic party person, having served as chair of our county democratic party in Missoula, MT. I am also a liberal. I was elected to our city council here. I supported and voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary and general election. I now have adopted Bernie Sanders’ and Elizabeth Warren’s policy platform. I even have a “resist” bumper sticker on my car.
I know that news is defined by conflict, but I am quite hopeful that there are democrats like myself who are willing to change and move in a more liberal direction.
8
It would be more useful to encourage people to be leaders instead of resisters. The Democratic Party needs to understand this if they are to be successful going forward. Democrats should not define their identity as the resistance to Republicans.
Better to fight for something than to fight against things. Those that only know how to fight against something are lost, or at best complacent, when the fight is over. Their purpose is over. Resistance is not a goal.
Those that know how to lead know their work is never done because there is always more to improve and learn. We need to look toward where we want to be, not what we don't want to be, and not longing for a past that will never be again.
8
Hillary Clinton's nomination sealed the Democratic Party's fate. The baggage she carried (emails, her husband, her Senate voting record, Benghazi, ect.) led to the most monumental loss in the history of American politics. ANYBODY else could have defeated the ignorant fool that is now our President. And she still has a voice in the party. Its disgusting, and extremely demoralizing, to think about the the current state of affairs.
11
There is little hope for the Democratic party. Instead of uniting against a common foe, indeed the most dangerously subversive enemy the United States has ever had (meaning Donald Trump), the Democrats are too busy fighting among each other to mount a cogent defense. Of course what happened to Bernie was indefensible, but the need to unite and fight this monster was clear. Instead, these people acted like petulant children and sat on the sidelines during the election. African Americans could not be motivated to get out and vote in their own self interests and just sat at home. Millennials could not be bothered to get involved because they just didn't care. And even the liberal media, NY Times included, did not start calling out Trump for the liar he was until late into the election. As a result we now have an evil and mentally disturbed man in the White House. If we can't unite to fight this pretender as well as his morally bankrupt supporters, then we deserve the leaders we get.
8
But if this Resistance keeps the party split and confused, guess who wins?
3
If the Democratic Party is to grow stronger, it must stop trying to win away the wealthy supporters of the Republicans. Most everybody recognizes the ills of our country, and that is where democrats must spend their time, finding workable remedies, explaining them in detail and campaigning for their implementation.
3
Hillary didn't know or care that the base of the party wasn't with her. She failed to hear them and accommodate their ideas, dreams and wishes into her message. The result is history.
The Democratic Party can't repeat this mistake in 2018 with a new batch of politicians who don't know or want to know what is going on around them. We need new blood and new ideas to speak clearly the Democratic ideals that have built this country.
9
Facebook is culpable, but so are we. The ease with which so many Americans can believe the preposterous claims of fake news is on us. Russia peddled its contamination to our democracy, but it still required millions of Americans to believe it to be effective. The crime is on Russia, but the dumb is on us.
When millions of Americans cannot see that Russia’s invasion of our democracy was an act of war, the dumb is on us.
When millions of Americans find a murderous thug named Vladimir Putin a more acceptable president than Hillary Clinton, the dumb is on us.
When millions of Americans believe that Hillary Clinton ran a pedophilia ring in the back of a pizza parlor, the dumb is on us.
When millions of Americans vote for a psychological toddler and toady of Russia for president, the dumb is on us.
When millions of Americans believe that Hillary Clinton and not Donald Trump is guilty of money laundering and collusion with Russia, the dumb is on us.
When millions of Americans continue to approve of a narcissistic, grammar challenged, conspiracy theory peddling, bankruptcy producing, Gold Star family attacking, nuclear weapon taunting, small hands projecting, bombastic, bloviating, p-word grabbing con man as their commander in chief, the dumb is on us.
And if millions of Americans believe the formerly sensible and now irresponsible Donna Brazile’s mischaracterization of the Clinton campaign with demonstrably provable fake facts, the dumb is on us.
8
For all the turmoil reported by Brazille, if HRC wins the election it's all water under the bridge, and maybe spun as good strategy.
Men do what Hillary did and it's spun as good strategy, or it's ignored.
Everyone throws the book at HRC for deleting emails, but Bush II gets a pass when he "lost" millions of emails that detailed communications leading up to our WMD rationale to attack in Iraq.
I see hypocrisy, a double standard when it comes to judging Hillary Clinton. If she were a man, she might be described as tenacious, aggressive, doing what it takes to win. Since she is a woman she becomes corrupt and duplicitous.
The reality: She threatens patriarchy. And patriarchy is erecting Trump.
The democratic party needs to keep threatening patriarchy, never fall in line.
10
I await Mr. Mueller's professionalism and honor to calm my nerves and restore my trust in America. I read the NY Times, and I cannot help but get angry every time with all the chicanery of our aristocratic class. We are a class based system even if it's not televised. Those that are disenfranchised know. We do not have a Democracy, but a Republic whose membership falls at each twist and turn. Once we have a princeps civitatis we will have fallen as Rome.
To the teachers of our country, teach the ability to have critical thought to our youth. Forget the state sponsored exams!!!
5
Once again the NYT and its Op-Ed writers call out for a (Bernie Sanders like) savior. One to reanimate the DNC it to its "Peoples Party" past and to cast out the old and establishment chaff.
Yet they offer up again weak mea culpa tea and again ignore their very own hand upon the scale of the election.
Hey NYT, I see you chose to non-cover Donna B's story till you saw, or heard from your Corp., which way to play the story.
As the Mango Menace would say, "Sad!"
8
All true enough, Mr. Blow, and another well-crafted column. It is, however, a tacit acceptance of an utterly failed, utterly corrupt, and utterly cynical two-party system.
5
I am the resistance, and not in words alone, but for the first time, I have become an activist. We must all become activists in any way that is possible for your life. I am also a life-long Democrat and I hope to always be a registered Dem, sans the Clintons. They brought shame and division to the principles of the Democratic party. I agree with Charles Blow. The Resistance is the new Democratic Party.
5
Since the mid-1970's, and due to the unfortunate influence of Jimmy Carter and the Clintons, the national Democratic Party machinery has pushed for the Democratic Party to embrace the 1960's Rockefeller Republican center-right politics.
But the Democratic voters, and especially Baby Boomers, have long been denied their demand for the progressive politics that this country so needs. This demand for progressive politics was made clear in the 2016 election, both by the popularity of Bernie Sanders and the unpopularity of Hillary Clinton among Democrats and independents.
While it is true that Trump stole the election with the help of Russia, it is even more true that Clinton stole the Democratic nomination with the help of the DNC and the disgraced Debbie Wasserman Schultz, which is the primary reason Trump was able to get elected.
The Democrats will be quite successful if they encourage more progressive, secular, pro-science politics, that push the Republicans more towards their fascist, theocratic anti-science, pseudo-economic insanity.
8
The American Democratic Party had it's chance to not only reject Trump corruption but Hillary corruption. They had a candidate with high integrity who was unafraid to take on Wall Street, income inequality, etc...he was a beacon for what the country needs....he had no enemies....YET, only 1 U.S. Senator supported him...everyone went for corrupt Hillary and her total absence of any ideas..her ties to wall street and everything else that smells.... Virtually all Dem Congress supported Hillary...even Warren stayed mute when she could have easily catapulted Sanders to a primary victory in Massachusetts...people like Joy Reid supported Hillary...so did Al Franken...whose politics are aligned with Sanders....the Dem party invited Trump...they are more responsible than anyone for the catastrophe that is Trump.....Susan Sarandon said she would never vote for Hillary and added, "A Trump victory would bring on the revolution more quickly". I agree with her....The Dems are to blame for Trump...they had a great candidate and they chose a corrupt scoundrel. Just as dumb as Republicans who supported Trump
6
In order to improve the Democratic party and give us a chance to get out from under the leadership of the present tyrant trump,
its past behavior must be criticized as Ms; Bazile did. The Democratic National Committee decided in advance of the '16 election to throw the
greater part of its weight behind Hillary, despite her past support for the Iraqi war, her acceptance of huge speaking fees from Wall Street and the banks, her inability to speak up forcefully for the pressing needs of our people -- universal health care, a minimum wage of $15, free state college tuition, and so very importantly, restriction of the banks from repeating their irresponsible acts that helped bring on the '08 recession. Unless those who supported Hillary in her lack of emphasis or complete sidestepping
these issues are exposed how can the Party improve, can win in '18 and '20?
2
Trump won for one reason only: Trump connected with the American voter a lot more than Hillary. Even if Russia did steal and publish Hillary's emails (a statement with no evidence thus far), what is your average voter supposed to do about the fact that the emails exposed her corruption? Corruption ranging from colluding with the mainstream media to rig debates, to funneling money into the Clinton foundation, to Uranium One. How much the interest does the media have to get to the bottom of that? None, the corrupt American hating media is seething so much in hatred, that it cannot see its own hypocrisy.
7
Thank you Charles, your kind of moral outrage is the whetstone of restorative action. Trump's base is not cleft from traditional Republicanism, nor should the base of the resistance cling to a Democratic rock that is plummeting downhill, to paraphrase the Fool's advice to the Duke of Kent. And I agree with you that Liberalism is the only champion that anti-Trump Americans can look to in their time of need. There is no time to wait until the vacillating Democrats put fire in their belly. When the survival of American, indeed human, values are at stake, now is the only time that counts. I applaud you for insisting on insisting, for refusing to countenance the normal as anything but integrity and probity. Lincoln said that 'the best of America, is the best of the world'. He was, and is right. But the fox (pun intended) is tweeting in the White House and it is high time to flush him out and fumigate the building.
6
Whatever the Democrats decide to do, they must take into account that Trump's Republican party is a cult which cannot be countered via a standard political campaign. Trump's Republican party is irrational, untethered to the real world, and wholly invested in a pathologically flawed individual. We may call it the "Fox Trump white nationalist cult." As a cult it is subject to the failings that typically characterize other cults, e.g., propaganda; violence; coercive behavior; deceptive recruiting practices; false statements as to methods and philosophy; an unrealistic worldview; idolatry of the leader, who may exhibit a pathological personality; and abusive behavior, financial or otherwise, by the cult leaders.
8
I keep wondering, instead of waiting until the next elections, why aren't Democrats doing more to shape public opinion by running TV ads right now highlighting some of the man egregious actions Trump and his congressional allies have taken since being elected, for example, some of his executive orders such as the one abolishing worker safety regulations?
9
The economy is robust and the stock market is on fire. Resist (lol) all you want, Trump is t going anywhere.
4
NYT - The former Chair of the DNC admits the primary was rigged in Hillary's favor and that she "feared for her life" after the murder of Seth Rich, and it is Trump who is the ruinous one??
I'm starting to believe many of his claims you have called "fake news" from the start...
6
Another column full of easy generalities that nobody could disagree with, but with no concrete specifics on policy. Come on Charles, stick you neck out on jobs policy, tax rates, govt regulations, health care, education funding.
Our extreme rw party now dominates the 3 branches and many states of America the Beautiful, land of freedom. There are bigger trends here than Trump.
See Princeton’s Martin Gilens study of congress---our laws are passed mostly per wishes of the corporate funders.
See Thomas Frank -- What’s the Matter With Democrats?
Asks why does the rw Gop win and win even when they benefit a tiny group at the top? It’s the feebleness of the opposition party.
Dems must compete with Gop for the same big money to run for office, which limits policy.
See Richard Painter’s past NYT op ed ---“US big political donors run a protection racket. If politicians don’t play ball, donors threaten to run primaries against them.”
Al Gore on CNN “US democracy was hacked by big money long before Putin hacked our democracy.”
Trump, bizarre as he is personally, is not a weird aberration politically. Trump is a symptom of political disease that’s been building for a long time. Our political culture lacks the antidotes to it. There’s little profit in the antidotes or in the prevention.
As the economic well being of average citizens worsens, xenophobia and racism are easily enflamed and exploited. Now we need more than anti Trump/Gop.
7
Shockingly, distressingly, the DNC is still in complete denial about what the American people wanted, and still want: someone to represent THEIR interests, not the special interests. Had they not rammed Hilary down the throats of voters, Sanders would've won the WH, and perhaps even led a recapture of Congress, and most certainly would've prevented the Republicans from capturing the SCOTUS as a reward for their scurrilous tactic of not holding confirmation hearings for a year.
But if you blame the Russians and Trump for that, you are as blind as the DNC. The Dems need to recommit to their New Deal roots, and forget about the Clinton's Third Way, and moving towards the right, becoming Republican-lite. If they are to survive - and at this point that is in great doubt - they need to craft an agenda that restores the working and middle class to prosperity, and ends "trickle down" - which they have enabled all these years - once and for all. If they don't then I will gladly wave them goodbye from history's stage, and work to establish a party that WILL fight for the "little guy".
9
Things are the way they are therefore it is the duty of the congress to put restraints on a president who states he wants the powers of a dictator. Trump's Mein Kamph is there for all to see, should the American public just sit back watch reality tv and shop for the latest I phones ? The president is overseas now touting his wonderfulness and campaigning on foreign soil on the taxpayers dime. We cannot expect ethics from a carnival barker huckster after Trump university and 3500 law suits currently a proven non stop liar . Congress will be judged harshly as they worry more about their re-election then their duties as a check on the powers of a rogue president.
3
There's no doubt Trump is a disaster. But part of the reason he was elected was the sense that Hillary was corrupt as well. I don't believe Hillary's level of corruption comes anywhere near the awfulness that is Trump, but she was not the right candidate to beat him. Recent revelations about how the fix was in for Hillary shows that the perception of corruption had some basis. Rather than complain that this revelation shows disloyalty to the democratic party, this should be seen as an opportunity to do some much needed housecleaning, and provide a candidate that people can actually be excited to vote for.
7
If there was a responsible centrist in the line of succession, then removal of all others ahead in line would be a strategy. But there isn't so it's not.
If the Democratic Party was articulating a clear policy alternative and demonstrating readiness to take over and start making things better on 1/2/19, then Ms. Brazile's book might be counter-productive. But they're not so it isn't.
What's needed is continued obstruction and containment on the part of the bureaucracy (to the point of mutiny if necessary), combined with clear concise articulation of a generally acceptable alternative by the Dems.
The Democratic Party has its best opportunity in 85 years to present, sell and execute a program of common-wealth building and improvement of lives. Te sooner they get to work making that case, the less power the Pubs will have to prevent it.
2
The Russians are accused of buying $80,000 worth of Facebook ads.
About $2 billion total was spent on political advertising in the campaign.
The obsession with the fantasy that the Russian somehow "stole" the U.S. election is reaching the level of denial in post World War One Germany when Teutonic pride insisted that the only possible way the German army could have been defeated is that they were "stabbed in the back" by domestic enemies.
It seems to me that the Resistance against President Trump has been hijacked by neocon hawks interested in a war against Russia.
3
What "unity" is the Democratic bureaucracy so scared is threatened by Brazile's account and leaks? I see no unity, and I'm a lifelong Democrat. Is my party stupid enough to think that Clinton would have gotten all the votes she received if the opposing party hadn't been running Bozo the clown?
Given that honest information is rarely disseminated to "we the wee people," I appreciate Brazille's disclosure and all the leaks about the DNC. And the many comments by Clinton apologists stating that exchanging favors is "natural" or is "standard political behavior" make me despair of the odds that the party will reform itself, given that too many in the party don't see anything as needing reform.
I have little doubt that the "exchange of favors" also occurs when members of Congress are enriched by lobbyists representing big donors and special interest groups. It's just natural, right? The best big government that money can buy.
Until we get the big money out of politics, we will have no chance of having a government of, by, or for the people. And neither party has the integrity to do anything about the money. The only solution I see is a viable third party that remembers what our country is supposed to be about. All it would take is one election of a third-party president who has not lost his or her moral bearings. Maybe then the two major parties would see that their money can't buy our country.
8
Down here at the local small town level, the Democratic Party has not been so active in decades. We see elections at all levels as opportunities to throw out all Republicans as they are collaborators with the Trump regime. Today and tomorrow we are working to assure that Democratic voters turn out in record numbers in an "off year" election.
Vote, Democrats!
3
For all those who stayed home or backed Jill Stein. Shame on you. You gave us the most corrupt administration since Nixon. Maybe even beyond. Now people are blaming HRC as the reason. No the reason was a media that in the veneer of fairness attacked HRC as much as Trump. in fact even more than Trump. Now because the media like the NYT helped Trump win through a he said she said campaign coverage debacle, everyone is fraking out. Here is what to do...
Register to vote.
Vote!
If you sat out or voted for a protest candidate. Just shut up!
5
Liberals did not vote for Trump. The Trump fiasco is a reaction against what "conservative" voters considered overreach by liberals. Remedies depend on reaching Trump voters whose interests the Trump administration is betraying.
2
The notion that Russia's cyber-warfare had no effect on the 2016 election is laughable. In the weeks leading up to election day, I heard from people I hadn't spoken with in years. They were calling to tell me that Hillary Clinton was a pedophile, that she and Podesta were running a child pornography shop from the basement of that pizza parlor.
Needless to say, I was stunned.
When I pushed these callers to tell me where they got this nonsense, the reply was always, "Dude ... it's ALL OVER Facebook!"
Now, up to that time I had no idea that Americans were turning to Facebook for news. But, before anyone knew the size and scope of the Russian interference, it occurred to me that Facebook was likely no more reliable than your average conspiracy theory site for verifiable news stories.
Until and unless the U.S. government figures out a way to regulate the internet and devises a way to separate the wheat from the chaff in order for the American citizen to be able to distinguish truth from fiction, we're doomed.
6
Hillary Clinton, Rep Nancy Pelosi, Sen Chuck Schumer, Sen Bill Nelson, Rep Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and their supporters in Congress, the Democratic Party, and at the DNC, please step aside and allow us to undo the mess you've made of our party.
10
As a long time Democrat and long time Liberal, I have become disenchanted with the lack of decisive action by the leaders of the Democratic Party which has little to do with being a progressive or a moderate.
My father who spent 18 years in the Gulag and reinvented himself during the Cultural Revolution, and yet was always optimistic and always served the best interests of his country without regret. He was a free thinker who thought the USA was the country to show the way to China through education and enlightenment.
But look at us now!
2
Blow's outrage over Trump's victory in 2016 I share. Blow has taken up this neo con inspired hate Russia mantra. Blow is restating the tired old urban myth that it was all Russia's fault that Trump won. Blow's solution is to censor the internet and continue to raise the hostility of the US to Russia.
2
I am done w Donna! I used to respect her so much although I cd never understand her friendship w Mary Matalan.
I believe Donna wrote the book to make money and to keep her name in the limelight so she can continue her visible profile. All of this is understandable, but the bottomline is that she acted very, very selfishly.
I am done w her. I no longer will listen to her or read her writings. She is a traitor to America at one of the worst times in history.
6
The Democratic Party corrected a great injustice went it rejected Jim Crow and started to include previously excluded minorities and women in it's governing counsels. At the same time it lost not only Southern pro-segregation whites but a lot of working class whites who were feeling neglected. It has never been able to reunite all of these groups and it has benefited Republicans who tend not to respect the material needs of these groups.
Unfortunately, as a long-time Democrat, I see the Party fragmented and in disarray.....no one leader seems able to "fire-up" the members. Lacking that "firebrand" and even I would say, "loudmouth", the country will be saddled with DJT for two terms, Heaven forbid! And Ms. Brazile was certainly no help. We need to start anew and begin shouting and desk-pounding! Sitting on our hands as the GOP did for so many years will gain nothing. Time to "get a move on"............
2
Mr.Blow
Where was the resistance the last 8 years?
Militarism, over the last years and the trillions of dollars that have been routed to arms manufactures and all other war profiteers has looted the budget and robbed the American taxpayer so that nothing is left to improve their lives, while making a small cabal billionaires.
Thirty million Americans have no health-care, rural towns with old factories look like a war zone, young people are becoming heavily addicted to drugs, and many are grateful to obtain a job at Walmart, Amazon, or a fast food franchise.
The educational system has declined, but the technology brought to us by billionaires has intensified so that millions are distracted and sedated through smartphones and video games which are always omnipresent.
Political consciousness is at an all time low, and demonstrations against the endless wars are nonexistent.
Thank's to Obama and Pelosi who took any investigations about Bush/Cheney's war crimes off the table the minute they were sworn in. They were all babbling about "the future".
They are at it again, Pelosi and DNC hacks that is. The things that Donna Brazile discloses in her book are immediately denied and they are once again looking into "the future".
The New Democratic Party will be as bad as the Old Democratic Party.
It's way past time to face reality.
8
I agreed with Charles M. Blow when he said, "Deal with it." Rather than rehashing "How did we get here?" ad infinitum, we have to recognize that candidates aren't perfect and elections aren't perfect. There's not much we can do.
It was just about a year ago that Mr. Blow was concerned that Clinton's presidency would be viewed as illegitimate. See October 24, 2016, on Page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: Clinton’s Specter of Illegitimacy.
Sanders and his supporters claimed that the primary was rigged while Donald Trump’s sermonizing about rigging was "constructed of wild conspiracy and conjecture."
Mr. Blow's opinion:
"I think it’s fair to say our electoral processes aren’t perfect. But they’ve never been. Nor has any candidate been perfect. So why must those imperfections be nullifying at the very moment that a woman is on the verge of victory? Clinton is a woman beating men at their own game. Deal with it."
The election wasn't perfect. Trump is not perfect. Deal with it.
2
As long as The Democratic Party insists on its "Super Delegate" system and Gerrymandering exists along with The Electoral College, ordinary Americans will feel that that their vote doesn't really count.
5
I’m with you Charles. It’s time for Democrats to unify, not get distracted and fractured. We need to coalesce around a positive message—a simple positive message that most people can unify behind. Somehow being “stronger together” got lost in the cacophony of the Obama backlash and nationalist (and racist) rhetoric. We do want our country back—a country that was moving toward acceptance of diversity. A country that had some safety nets for the unfortunate, and some regulations to protect the public from industrial pollution. Yes, we want our country back.
2
I am really disappointed with the level of discourse coming from the Times, and Blow in particular. An example is this asinine "resistance" as if they think they are fighting a war against their countrymen. Look, you failed to appreciate the vast disaffection out there in the middle and got way too far ahead of the electorate on social issues and lost an election. I get it. So fine tune your message and try again in 2020. Or is each side simply going to declare war on the other every time they are in the minority? Is that your view of what a democracy should be? Yes, the Republicans did it to Obama, but are we on a playground where your defense is that the other kid did it first? Grow up, all. Grow up, Blow. Act like a loyal opposition rather than a resistance and try to serve your country.
10
It should not require some fabulous Democratic party or Democratic candidate to end Trump and Trumpismo.
Expecting political parties to be full of big-hearted wonderful patriots who are also self-sacrificing for the greater good is as mature as still believing in the tooth fairy. Our nation depends on the public discernment of better over worse, rational over crazy, and rejection of the obviously corrupt, mentally ill, and incompetent.
Most Republicans are supporting corrupt and crazy; there's no other word for it.
In ordinary times America is strengthened by having two parties that keep each other honest and check each other's worst. In ordinary times a Democrat can accept losing to a Republican as a just rebuke.
But Trump is something truly outside of, and destructive of, democracy. And the tragedy is that something like 1/3 of the American electorate are truly pro-Trump. Usually they are unwilling to admit it, but the only conclusion that is possible is that they actually are for Trump's worst behaviors and claims, otherwise why would they support a man so obviously repugnant?
3
Being anti-Trump, as fashionable as it is, cannot be the central organizing principle of Democrats going forward. Propound a clear message, be honest even if you have warts, and seek support from a broad base of the American public. Trump will go by the wayside with a genuine Democratic candidate who doesn’t give the election away, assuming a two party race which doesn’t divide progressives.
4
This is so discouraging. You talk about the "Resistance" as if it's a heroic group out there risking their lives to carry out important and substantive actions to effect serious change. What have they done? Organized conferences to preach to the choir? Organized marches to nowhere? Gotten lots of inexperienced men and women interested in running for office? Democrats need to stop talking down to voters, lay off the victimhood of identity politics, and show people something positive. Bashing Trump is a dead end. My biggest fear is that we are now so polarized that the Democratic Party itself has become radioactive, no matter what its policies or who are its candidates.
8
Striking the number of good comments here. First, on a piece of news, someone has said that in the 2016 election, the exit polls didn't agree with the vote count. Where did this happen and by how much? Was it within a margin of error? In that voting machines are electronic with digital parts, they can be fixed from a distance. Think of them as model airplanes or drones that can be controlled by miniature circuits from the ground. And if the results are tabulated by computers, these can also be fixed. There needs to be a clear paper trail that can be hand tabulated if a race is close, or there is any suspicion of fraud. That the Republicans don't want this, and the Democrats don't insist upon it would lead one to believe that neither party cares about fair and honest elections. The remedy for fraud needs to be a new election (the butterfly ballot in FL in the 2000 election was illegal at the time, leading to a disastrous Bush presidency).
The immediate problem for the Democrats is that their base doesn't vote in off term elections, and that many stayed home in 2016 in key states. They have also ceded statehouses to Republicans, and they have not been able to get enough young people, who are aware of the dangers of climate change, to vote. Meanwhile, without Dem majorities, Republicans are doing everything they can to restrict voting by minorities, and have been getting away with it. Changing the campaign finance laws or broadening their base is a way to change this.
2
I don't know why the Times thinks the Russian revelations had much bearing on Trump's win. I don't use social media, so I was not subjected to the Russia financed anti-Clinton, pro-Trump, Russian financed propaganda. Mainly, I knew that Hillary was a geed-head & a Russiaphobe & war monger in the extreme, that the Clintons basically owned the Democratic party, & mainstream media including the Times was shilling for them.. I also knew that Trump was a totally self-serving, thieving, racist, mysoginist narcissist. So I couldn't vote for either candidate, after having voted for Bernie in the Democratic primary. I don't think Trump 'won' the election so much as that Hillary lost it.
38
This article and many of the comments make me sad and frustrated. I see arguing and point scoring, not debating. I see people looking at the past, not the future. I see people looking for clean wins against each other instead of compromising and coming up with strategy and tactics.
Meanwhile Trump is continuing to do what the Republicans have been doing on the local level for years: he's running circles around us.
Debate, decide, commit. Organize. Win elections. That's it.
1
The Democratic party is in the wilderness and moribund. It has no plan for a revitalized path forward that actually addresses the real problems we face as a nation. The messages coming from both wings of the party are geared to increase America's divisions and anger and mistrust. Donna Braziile's memoir manipulates the truth in self-serving ways to do just that. Absent a new leader on the order of an FDR who can galvanize a new forward looking coalition, I fear that the Democrats must lose several more election cycles before their hubris is sufficiently diminished to actually listen to the electorate. The liberalism you so hopefully wield as the solution to our problems is as fraught with problems and unintended destructive consequences as the conservatism of majority Republicans.
3
It is completely outrageous that the DNC chairman thinks she has the right and ability to choose the delegate. It is like the voters do not even count! The whole election system is just a circus to placate the masses into thinking they have some say in our country. And Sanders never had a chance, despite winning 22 states.
4
I wish I could be as optimistic that the Democrats are on the verge of change. The Democratic Party is suffering from the same paralysis that plagues many academic institutions -- a kind of tenure system which has shifted leadership to an aging group that holds the financial power but seems to have little regard for training a new generation or giving up power. This group is killing the party. Thank you Nancy and Chuck, but you can still serve your party as you cede leadership to younger members.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Brazile considered jettisoning Hillary for Joe Biden in the weeks before the election. This would have been a radical and bold move and would have saved the Dems the presidency and Congress. Many of us had the same idea and many would have supported it. Too bad, she didn't have the courage to attempt this. This one move would have shown the public that the party was not "owned" by one candidate and their circle of financial supporters.
4
I stopped donating to the DNC and DCCC years ago. My contributions now are through ActBlue. If we all channel our money (since money is what runs this country) through liberal funnels, it will mean everything.
3
For those who missed it (everyone here?) the Congressional Progressive Caucus's "The People's Budget" is out, cpcbudget.org.*
Also, the Dem Party added bunch of pro-labor positions to the "Better Deal" platform last week - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/11/01/democrats-ad...
To those who say the Dem Party doesn't share your concerns or isn't trying to help you out, what do you think about the CPC budget and the new Better Deal positions? Do those make a difference? If not then what would?
*I don't like the CPC budget's subtitle, "A Roadmap for the Resistance," because you need to lead not just to resist, but the substance of the proposed budget is good.
1
New or old, the Dems better come up with something more to offer than Dump Trump. Not that that isn't an imperative, but it's not a platform.
Dems need to tell voters what they will do to relieve the high costs of health care, to improve wages, restructure taxes so they burden those who can afford it, and restore the environment, national parks, bipartisan law-making and end self-dealing in Washington.
Finally, Dems can promise to take the money out of politics with public campaign financing. Then Congress will work only for the people.
1
I agree with you totally, Trump needs to be removed and I will add that most of his Cabinet need to be replaced too. You are right, "The reign of Trump is the reign of ruin."
The only book I want to read right now is the Rise and Fall of the Trump Empire, and the authors will represent the majority of Americans who want to take their country back while it still resembles a democracy.
3
There is a huge difference between corporate do nothing democrats and greedy, destructive grabby republicans.
As a result of not voting or abstaining or protest voting we now have the worlds greatest con-man, fraud, and tax cheat dismantling our republic.
You can all look at your navels but I will be out voting and driving anyone who needs a ride to the polls
2
Democratic Party was broke and Hillary Clinton loaned them millions of dollars, so it was all right for her to ask them she would like to know how they were going to spend that money.
Brazile was the leader of the Party for only a few months, and now she writes a tell all book at the most inopportune moment ?
Then there is Bernie Sanders always an independent but wanted to run as a Democratic Candidate and is back again being an Independent after he lost the nomination .
Also let us not forget, trump won the Presidency but Hillary Clinton had more than three million votes by popular choice.
3
Mr. Blow, I believe that you have correctly assessed what is happening in and to the national Democratic Party As you so succinctly stated, "The only issue I see is that these efforts seem to be operating separately from the national Democratic Party, a dinosaur of bureaucratic machinery in an evolved age of direct democratic action."
However, I would like to posit the idea that the Democratic Party's problems have existed for quite some time. The last true member of the Democratic Party's Washington elite to win a presidential election was LBJ in 1964. Since that time it was Jimmy Carter, Governor-GA (1976); Bill Clinton, Governor-AR (1992-96); Barack Obama, Black 1st term Senator-IL (2008-12). The success of each can be in part attributable to their outsider status. Their ability to reach, connect and develop a MESSAGE that resonated with the issues and concerns of everyday Americans (Clinton and Obama).
However, the national Democratic Party learned nothing from the success experienced with Clinton and Obama. Instead they immediately reverted back to the veteran Washington insider. And, promptly lost the next election by NOT reaching out to or having a message that resonated with their base.
Even now, in the aftermath of Hillary Clinton's loss, one does not get the feeling that the Democratic Party has truly taken a dispassionate look at what they did wrong in losing the 2016 election. Then beginning to craft a strategy to insure the same doesn't happen in 2018.
2
When the RNC convention picked Trump from the primordial ooze that saturated the Republican primaries, they had sold their souls. Not one primary opponent figured out how to beat the blowhard phony. After their convention, we all heard DJT brag about his own joy as a sexual predator. Yet, the gullible among us praised him anyway as a successful tycoon ready to clean up the swamp.
Hillary Clinton had been in the conservative cross-hairs for more than 30 years. Yet, she continued to serve her country as a First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State, before running for the office of POTUS in 2008, and again in 2016. The Democratic primaries brought us a mere three candidates. I liked Bernie but had little hope of seeing him battle DJT for the White House. For more than a year, I worried Hillary would run in 2016. I had hoped she would retire into her grandmotherly sunset of speaking fees and book deals.
Instead, we got two finalists for the White House, each glad to be up against the other. One, with her own flaws, would have been our first female president. But the conservative media had done enough damage to unite all Republicans. The other was a business fraud, consummate liar and sexual predator. He won by promising what he could never deliver. But they still believe.
Had Hillary won, McConnell & Company would have made their usual pledge of non-cooperation as they did in 2009. Wake up Democrats. We may have one last chance before our democracy sinks into the swamp.
3
What we have now, or so it appears, is "supply side" politics That some how the 'will of the people' will be accurately expressed through the two parties' platforms. Just as supply side economics supposedly results in Trickle Down economics where the benefits of capitalism flow to everyone down to the lowest among us.
It is increasingly obvious the platforms of both Republicans and the Democrats do not represent the needs of mainstream America. Talk to almost anyone on the street and they are fiscally conservative and socially central.
The vast majority of Americans agree we need to fix our broken infrastructure. Fix immigration. Maintain a strong military. Strengthen health care and solve the issue of out of control premium costs. Try to find a way to push benefits down to the vast working class that has fallen behind for decades.
But players on the fringe have gained power within, or have taken over both political parties and are tearing our country apart. Instead of the tail wagging the dog, it is time for candidates to run on the most centrist platform possible. One that reaches the widest number of Americans. And stop pandering to the ultra monied special interest donors who set the menu at the buffet that continues to fail addressing our most pressing problems. Even if it means R's caucusing with D's.
Cause the supply side politics we now have, like trickle down economics, just ain't working.
3
Let us hope that the grass roots activism in the Democratic Party turns out much better than it did for the GOP.
Too whiney. All the Democrats need to do is continue to push for increased health care coverage for everyone, more taxes on the very wealthy, and universal conscription of all 18 year-olds. And hedge about social issues in socially-conservative parts of the country. Then they'll start winning again.
If I had a hammer...", I would destroy the centrist, corporate, Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. The party that has partly facilitated and enabled the demise of workers, wages and job security since the 1990s.
An excerpt from ""Autopsy - The Democratic Party in Crisis"...."It is telling that during the 16 years of the Clinton and Obama presidencies, when so many US jobs were "outsourced" to cheap labor countries, one is hard pressed to recall either Democratic President taking any US corporation to task on the issue, even rhetorically. Such silence on corporate greed and irresponsibility had allowed a charlatan like Trump to grandstand as the savior of jobs and working people".
The party doesn't have a "white working class" problem, it has a "working class" problem. Corporate domination over the party's agenda must end...now.
democraticautopsy.org
9
Hillary Clinton, it was her turn to run. (The my turn presidential nominee, something that the Republican party usually does and loses.) She is very smart and capable, but is uninspiring and disliked by a lot of Democrats. Many Democrats didn't vote for Trump, but for someone else like Jill Stein or a write in candidate. Clinton speaks in corporate or political speak and is not natural and so is not totally believable in her statements. She doesn't speak to the average person and has never lived in that world. Clinton was also maybe a little too cocky that she was going to win. I do believe that if Clinton was elected she would have been a good president, even though the Republicans would still be having hearings on her email server or some other lame issue. Donna Brazile got up close and personal with the Clinton team and didn't like what she saw. Donna Brazile is trying to rehabilitate her image, but how about some loyalty to the Democrat party. Brazile could have waited to release her book. She didn't need to do it on the eve of an election. The Democrats have to win back state houses and the congress and insider grumbling doesn't help.
2
Brave words, Mr. Blow, and true ones. Thank you.
1
Sanders and Warren are as ego-driven as Trump. They are playing to a populist crowd on the left just as angry and bitter as the populist crown on the right. Populism is not governance; it is only a form of grievance. If the left goes down the populism road as Sanders and Warren hope to do, they will prove no more able to govern than Trump and his populist anarchy. The country needs governance, good governance; not an ongoing shouting match of grievances.
2
The entire Trump Presidency- his cabinet- policies, everything- has weighed on me heavily since the election. The last nine months seems much longer- and is almost hellish. It is like a nightmare that keeps repeating and that one cannot wake-up from- each day a new challenge to national sanity and a shred of decency and morality. Blow certainly echos these sentiments. To be honest, my vision is more radical- and it is difficult to sustain the hope that Blow discusses.
But I agree self-flagellation among Democrats is not helpful. Nor is internecine warfare- or more violence in words and actions. It is important to learn from the mistakes of the past- something rarely achieved- but it is far more important to look ahead with hope, unity, determination and energy- as well as compassion. Compassion for life.
As for Russian influence peddling- it was a concerted effort to erode American democracy- and destabilize the Western alliance. And it has succeeded. To turn away from its import, whether due to Communist sympathies or broader structural critique- is dangerous. But perhaps more dangerous is how easily manipulated large segments of the American populace are- and this reality is a larger and more fundamental problem.
1
Donna Brazille’s book has soured me on the Democratic Party a party I have been supporting for over 50 years. I am almost ready to change my registration to independent, almost. We need a message of hope that brings us forward not back. A message that is more centrist than to the extreme left though that is where my political leanings are. We need to get these crazy people out of office and we need to focus on their corruption not our misgivings and faults. Donna Brazile should have sought therapy where she could have vented non stop for 50 minutes and got out all her anger and resentment. It would have served us all much better.
In my local area, the Democratic Party, working hard in a very red county in a very red state, is stronger than ever. We now have committees to address issues. We are training candidates to run in 2018. We are getting press coverage regularly.
The Democratic Party is far from splintered. It is simply readjusting.
3
Trump is a disaster. No argument there.
Nobody expected Trump's win. Not mainstream polls. Not Nate Silver. Not biassed media polls, naturally! Of the US's top 100 papers by paid circulation, 57 endorsed Clinton; 2 endorsed Trump. Until late evening Nov 8, all but the GOP's blinder fanatics thought Clinton would win.
Trump's unpreparedness at election showed in his having no cabinet selections and other key appointments. Seasoned politician, Joe Biden, reckoned that Trump thought Clinton would win.
According to some, the Russians thought Clinton would win too.
Maybe the Russians did tip the election to Trump, but after all smoke and confusion settle, a likelier explanation of Trump's win is that Clinton's slick PR machine hid her team's disjointedness from the team itself team and dazzled most others with a faked vision of unstoppability. Trump's camp did not know how close victory was until it became clear.
Refer back to this comment's para. No 2 above.
As scholars examine this election's pieces, the likely conclusion will be that the 2016 election was a comedy of errors minus comedy and happy ending,
Dear Donna, you are (and have been for quite a while) much of the problem. Thanks for your service. Goodbye.
2
Great piece here, especially considering I was a guy for Bernie (I lean more towards his politics than anyone else), but I knew for the party's sake, I had to go with Clinton. This is almost a repeat for me of being more of a Nader person, but going with Gore because he had the better chance. Part of America's problem is that the two party system has us locked in this continuous back and forth with no real progress being made. Perhaps a good start would be the end of the two party system. But that is a whole other can of worms in itself.
Americans need to stop seeking alibis for their own willful ignorance, their own hatreds, their own petty partisanship, and their own refusal to ahow up and vote.
In particular the Left and the liberal and the Democrats need to cut it out: there was gerrymandering, there was Russian interference, but if we'd lifted a finger to get the facts, thought for five seconds about what was possible and what wasn't, put beating Trump above posturing, and SHOWN UP TO VOTE, none of it would have mattered.
WE blew this. Not Putin, not Trump, not the DNC, and not Hillary Clinton.
2
Where is the so-called Resistance? I can’t find it to join it. The Democratic Party on any level has disappeared at the time it is most needed. Now where do I go?
1
Donna Brazile is not so much burning down the DNC village -- the Clintonites pretty much accomplished that on their own by failing to defeat a candidate as fraudulent and loathsome as Trump -- as kicking over the fresh framing of their attempt to rebuild it exactly as it was: a Wall-Street/Big Business appeasement party, turning its back on labor and white working class men, to peddle the dream of more equal access to an ever-diminishing pie to every other demographic hungry enough not to look beyond their own "triangulated" place at the table. We need a Democratic Party and Democratic candidates capable of uniting Americans behind the notion that all are advantaged when none are disadvantaged and in common cause against the Gilded Age economic inequality that has been institutionalized in this country by policies of both parties over the last thirty to forty years.
5
This article REEKS of desperation. Hilary has been exposed; the Clinton "dynasty" is officially over; the Mueller investigation? Really? The only thing its gonna turn up is more dirt on the Dems -- proving what a BIZARRE state of unreality the Resistance is living in. The Dow is up; jobs are up; The "International profile" everyone is so heinously concerned about is also on the POSITIVE side (this is where a hot wife is worth a million words); At every turn this ding-dong has the Dems number. (Oh, you thought I LIKED Trump? I do not. But man are the Dems and the "resistance" ever a bunch of losers. Pathetic).
Oh, and I got news for EVERYONE -- the first female President? Will be Republican. Bet yer life on it.
5
I think that we need to figure out where people are coming from in this country. We all have our own set of underpinnings from which we view the world.
Trump and Bernie Sanders hit on a chord with the trade deficit. Why can't people take a step back and understand why this issue is so important to people?
It gutted our manufacturing base. I can show evidence that it is one of the major causes of income disparity in this country. Our company lost $5 million to NAFTA cheats who moved their operations to Mexico then sourced the parts in China. And a final issue is it is one of the biggest contributors to global warming (which I cannot believe people do not make a bigger deal of).
Imagine if Hillary would have taken the lead on this issue, she would not have lost Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The people on the coasts do not see the devastation of our trade policies. Lead on this issue and Trump loses a pillar of his support.
3
No surprise that Donald Trump is kissing the Republican tax plan. It will benefit him and his family "majorly" in several ways. Allows him to set up pass-throughs. Does away with the Alternative Minimum Tax. Eventually does away with inheritance tax. Beautiful!
I agree, Charles. Time to move forward with the Resistance and regroup. Also time for new, younger leadership for the next presidential election. The re-hashing of 2016 is tiresome and destructive now. This is the time to develop clear optimistic goals and reach out to those we ignored
1
It seems that neither of the two great parties is listening to the real needs of the population. The candidates who seemed to care got lost, early in the republican party primaries, and at the end in the democratic primaries. Democracy with two parties does not seem to be producing good results lately. More than two parties are needed with an operational electoral system that crowns the good leader that hopefully gets a real substantive majority not by buying votes but earning them.
3
As an old member of what is implied the old/original Democratic party. Much of the discussion by the populist encrouchers is poppycock. Just like any populist movement in our history this one is narrow and likely short lived. Ask any one of the encrouchers to discuss any specific topic and they can't. Ask them to give you the meaning of progressive or populist and they can't. Try it. I did numerous times. All discussions immediately progressed to "We are against the establishment" or most times "I hate Hillary".
My experience at a caucus early in the primary in my red state revealed a raucous rude misogynist group. Not able or willing to discuss. Just scared sexists. Now all, of course. Many could not see beyond their anger of the economic status quo. But they did not or could not see who of the candidates offered solutions to their ills. No. They flocked to thin, meaningless oratory void of facts or solutions.
The book "Hacks" should sell very well, and is legitimate grist for the mill.
"You can't fool all the people all the time" Lincoln was supposed to have said.
The American people hopefully will figure it all out eventually.
Publishing this book a week before election day makes Donna Brazile persona non grata in my book.
Whatever she is selling, I am not buying
The Clinton's were the democratic party. They raised the money and they clarified the platform and they didn't do anything as greedy as what we have now - and if you don't see the difference then you deserve the government we have.
1
The Democratic Party is the party of the prey while the Republican Party is the party of the predators. It's the carnivores against the herbivores...guess who wins everytime!
1
Making the perfect the enemy of the good is as effective as shooting oneself in the foot.
Please keep in mind that Mueller's investigation is incomplete. It is possible that the current White House occupant cheated, and that is the reason he is there, not that he legitimately won. Even with the current facts that are available, can social scientists give an estimate of a percentage range of people who did not vote because of fake Russian Twitter and Facebook accounts? Or, how many voters bought into the actual demonization (devil's handmaiden) of Clinton? How do we combat ignorance and stupidity, and Republicans who want to suppress voter turnout as a last resort to keep the few, the oilmen, and the rich in power?
The "Party of guilt" will continue down this path until an adult supervisor gains power. The "Party of fear" will continue to be successful because they own the more powerful emotion. Regretfully, the American electorate is not sufficiently fed up to form a non-tribal party.
1
Mr. Blow, if by liberalism you mean ultra, far left liberalism, I concur. However, in my humble opinion, this far to the left adherence by the leaders of the Democratic Party, fails to grasp the reality of today's politics. If most Americans, Democrats, Republicans and Independents, tend to be either slightly left or right of center in their thinking, why aren't the leaders of these groups moving in that direction? Or are its most vocal critics correct; political parties are dead and they have yet to realize it?
The Clintons abolished FDR's Aid for Families with Dependent Children throwing millions of kids into extreme poverty. And it was the Clintons who brought in mass incarceration depriving hundreds if thousands of black families of their fathers.
The Democratic establishment has proven it despises the poorest and his forfeited any right to be trusted.
The New York Times likes to fancy itself as the voice of liberal America and of serious policy journalism in the only wealthy democracy without a social democratic party.
But when Bernie held a series of West Coast rallies outlining social democratic alternatives the NYT had almost no coverage. Who cares if the apostle of a new politics is filling stadiums? Not the paper of all the news that's fit to print.
Any Dem resurgence needs to be anchored in the poorest 60 per cent of the population.
Unfortunately the Dem Establishment and the New York Times practice sneering condescension towards the poorest leaving a New Democratic Party with a choice: "Do we jettison the people or do we throw out the establishment?"
The answer should be apparent to all but the wealthy establishment.
4
The hope for the future of the democratic party lies with young people. This generation is characterized by its multi-culturalism, acceptance of people of color, sexual orientation, gender equality; they are more educated, more traveled and less motivated by money. Trump's circus of wealthy old white men are on their way out. They represent a dying breed.
1
Americans have rejected the Democratic Party in state houses losing governorships and legislatures. They have rejected the Democratic Party in both the House and the Senate. Then they elected Trump president because the Democratic Party didn't get the message that had been sent over and over again.
The only worse than Republican Government is the fact that The Democratic Party can't get beyond being the Party of Clinton (TM).
This has been a Party that ignores local politics unless it effects elites. It is a party that if your labor is manual, you are not welcome in leadership. That if you home is rural, "flyover", doubly so.
This is the Party that said it supported gay rights but took the Supreme Court to make it happen. It is the Party that gives lip service to gun control and global warming but always compromises away to keep the Republican government open. It is the Party that watched a woman's right to choose whither away, because that's divisive even though polls show it to be popular.
The rich have always got their tax cuts, and the wealth hidden abroad with just a wink from the Democratic Party. Again polls show...
Polls show the positions associated with the left are popular. But the elite of the Democratic Party are not trusted to deliver. Because they haven't. Even Obamacare was Romneycare with just the name changed. It is interesting that the healthcare industry is the main force against its demise, as the left calls for something better.
A new party
1
The current situation for Democrats is reminiscent of 1968, when progressive elements in the party rebelled at the Establishment (then represented by LBJ and candidate Hubert Humphrey). The progressive wing triumphed in 1972, with the nomination of George McGovern (the Bernie Sanders of his day). McGovern lost to Nixon in a landslide, losing the popular vote 61% to 38% and the Electoral College 520 to 17. The second most progressive Democratic candidate to date was Walter Mondale. Mondale lost to Ronald Reagan in a landslide, by 59% to 41% in the popular vote and 525 to 13 in the Electoral College. There is a reason the Democratic Party no longer nominates progressive candidates - they get slaughtered in national elections.
That photo of DT kissing the paper with that smiling man next to him grossed me out for a lot of reasons. Please, when will we stop being subjected to his vulgarity - his person and his policies and executive orders?
1
Saudi Arabia, Austria and France have the right idea. Let the young people take over. Even China sets the retirement age at 70 for its leaders! And we have leaders who want to stay in power into their 90's.
I agree with Allen Roberts. I am a tired 81 year old happily retired in the high desert of Nevada...and out of the way.
Even the interim chairperson of the DNC has come out with evidence that Hillary Clinton controlled the DNC and rigged the primary against Bernie. This comes from a woman who even aided Hillary by giving her debate questions beforehand. It just goes to prove that there indeed is no honor among thieves. The Democratic Party is a hoax with no credible leadership, no platform and no evidence, as admitted by Diane Feinstein, that Trump had nothing to do with Russia. So what do the Dems have? Nothing but a bunch of infighting, false accusations and crooks.
6
Thank you Mr. Blow, always love your editorial! Not on point to this editorial but...
DUMP THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE! Bernie Sanders is not a Socialist but a classic FDR Democrat! The Democratic party needs to do some heavy soul searching and house cleaning!
2
Voting for Trump was like deciding to execute a patient with a cold. We got here because voters believed in Reagonomics. We got here because the GOP sold and voters bought into a racist and selfish way of looking at things. The GOP is the party that constantly rants against welfare, free rides, access to decent affordable health care, and taxes on the rich. This same GOP hands out, on a platinum platter, a ton of tax breaks, government welfare, and leniency to the richest corporations and individuals in our country. We see the results of this in our rotting infrastructure, our poorer schools, our lousy public spaces, our lagging research and what do we do-go back and vote them into office again.
If we want to have decent lives in a decent country we have to vote in people who are not in thrall to the likes of the Koch Brothers. We need to look at the politicians and the parties and realize that despite it's talk of being in favor of family values the only family value the GOP has is keeping the money for its rich donors. Greed like that is not a family value.
What the Democrats need to do is start calling out the GOP every time they lie about taxes, health care, education, and government programs. They need to use simple direct sentences and not retreat. If they can do that we might have a chance at being a democracy. But that will happen only if people get out and vote to support the people who will work for us. So far neither party has done that.
4
Dems, stop squabbling and work together to disempower Trump. Although there are disagreements on strategies, we share common goals on health care, education, a just tax system, equality, environmental protection and a non-militaristic foreign policy. Our similarities are much stronger than our disagreements. If we lose the VA governorship, it will be due to in-fighting and lack of leadership, which could set the stage for GOP victories in 2018 and 2020. Take a deep breath, shake hands and work together. We need a big tent and tolerance if we are going to prevail.
1
There were many problems with how we, the Democrats,handled the last election. There were even more problems with the election that we had no control over. If the election was stolen from us or rigged agains`t us we have to fight to make sure it doesn`t happen again. We can`t change the things used again`t us until we win enough power to control. Infighting is the Democratic way of listening but we have to remember listening is the foundation of compromise. In the end as Democrats we have to compromise and then STAND together to fight the injustice of gerrymandering, citizens united and voter suppression.
Like Donna Brazile (fresh from slipping debate questions to Hillary), you are now trying to edge onto the right side of history as it relates to the election, but where were you when we needed you? So now you understand that the Democratic political machine is broken? Now you understand that progressive thinking has leapfrogged the Democratic Party?
You do understand the part the Times played in this, right? You wanted your candidate, and you got her. It is very telling that for the last two years, the comments sections of your political stories on these matters always reflect your disconnect from your readers. The NYT Picks are skewed toward comments supporting the Clinton/money Democratic Party, and the Readers' Picks.....well, not so much.
3
Crestfallen. I don't understand why Donna Brazile's revelations couldn't have been published in a news paper or the New Yorker. Why does it have to be a book, unless she is planning on the income from its sales? Crestfallen does not even begin to express how disappointed I am in her. In her own way she's turned out to be just as bad as Shultz or maybe worse since she will profit from this book.
2
Donna Brazile wants the money, period. Personally, I wouldn't give her two cents for this book.
1
Warren 2020.
The fact that the NYT and its readers are not completely behind Elizabeth Warren at this point is shocking. She is smart, articulate, savvy, and deserving. She is the one person who can say in plain terms, how Ronald Reagan started the gradual decimation of Federal power (except for the the military), and gave it to the next most powerful entities -- corporations. Corporate influence has reached its absurd conclusion with the election of Trump, Ross, Pruitt et al. And who understands the dangers of corporate influence more than anybody?
Warren 2020.
6
"A year ago this week, America made what I believe history will record as one of the greatest electoral mistakes in the life of the nation: It elected Donald Trump president of the United States."
If by America, you mean the American people, then no, we did not elect our current president. He lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes! In any advanced country, he would never have been elected.
In truth, he was "elected" by an undemocratic and archaic feature of the Constitution called the Electoral College. The only saving grace of the College is that is was supposed to prevent the election of a demagogue by an ignorant electorate. It failed to do that in 2016.
It is time that the College was retired and the election of the president and vice-president become a matter of the popular vote, as it is for our representatives and senators.
3
Party politics is largely dead. The vast majority don’t engage in party politics. Party ficances can’t match special interest financing. The American populace has been schooled to prefer spectacle to reasoned discussion of policy alternatives. Both parties are “dinosaurs” and the structure of contemporary mass communication further marginalizes party politics. It ain’t just about Trump, but he is the biggest symptom. Even the astute and courageous Mr. Blow is addressing symptoms, not causes.
Yea.....Liberals are just great for our party. In Va. we have a very tight race for Governor and the support of Bernie Sanders would go a long way in helping elect a Democrat as Governor, but guess what Bernie has decided not to endorse him. Way to go Liberals. Even Doug Wilder, an ex Liberal Democrat Governor will not endorse him. Way to go Liberals. Liberals for a Trump Governor of Virginia. Way to go Liberals.
1
Walk away from Wall Street and start standing for something other than not trump. Oh, Hillary and Bill, go home.
2
I thought the "greatest electoral mistake" in recent memory was the 2010 election, when supposedly faithful Democratic voters (you know who you are) couldn't be bothered to turn out, thus ensuring the gerrymandered nightmare we're living under.
1
Ahhh--men.
Charles Blow is asking for trouble.
"Direct democratic action" is exactly what the Founding Fathers designed the Constitution to prevent.
The American demos, according the Founders, was -- and would always be -- full of ill-informed rubes.
The Founders were, as Cecilia Kenyon, the great historian of the American revolution, once wrote, "men of little faith."
Ask for "direct democratic action" and you will get riots in every major city.
1
I'm glad the book is out now so that "we" (liberals) can examine the mess we've been complict in creating.
True reckoning with our "junk" might actually result in a path forward... someday.
We are indeed in a reign of ruin - but our Democratic leaders don't have a powerful new narrative for the masses to grab on to. The Dems are reactionary rather than visionary. We allow the current occupant to tell the stories.
1
The Democrats do need to fight back against the Trumpists. However, they also have to realize that some of the demands of the hard left are precisely what antagonize a substantial portion of the persuadable electorate and thus induce them to view that as awful as Trump his, the hard left and the Democrats who kowtow to them are worse.
The message to the Democrats must be to pick your battles wisely. Restrict them to opposing the Republicans' most unpopular positions with exceptions made only for the most vital issues.
Tulsi Gabbard resigned as Vice-Chair of the DNC in Febuary!!! to protest the tilting of the DNC toward Clinton. No matter what the source, no one denied the validity of the DNC emails that added more direct evidence that the DNC had a foot on the scales to help Clinton. Then there were the weird things like scheduling DNC debates during Saturday Night Football, and lies about Bernie supporter violence at Caucuses, and Hillary surrogates calling Sandes supporters Bernie Bros and misogynists (insulting his female supporters even more than the males).
This massive corruption of the DNC by the Hillary campaign is what put Trump in power. Until the Democrats stop blaming outside forces and face what you have wrought, you will continue to lose 2/3 of all elections. Hillary also took much of the money that was supposed to go to local races, which means that Republican legislatures will continue to be able to mess with voting procedures.
Now Brazile has documentary evidence that Clinton ran the DNC during the primaries. But Clinton was unelectable.
The problem is the hold on the party by centrist Democrats like Clinton, Obama, and Rahm Emanuel, who keep trying to run to the right while attacking their own base. We don't need Republican light. We need to explain why the left is the future.
In order to get meaningful compromise you have to negotiate from a position of strength. Centrists give up their principles before they begin and negotiate from weakness.
Grow the left base!
5
Sec. Clinton deemed it APPROPRIATE to maintain a private [unsecured] server and transmit 10s of 1000s of emails to an inner circle of contacts. Given the decades of scrutiny the Clinton’s have faced in public life since President Clinton was Gov. of Arkansas it is foolhardy to think any and every action of the former SoS wouldn’t be viewed under a microscope.
Why did the emails exist in the first place?
If they weren’t so damning and indicting would have been leaked?
Donna Brazille’s book just aired more dirty laundry that Sen. Elizabeth Warren found troubling.
Mind you, Trump’s an outspoken misogynistic reprobate who has turned the country on its ear. We needed a change and have probably bitten off more than the WORLD can stand.
The Democrats need an effective counterpuncher, another voice outside the Beltway. Mark Cuban, 2020?
Sorry, but undoubtedly part of the political genius of someone like a Ronald Reagan or a Bill Clinton was their ability to shape their Parties into a 'Big Tent' into which many people of various persuasions felt comfortable, but who supported a core belief in the main goals of their respective Party.
Since, however, the resurgence in the notion of ideological purity, first pushed in the 21st Century by Dick Cheney and the nascent Tea Party movement, we have seen the tendency for both Parties to exclude anyone from access to influential positions, who do not march in lock-step to the extreme fringes of that Party. I think this has not only been damaging to both Parties ability to attract and keep the large middle ground of the political spectrum within their folds, but has been extremely confusing to the electorate at large.
Many people I think ( in fact a majority of Americans) feel comfortable with certain aspects of a particular Parties platform, but not with other more extreme positions, but are confused and disoriented by the notion put out by the Parties current leadership that they are not "True" Democrats or "True" Republicans unless they are willing to hold their nose and swallow that Parties entire platform in one-large-gulp.
To me the current confusion, anger and bitterness we are experiencing in our electorate is, in large part, a sign of the American people's inherent good sense in being forced into choosing a Party that is ruled by the extremes.
23
Beautifully articulated.
“Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody.”
- ¬Franklin P. Adams
2
It's a good thing for this book to come out. The Democratic has been losing for almost a decade. Hillary lost 2 national elections, but her fingerprints are still all over the DNC. We have lost the POTUS, the Senate, the House, Governors and over 1000 state legislative seats.
And in response, the DNC decides to fund anti-choice candidates, and expels Bernie supporters to bring in more lobbyists from oil and Monsanto.
They are taking steps to figure out a new approach, and are supporting unions, and protecting Obamacare, but they are passing laws to jail protesters, and voting against bills that will reduce the cost of drugs.
It's the same politics as usual, and that is a losing strategy. We need to blow the cover off of this so that we can start winning again.
2
What this and similar columns seem to miss is that all these issues - with both parties, btw - have their real source in our inefficient two party system, and our antiquated election process.
The wide array of divergent convictions on the laundry list of policies that guide the electorate just simply can't be shoved into the 'big tent' of either party. I often hear of the need for a third party, when what we really need is a third, fourth, fifth and maybe even sixth party.
2
We are punishing Clinton for being a brilliant politician who operated effectively within the rules of strategic manipulation and succeeded providing the copious amounts of fundraising necessary. But when a disgraced political insider pulls back the curtain to reveal the actual machinations of the filthy business of politics, we feign indignation.
Since when have politics been about fair and transparent tactics and strategies? Dems held a perfectly open primary, Americans had access to both the Sanders and Clinton platforms and voted accordingly. Compare the Dems primary to the bloody mud racking cockfights that went on during the Republican primary and this entire discussion looks silly.
Blow makes an excellent point that we should expect honesty and transparency in our actual governance and clearly, Trump has fallen far, far short of that expectation.
So we need to stop engaging in this nasty game of mudslinging "gotcha" while drawing completely false equivalencies to justify the very bad behavior of the current leadership of this Country.
Surely getting this current White House in order is an issue that all Americans can agree upon.
5
@ KDolan
Yes, Hillary was so intelligent that she lost to a moronic, genitalia-grabbing loudmouthed reality TV host with an itchy Twitter finger, despite having the media and the establishment of both parties in her corner and outspending the Con Don 2:1.
Get real.
We desperately need a new, centrist, common sense party with transparent ethics guidelines that are observed and reported upon. This party must also contain guidelines for evaluation and reforming legislation.
There are numerous progressives policies that resonate with the public regardless of political affiliation, but an utter lack of ethics and accountability in both political parties means they are never considered.
I am itching for the day when someone puts together a cogent alternative to the two slovenly groups we empower.
16
Mr. Blow leaves out the even more serious fact that Trump claims all of the issues regarding Russian involvement with our election infrastructure and our social media is nothing more than "fake news" by Democrats who lost a winnable election.
1
It occurs to me Charles Blow has been the most productive opinion writer at NY Times for a while now. Good work!
Running a primary is technically a private matter but pretend like it's practice for running a government and have some integrity! I am pretty practical about voting in the last 10 or 15 years but the 2016 DNC shenanigans and the made up middle of the roadism of the Third Way type groups constantly predating on DNC brains really makes me want to go absolutist again.
1
Charles, I recently removed all Facebook and twitter accounts because I can’t get over the damage that these platforms have done and continue to do. However, I closely follow you and your newspaper for accurate information about our country. I’m old but I’m active. We will NEVER give up trying to rescue our country from this mad man and his band of incompetents. Keep up the good work.
5
Speaking on behalf of the apparently invisible, imaginary and nonexistent Hillary Clinton supporters, allow me to suggest that it’s bad enough that Trump and his propagandists claim we never actually voted for her in the general election. Having our own people make the equally false and insulting claims about her primary victory is an absolute betrayal.
If the Bernie wing insists on this lie as the price for their loyalty, then there truly is no difference between the parties.
2
Spot on, Charles! I’m a lifelong liberal, a student of politics, a reader about politics in good newspapers, books and magazines, and I’ve little idea of what the Democratic Party stands for now or should stand for in the future after Trump. That I can easily state this should frighten Democrats. Donna Brazile’s “Hacks” hit a nerve. It punctured Democrat’s thin skin. All she was saying was: Dems better get their next act together or they are going to lose elections. The DNC should buy a copy of “Hacks” for every elected Democrat. Maybe this book is the ice-water splash that will wake them up.
2
It is time to teach real history. It is time to tell your children what happened in Boston in 1773. The Boston Tea Party was about East India Company Tea. It was about turning London warehoused East India Tea into liquid assets. It was about corporate control of government. It was about East India Company control of parliament. It is again 1773 and the East India Company owns and operates your government. If Donald wasn't so incompetent he wouldn't be rubbing your nose in it he would be telling you how great it smells and tastes.
22
So, Moe, what DO you think of next year's chances for the Yankees, anyway?
1
Pure propaganda when losers lose. HRC was corrupt. The DNC is lost. They will possibly go further left, demanding more immigration, legalization of all illegals, gender politics. Accusation of racism, xenophobia at every turn. They don't have a program to defend America's interest. Their program is more welfare, free (as if there is such a thing) healthcare.
They push and pull. No message but internal struggle. Being against someone may be a cause but again, it's not a program.
What if Trump turns out to be a great President. Instead of having a heart attack each time his name comes up, what if everyone works towards a common goal: a better economy, better pay for Americans, respect of laws.
2
I am baffled by Donna B. If she thinks she is helping, please STOP. This sums up my thoughts exactly "The problem is that we’re already in hell and trying to dig our way out, and many of us are crestfallen when any obstacle is added that might impede that effort." We are in hell, I am a part of the resistance and its a struggle to get the energy day to day to deal with everything on top of the in DNC whatever they are doing chaos. They need to get it together because the resistance is and is moving forward or dragging them by the nose. I am thoroughly baffled by Donna B. what good is it lady? how are you helping? You're not, you're trying to make money and sell a book. Well some of us on the ground have been trying to get locals elected and you are putting down boulders and greasing the tweeting beast that is 45.
12
Did we have the same repulsion when HRC released her book?
2
Mr. Blow does not like Trump's face. But, the reality is that last November, he was elected by huge numbers of people who had voted for Obama because they bought his line that "America wasn't great anymore." For 8 years Obama tried to clean up the mess Bush and Cheney left behind against a solid line of opposition from the GOP and squabbling among members of his own party. Losing the House and Senate to the GOP paved the way for an even greater stalemate. Now, 45 seems to have it all going his way but, hey! The train to "Making America Great Again" is still in the station blowing its whistle.
2
The 2016 election was stolen.
Donald Trump was made President by the Electoral College, not by "huge numbers of people who had voted for Obama." Trump's vote total was approximately 26% of eligible voters. Hillary's total was three million plus votes more than Trump's.
The sad thing is that voting changes nothing.
If it did, it would be illegal.
3
It actually does. And they don't have to make it illegal since there's already 2/3 of us who don't bother.
Charles. You write the truth and it is appreciated. Each day that passes seems to reveal new discoveries (Secretary Wilbur Ross) that confirm the Newsweek cover story that you cited.
President Trump's behavior is no surprise. He seems to have created the public policy persona/antics/buffoonery during the campaign that attracted the crowds and media attention that profited the media and Mr. Trump.
The new GOP administration is harming the present and future financial and health interests of the American People. During the campaign I can well remember how his antics "out media-ed" the other Republican candidates and how he was held in disdain by the leaders of the GOP. He was not accepted by the GOP establishment until after the nominating convention. Now he seems to be adopted by the GOP and they have rationalized the President's behavior as OK, sort of the old saw, "he is a crook but he is our crook."
I shall wait until Mr. Mueller and the special Congressional Investigative Committees finish their work but I know already that we have a problem in focusing on the issues that are important to the future of the social, economic, environmental security of the US.
I am particularly interested in solving the problems of how the economies of the World are going to transition to a a non-fossil energy source for electric power and transportation. It is the major issue of our time and the media, GOP and White House are distracted by Mr. Trump's antics. tweets.
5
Donna Brazile has a long string of failures as a campaign adviser. Look at her bio as quoted from Wikipedia, a career of advising losers.
"She was the first African American to direct a major presidential campaign, acting as campaign manager for Al Gore in 2000. She has also worked on several presidential campaigns for Democratic candidates, including Jesse Jackson and Walter Mondale–Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and for Dick Gephardt in the 1988 Democratic primary."
Right now her self-serving words, much of it marginally true, released just before Tuesday's election, smells of Trump Trolls, the expert purveyors of Fake news, the same news that knee-caped Hillary Clinton. Then in her self-aggrandizing finale, she said, she thought of replacing Clinton with BIden as the nominee after her unfortunate fall, rather than defending the nominee, at the same time as Trump was using that incident in a Tweet storm to proclaim that Clinton was unfit to serve. What a mistake putting Brazile in charge, the path of least resistance. And, true to form, she was nothing more than the kiss of death.
17
Agreed. Politically speaking, Donna B is dead to me. I can't imagine what she gained by putting out this gossip fest a week before Election Day. No, we do not have time or space for this. I don't think The Resistance is going back in the box.
10
You would have been much happier not knowing that Clinton is a devious crook? Or you knew, but just didn't care?
1
The Democrats were forced to offer up stale bread Hillary as a candidate.
The country looks at it and says “no, thank you”.
Until the Democrats can admit that, they have no future.
Blaming $100k of Russian ads on Facebook, half of which were after the election, half of them favorable to Hillary, for your defeat just keeps making you look silly.
The longer you maintain your foolishness, the lower your support will go.
22
The majority of voters said "yes" to Hilary. Until you can admit that, you should broadcast your fiction elsewhere.
Meanwhile you voted for the embarrassment in the WH, so your opinion means nothing.
1
Ken you are nothing but a trump troll. HRC won by a wide margin. She lost 4 swing states by very questionable numbers. That allowed her to "lose," becasue we are not a functionng democracy and still have the slavery era EC. Even worse, we had "electors" that did not understand their duty was not to rubber stamp, but to engage.
1
I used to be non-affiliated. Then the Republican Party made me join the Democratic Party. Then came Bill Clinton, who set race relations back and handed more of our national wealth over to the richest Americans more than anyone other than Ronald Regan. Barak Obama offered some hope, but even he was unable to lead us as a true progressive because he had to deal with the Clinton Big Money wing of the Democratic Party. In recent years, I have been able to become financially involved in our politics beyond canvassing, etc. I heartily supported the Obama campaign. Since the 2016 election, I have not given a penny to the National Democratic Party (I gave heavily in 2016 not to support a Clinton but to try to defeat a madman). We now have the madman, and I hold the National Democratic Party more responsible than I hold the Republican Party, although every nearly Republican in Congress is culpable for what they allow him to do (not that I'm surprised. Unless the Democratic Party starts to listen to the young people who want to move our country forward, I'll not support the party in the future. My money and time are much better spent on local politics where progressives are gaining ground.
16
There is no resistance. If people were going to do something to keep Trump from being president they would have done it a year ago. Americans are stupid. They voted stupidly. Our government is stupid. You can't expect anything from stupid except stupid. I'm just keeping my head down and hoping this all blows over. Since I don't go to church, I'm not worried about being shot. And NYC is still part of the real world - even after we endure another senseless terrorist attack. Americans are weak - New Yorkers have edge.
7
In the present political climate, the 'centrist Democrats' appear weak- unable to muster a response to a highly adapt and mutable adversary. They have not yet developed the language and content to connect with the former Obama voters who reluctantly- in the absence a choice, voted for Trump, and decided the election. The 'social Democrats' have the language, the right content and the energy to connect with these now-Trump voters. But, as is becoming evident, HRC and the Democratic establishment arm-twisted the party to oppose Bernie Sanders, to the detriment of the party and the country, as is so clear now. Bernie Sanders is working to rise again, it appears, and will be the nominee and likely to win in 2020 even if the political climate does not get worse for Trump. If it does get worse, then he will be in an even stronger position. Centrists need to listen to 'not-so-centrists' who are now a deciding factor. If they do not, then peril awaits the Dems in the next election. No centrist is on the horizon right now and it will not be possible to bring one up to speed quickly; even Joe Biden will not be able to do so, having been out of sight for so long.
8
There's no such thing as a "centrist democrat". That's why you lost.
1
Ok Mr. Blow you remain and rightly so very upset about our political situation, but your analogy to the Russian propaganda exposure of 126 million is wrong when compared to the number of voters. It's an apples and oranges comparison and for you to assume that exposure meant vote change really is a criticism of the intelligence of the voters. Unexamined and silly things like that make you look unhinged and irrational.
8
Well, PW, I suggest that you get out and about more than you appear to do.
Americans are absolutely influenced by what they see on television and the I-net.
In general, Americans don’t read much anymore, arguably - they never did.
Americans are also easily influenced by Con-men.
PT Barnum’s reply to Horace Greely’s question about the gullibility of Americans at his circus side shows says it all:
“There’s a sucker born every minute”.
The USA was founded with the intent that its citizens would enable its lawful government through interaction, and do that by being educated about issues and governance.
Americans abandoned that mandate with the advent of TV and particularly the Internet.
That’s why it is failing, right in front of us all.
Donna Brazile has demonstrated a truth about all politicians - it's all about me. Given a choice between their own personal interest or the interests of the party or the country, a politician will always go for themselves. Whatever damage Brazile does to the party doesn't matter if it helps her sell more books.
10
Donna Brazile is trying to save the party.
You need to stop playing "hear no evil," and listen to the evidence that says that the Clinton campaign fixed the primaries and defunded local campaigns.
You have to decide whether the Clintons or the country is more important. Since the Clintons took over the party you have lost 2/3 of all elections. That is why Republicans get to make election rules.
The Centrist strategy of saying, "the Republicans are essentially right that there is no money, so we can't do anything for the people," is both a lie and bad strategy.
If the Clintons aren't destroying the party on purpose, I would be surprised. I can't believe anyone can be this incompetent by accident.
The right hates the Clintons because of decades of Fox lies, but the left hates the Clintons because of the actual policies that they promote and enacted: Three Strikes led to Mass Incarceration, Deregulating investment banks and derivatives helped Bush destroy the economy. Ending Welfare As We Know It leaves the working poor hungry. Supporting the Iraq War helped to kill or wound 45,000 troops and destabilize the Middle East. Helping rebels overthrow Libya created another failed state. Supporting fracking and the export of fracked gas hurts the fight for renewables and make global warming worse.
Why do you expect the left to vote for all of these Republican policies? If I wanted to vote for Republican policies, I would have voted for Republicans.
Amen. But hold on. It isn't the village that's burning down it's the entire country. We are having a vast nervous breakdown from an epidemic of mass murders and the iron grip of an American kleptocracy. This breakdown is occurring in a moral vacuum created by a citizenry of greed, ignorance and resentment.
6
The mass murder is a symptom not a cause, but otherwise, I agree.
Blow calls it like it is - may be third party candidates and Bernie and his supporters may also be responsible for Trump winning. In fact, Gore talked about his election being won by Bush due to third party candidate spoilers. Holding one's nose to vote Hillary does not diminish her - it diminishes the voters who cannot see beyond their noses. We all have paid a heavy price for these pseudo intellectuals who are lacking in common sense.
7
If Hillary Clinton had the true strength of character to look beyond her lust for the Presidency, she would have admitted, although very painfully, that she was too tainted to beat Trump and thrown her full resources behind Bernie Sanders who WOULD have defeated Trump.
1
More Democrats voted for Bush then voted for Nader. More Democrats voted for Trump then voted for third parties. There was no serious third party in 2004, so what was Kerry's excuse?
Democratic centrists have to stop blaming the world and look at your own actions
Bernie was bringing millions of new voters into the party. Clinton and her supporters attacked them, calling them names, saying they weren't really Democrats, and then refusing to offer them anything but scorn after Clinton "won," even though the evidence says Clinton cheated.
Debbie W Shultz was forced to resign over the evidence so Clinton made her Honorary Chairperson of her campaign, and Brazile has now released more evidence, and you blame the messenger, and still blame Bernie.
Clinton could have offered Bernie the VP spot, and all of you Clinton supporters could have been gracious and welcoming. Instead you were sore winners.
You treat the party like a private club and wonder why it cannot grow.
Centrist Democrats made Trump possible. Your strategy has been losing for decades. This is not 1968.
Embrace your base to win.
As a registered Democrat I think the biggest problem the party has aside from lacking a cohesive message or strategy, is a collective inability to reach voters on a personal level. The Dems never miss a chance to let me know how important my donations and my votes are, but seem to care little about my opinion or my actual life. They have all the answers to the problems, I just need to donate more money, vote democrat down the line, and they'll handle everything else. Their entire campaign now is about stopping Trump from destroying America,so I guess healthcare, taxes, infrastructure, wages, the environment will have to wait. CNN, where Mr. Blow can be found on the occasional panel, has become more and more like a liberal Fox news, where one host after another parades the same revolving panelists to discuss their unwavering positions on political issues and news. It's almost all Trump all the time.
The GOP have found that the winning formula for controlling the government is connecting with real people at the state and local level. That makes all the difference. The news can say whatever they want, because after meeting President Trump at a rally, and Senator so and so at a town hall meeting, their supporters can dismiss almost anything as "fake news" because of that connection.
13
Donald Trump will fall but the process that is bringing him down has been an education to us all. American's have been given the rare opportunity to witness corruption, racism and misogyny in our country like never before. This is huge opportunity for all us independents and democrats to do it right this time around and that means without Hillary Clinton.
4
Analyses by multiple journalists, including David Leonhardt of the NYT, concluded that Trump would not be your president if liberals voted at the same rate as conservatives. Too many Democrats, particularly those demographic groups most likely to be progressives, just did not vote. One hopes that "The Resistance" will not be storming the barricades but rather the ballot box.
8
Thinking Democrats could not get themselves to vote for Hillary.
The problem was the candidate, not the voters.
Seems obvious, but for some reason it is impossible see for the diehards.
It is easier to blame the Russians than to admit that your Democrat party is a festering cesspool of corruption that even Democrats won't willingly vote for.
The left doesn't vote because the Democrats don't offer them a candidate. The Democrats keep trying to be Republican light, the lesser evil. Americans don't vote for lesser. They would rather vote for greater evil than lesser evil.
If you want the left to vote for Democrats, the party has to stop trying to appeal to Republican voters and offer the working people of America what they say they want by large majorities, universal healthcare, cheap higher education and infrastructure. Trump promised all that and won. Nobody said it was impossible when he promised it, only when Bernie promised it.
Campaign on the Greater Good, so you can build your base and win.
1
The Resistance is absolutely the future of the democratic party. In order to survive, inflexible stands need to be taken on these three major issues: the environment, education, and healthcare. That would do it. Draw a permanent line in the sand. This is what we stand for, this is what they stand for. Make your choice. Which side are you on? And one more thing...get out and vote.
7
NYT, you really must hire jerry hough, he apparently has a great scoop about the great russia/china/usa alliance(?) that will stop north korea.
1
brazille should just go away. Extreme hubris from a fool.
15
What are you talking about? Donna Brazile was one of the Clinton surrogates until she had to face the direct evidence that Clinton stole the primary, and didn't support local elections.
If you had faced the evidence in the primary when the Vice Chair of the DNC resigned over the party's manipulation of the primaries, you might have not alienated the millions of new voters Bernie was bringing into the party.
Clinton and her supporters want to blame everyone but those who are responsible for your loss, Clinton and her supporters.
I was telling you Clinton is unelectable before the primaries started. I was right. You were wrong She couldn't beat a black guy named Hussein. She couldn't ever beat the most unpopular presidential candidate in polling history.
The Centrist Democrats keep attacking their natural base, then whine that the base doesn't want to vote for you. That is why you have been losing 2/3 of all elections since 1994.
Republicans don't attack their base. They do not sacrifice their principles. Tax cuts uber alles all the time.
Promise workers what they need, healthcare, education, and infrastructure, like Trump did and you can win. Keep telling the people they can't have these things and you will lose.
Bernie is the most popular politician in the country because he fights unapologetically for what the people need, and promises to make the billionaires pay for it. You rejected that message and lost to Trump.
Face the reality and fix it..
Are you kidding me? You write this Op-ed piece about how the Democratic party needs to become the resistance and there's not a single mention of Bernie Sanders. Who do you think got the ball rolling?
19
It was women, not Bernie Sanders, who "got the (resistance) ball rolling." Millions and millions of women turned out all around the world to say "Resist." They organized locally and defeated the so-called America Health Act, the only significant piece of legislation to even reach the floors of the two houses of Congress. They will defeat efforts to cut Medicare and Medicaid. They will defeat the cynical effort by Trump and Congress to give yet more money to the mega wealthy in this so-called "Tax Reform." They will win seats in Congress in 2018 and will then be in a position to begin to make America sane again.
And women are still at it. Like most of women's achievements, this one too is ignored.
1
The strange paradox is this: the only way to show Trump supporters that the President and the Republicans do not have their best interest in mind is to allow bad legislation to pass both House and Senate. Then the TS will realize they are being shortchanged. But the instinct of the Democrats is to do everything in their power to prevent bad legislation from passing! This only makes the TS, who don't understand the implications of the legislations, continue to think that the Democrats are the bad guys. This catch-22 keeps the situation increasingly polarized. There is no solution to this dilemma, unfortunately, as allowing Trump to damage the country in order to expose his deceptions is too risky.
10
One reader comment speaks of addressing the rebuild of the Democratic party at the grass roots level with which I agree. However I would also add that we need leader(s) whether elected to office or not, to aggressively define the value system that Democrats represent and enunciate its proposals for the future. The caucus could agree on one or more to get the word out through a defined plan. Who finally emerges to lead us in forthcoming elections can come later.
4
Going back to the Gore campaign, Brazile has never taken responsibility for her poor performance - so there was no surprise here that she leveled both barrels at Clinton. We are a nation of editors and fingerpointers instead of changers and doers.
Can we expect better from leadership of the party? Absolutely - but in order to do better we have to look for talent from far more effective campaigns.
Calling Plouffe and Axelrod - please come to democracy's rescue!!
7
The New Democratic Party is the old Democratic Party. Nothing has changed except the players. They are still the party of nothing and are going nowhere.
7
Charles, the sad news is that the margins in your poll numbers are to small. There ought to be sweeping responses to these questions, not just a two or three present difference. More people need to care deeply about the way the way that Trump and his henchmen in Congress are driving the country over the bridge.
1
I think Donna Brazile did the Democratic Party and the Democratic process a huge favor by laying it all out there. Wipe the slate clean and build a newer, stronger party for the future. The core values of the Democratic Party are what America needs now, more than ever. The distillation of those values, that began under President Clinton, hasn't served us well. I say double down, get stronger, embrace a clear and unambiguous message and let's get it done.
6
Mr. Blow is exactly on point here. The Democratic Party showed its fractures before 2016. Just ask any of use who ran for Congress in 2014 just how effectively the DNC, DCCC, or our own state parties supported our campaigns, which often were meant to build a statewide or nation-wide party. The institutional structure of this organization failed us miserably. Then see what many of us observed at the 2016 caucuses as the future of the party, mostly those under the age of 50, and especially those under the age of 35, and having never participated in the party before, came out in droves and supported the Sander's campaign. The institutional power structure has not caught up with this fact, and as a result the party is torn asunder. In the meantime, Trump came to office through that fissure. The country, and the world, can no longer afford a weakened party that allows the plutocrats and their henchmen to reign over US.
6
Although I understand the criticism of Bernie running as a Democrat, I wouldn't be so quick to criticize him as the Democrats have set up a system to kill off independents, even at the local level. I am running as an independent in NY, despite being a lifelong Democrat, and the party machinery has
1. Killed off 3 debates including the crucial network primetime debate.
2. Somehow got our local politics and government publication to say my opponent has no general election challenger, despite my many attempts to get them to print a correction.
3. Getting the parks department to dedicate a long overdue monument to women in Central Park (in my district) the day before the election when my opponents main campaign rhetoric has been about electing women to office. (not a criticism of her message, a criticism of the timing of the big free PR she will get when she is one of the main speakers at the dedication.)
4. NYT endorsed my opponent without asking me a single question, or allowing me to participate in the process.
It's no wonder so few vote in NYC when they see all the levers and mechanisms of power service the monied interests over the will of the people. This kind of mutual backscratching done by elites has a large negative impact on people's willingness to participate in elections, which has major consequences as we all can plainly see.
25
You are supposed to learn from your mistakes. After the sting of defeat you nurse your wounds, get in better shape, find a new formula and get back in the fight. Instead, Democrats are finding excuses and laying blame and giving more fodder to Republican's lies.
Tell Hillary, Bernie and Donna to shut the hell up. Admit their mistakes and help find a fresher, smarter and more electable message and candidate. A perfect storm hit them- Russians, racism and a deep-seated hatred of politicians.
3
Here is a way to resist. Offer the following logical proof over and over as a democrat, and force the conversation. The time to pander and cater to 2nd amendment radicals is over. How many more must die and be injured???
Logical proof
A. The United States has many mass shootings and thousands of gun deaths every year.
B. Republicans are in the pocket of the NRA.
C. All republicans in power do after mass shooting is offer “thoughts and prayers” and avoid any discussion of gun control, even for AK 47 rifles whose only purpose is to kill as many human beings as possible as fast as possible.
D. There are millions of guns, legal and illegal in the US, predicated on the rabid 2nd amendment proponents, many of whom are republicans in congress and the NRA and gun manufacturers.
E. Republicans care only about reelection, money and power
Therefore republicans in power are just fine with thousands of Americans dying each year to stay in power. Their right to take money from the NRA and the second amendment support is secondary to all of us having a right to live safely. It is a gun issue. Not a mental health issue.
Shame on all of you.
1
Bernie was a spoiler. He continues to be a spoiler. Yes, the Democratic Party needs new blood, ideas, money and people to invigorate the American peope and the serious issues we face. We can't throw the baby, the Dem. Party, out with the bathwater. What? Secede? Put what in its place? The Dem. Party is fragmented from the many it tries to encompass while the GOP knows its core and yet is fractured as well from Trump. He, cunning person he is, knew to appeal to the base that stands with him. Will that garner good for our country? I think not. The outsider won. As Te'nelsi Coates writes, Trump is the first white president and he follows the first black president. And Brazille has, in her furious state, done something unhelpful and selfish.
1
The Resistance is composed of lots of Greens, Independents, Socialists, and others to whom the word Democrat, Dumbocrat, or "Dummycrat" is anathema. To bring them back to the fold would be of huge benefit to the mainstream and a great challenge, pushing the agenda of the party very much to the Left. Most of us still like Bernie, however, though many find him all hat, no cattle--my daughter, for instance, who pointed out that he hadn't sponsored one successful piece of legislation--all proposed being quixotic. Single payer healthcare--go for it. I hang at the very left edge of the party, something I also consider quixotic, as a member of PDA. Go,Blooz!
1
"How did we get here?"
The Clintons turned the party into Republican-Lite and a large swath of the working class decided to try the Republican wing of the Republican Party. And the "national Democratic Party, a dinosaur of bureaucratic machinery" is doing all it can to keep the party the party of the well-off.
11
Simplicity is a wonderful thing. The Democratic Party should articulate 5-10 principles and expect Democratic candidates to endorse most of them - though not necessarily all because they must represent their constituencies. Some suggestions: (1) Protect the environment and the food supply, and address climate change; (2) Support science and respect it; (3) Support public health initiatives, including science-based approaches to reducing deaths from gun violence and opiate abuse; (4) Make basic healthcare available and affordable for all Americans; (5) Make higher education and job training affordable for all by supporting public institutions; (6) Reduce government interference in healthcare decisions of all kinds - including those related to reproductive health; (7) Promote peace by developing alliances and showing moral leadership as well as having a strong military -- and one that takes cyberwarfare seriously; (8) Incrementally revise the tax code to make it simpler, fairer, and more transparent with respect to tax preferences and redistributive effects; (9) Fight corruption in government at all levels and insist on transparency and full disclosure of conflicts of interest; (10) End racism in employment and law enforcement.
Compared with deaths from lack of timely health care, environmental pollution, bad food, opiates and guns, deaths from terrorism are a rounding error. Let the Democratic Party be the one "not controlled and jerked around by terrorists".
1
"...many of us are crestfallen when any obstacle is added that might impede that effort."
But there seem to be a lot of "progressives" who aren't crestfallen at all. Why is that?
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article182458866.html
---
A liberal activist group on Thursday labeled Ralph Northam’s campaign "racist," criticizing the Virginia Democrat running for governor a day after he declared that he would not support "sanctuary cities" for undocumented immigrants. ...(Democracy For America) went on to say the Northam campaign was running "the same old, broken, and racist playbook that lost Democrats over 1000 elected offices since 2008." The statement, issued Thursday night, drew a swift and strong rebuke from many Democrats and liberals, including its founder, Howard Dean, who blasted the statement as "incredibly stupid” and one that “discredits” the group.
---
From The Daily Beast: "We’ve seen this movie too many times. Don’t blame us if Northam loses, DFA will scream; blame his unprincipled campaign! When someone loses a campaign, people can always point to a dozen factors, and sure, Northam hasn’t run a strong race. But all that is irrelevant to the question at hand. The question at hand is what “principle” DFA thinks it’s advancing by making this kind of showboat move less than a week before an election."
https://www.thedailybeast.com/hey-dfa-wtf-are-yhe-most-self-righteous-po...
6
Hillary needed to not call voters deplorable. That's pretty much what it would have taken. Her polls were on the ascent until that very moment and cratered thereafter. She was a white woman with more objectively anti-gay and anti-black legislation under her (two-for-one) belt than anyone else running. I'd surmise that what those millions of white voters who flipped from Obama to Trump (yes, millions) were looking for was self-perceptive humility from Clinton, not an attempt to cleanse her own history by pointing down at them. That was the big, obvious puddle she needed to appear not to step in and she couldn't do it. That's morally shoddy (no really - it is, and I voted for her b/c no real alternative) and displayed far less far less leadership, grit, honesty and character than did that very popular Kenyan American with the funny name.
Keep it simple. Keep it honest. Keep the goals humane and realistic. Desire to be everyone's president. People can smell that. They really can.
4
There were many factors which led to Clinton's loss in last year's election, including her own flaws. We now know the Russians played a role in her defeat as well. Further, Bernie Sanders chose a particularly bad time to try to gain traction at the national level as a viable candidate for the presidency. He is an Independent and should have run as one. He helped to further divide the Party, there is no doubt about that. What all of this has left us with is a Party that is fractured, and a president who is a danger to the world. We can continue to resist, but we also need to start rebuilding a progressive Democratic Party starting at the state level and working our way up, so that hopefully in the very near future we will again have a progressive candidate like Barack Obama who can appeal to the majority of people in this country, and unify the Party behind him or her. Voting in every election matters. However, that is going forward, and may take years to yield results.
Right now I am not hopeful that much can be done to oust Trump (unless Mueller comes up with something) because the Democratic Party lacks any kind of Congressional control, and I am uncertain the 2018 election will change that in any substantive way. Republicans will go along with Trump in the hopes they can pass some kind of legislation he will sign from tax reform that benefits the wealthy to destroying the ACA and the social safety nets. We cannot expect any help from them. We have a tough road ahead.
3
"we will again have a progressive candidate like Barack Obama"
How'd that work out? He immediately pivoted and governed like a centrist. Gave in to Big Pharma so that now Medicare can't negotiate prices for drugs and let all the bankers who trashed the economy walk away. Then he tried to anoint Hillary, in his wisdom, rather than actually remain neutral. No thanks.
Diana your comment was great except for this: Obama was NO progressive, not in the least. He is a centrist, who used pretty words that resonated with a lot of people, an who also got reluctant votes from people like me that are more about the steak than the sizzle. As proof, just look at what he is doing now. Just another rich man toying with building a foundation on the vaguest of principles. No attempt to rally key democrats and attempt to build a party, based on just a few catch phrases. With none of those phrases containing the words transgender or bathroom.
Bernie beat both Clinton and Trump in 3/4 rust belt states with open primaries. Trump ran and won on Bernie's Payson
There is no Democratic Party. There is no unifying leadership, no coherent platform, no message. It has become an institution for careerists, going through the motions while everything crumbles around them. (Schumer? Pelosi?) The press has fallen down on the job while the right wing propaganda machine is in full cry.
“The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
And this has become the new normal. Rampant corruption, blatant incompetence, open looting as the GOP turns the government into a wealth concentration machine.
Trump lied when he said “the American carnage” would end. He’s enabled it. He’s delivering it. He relishes it.
6
“Donna Brazile may be burning the village in order to save it.”
I really don't think so. From all the quotations from the book and from her interviews it looks very much to me as though Ms. Brazile is burning the village so as to look important.
6
When blow refers to the democrat party, does he mean the Clinton party?
11
What a privilege it is to read Mr. Blow's column, well written and thoughtful as always . I would just like to add, that from an international prospective, these so called "mainstream" democrats would not be considered democrats at all in the rest of the modern world. If your "radicals" want single-payer system or free public education then they are pretty much where the center-right is in most of Europe. In short, your country is so tiled to the right, you don't even know where the left is anymore.
8
It is global corporate mass media that is filed to the right. They are lying about what the people want.
The Democratic Party, of which I am a member and a local branch Co-Chair, would do well to adopt Corbyn's approach to reinvigorating UK Labour. Engage young people. Be for the many, not the few. (The UK Labour Manifesto is excellent.)
7
When was the last time either party represented the interests of average everyday hard working Americans? Our Senate is a millionaires's club. Dems and Repubs alike champion legislation that disproportionately benefits those with six figure (and above) incomes. They cynically refer to these people as middle class when the median family income in the US is slighlty more than $54,000. They spend more time soliciting donations from big corporate doners and billionaire citizens than they do solving our nations problems. They can't even ensure that the most basic functions of government are met. Our nation's infrastructure is worse than that of many so called second world nations. Our public schools, where very few Senators and Congresspersons send their children, are hollow shells of what they were just a generation ago. Both parties are lead by elderly adults in their late 60's and early 70's who are long past their working prime, and, if they worked in the private sector, or any other branch of government would be forced to retire.
However, even if the democratic party is purged of its current inept geriatric leadership nothing will change. Gerrymandering and elite campaign contributions will ensure that things remain the same. Trump was right about one thing. The system is rigged and the rigging was a bi-partisan effort.
7
Charles Blow describes exactly my sense of feeling discouraged by "barriers" that might prevent DT from being removed, but I question whether Braziles' book is as much of a barrier as the DNC itself. The plausibility of Braziles' allegations is built on the foundation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz's transgressions. Meanwhile, the DNC continues to do what it can to alienate those who were activated by Sanders, and democratic congressman seem content to act as superficial spoilers and hecklers, basking in schadenfreude. The next election is the DNC's to lose, and they seem to be intent on doing just that.
6
Brazile didn't just make vague claims. There is documentary proof. The NY Times should be releasing these documents so everyone knows exactly what happened instead of being the story.
If the party didn't clean up this mess transparently, Trump will win again.
The willingness of Elizabeth Warren to jump out and agree that the primaries were fixed based on nothing, is illustrative of what the Democratic party is going through. The ignorant willingness of Bernie supporters in the three key states to throw the election to Trump by withholding their votes has put fear in too many Democratic candidates.
I have always supported Warren. Unfortunately I am deeply disappointed by her actions. Current Massachusetts polls and Warren's own unfavorability rating are very alarming. Bernie supporters were furious when she wouldn't come out and endorse him prior to the primaries and then after Hillary won the nomination she enthusiastically campaigned for her. She knows Hillary supporters would never be so stupid as to withhold a vote for her and give the senate seat over to a Republican. She also knows that Bernie supporters are extremely capable of doing this. So she has made a political calculation.
Bernie has created monsters, and he doesn't care. To him it brings the revolution closer. No matter the destruction.
4
The money sure knows how to flatter narcissistic fools into running spoiler campaigns.
Actually, he's inspired the younger generation to get involved in politics and not settle for the big money establishment approach. And he's single-handedly brought single-payer healthcare back onto the political agenda. We all owe him a debt of gratitude.
3
Brazile has documentary evidence, the contracts that have Clinton control of the party and the primaries. No one is denying that they exist. The Vice Chair of the DNC resigned over Clinton's manipulations during the primary. The Wikileaks emails were never denied and provide further direct evidence.
As long as Clinton supporters refuse to acknowledge the proven, and keep blaming the messengers, the party will be divided and the Republicans will win.
Democrats need far more than half the votes to win. That is a constitutional fact. You must teach out to the left and give them a reason to vote for you.
The NY Times needs to stop protecting Clinton and connect the dots.
The Democratic Party needs to listen to its own base if you want the base to vote.
2
“....there is an overwhelming surge of Democratic women interested in running for office.”
Amen to that!
For the past 18 months I have joined with various groups in Arizona, promoting Progressive causes as well as demonstrating against the political scourge figureheaded by Hisself.
A distinct majority of the awesomely patriotic Americans present at those events have been Women.
Not just standing around holding signs (albeit an important function for media coverage), but speaking loudly from podiums and on street corners, raising their thoughtful, collective outrage at the damage being done to our beloved nation by republicans.
Thankfully, many forward thinking Women (and Men) have chosen this moment in time to run for public office. A bit late to the party, but better late than never.
I am a serious man, a proud military veteran who volunteered for service during wartime because that was my duty as a citizen.
That stated, I am grossly disappointed in the ineffective, generally non-strategic nature of most American government - on every level - that is run by overwhelming male majority.
The Women of the USA deserve the opportunity to correct the current wayward trajectory of this country.
Not “someday”. Now!
3
Here! Here! Well said!
It is time for a third party. The Republicans and Democrats have muddied their brands. We need some fresh and forward-looking ideas. Macron accomplished this in France with his En Marche! (Forward!) party. Who has the moxie to make this happen in the U.S.?
1
We can all agree that Russia meddled in the 2016 election - bigly! But journalists keep forgetting that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million! How is it possible to lose when being the popular winner? We all know it is the archaic Electoral College. This can be fixed without a Constitutional Convention - already some states have adopted legislation that their electoral votes will follow the popular vote!
1
Charles Blow for president in 2020!
1
Until the people who voted for Trump see the light and realize what a screwed-up dodo loser they elected, there is little hope we will have a competent, decent president who speaks for all of us very soon.
With republican gerrymandering, their fake news and propaganda on censored Fox, Breitbart, et al., stacking the Court with right-wing cadavers, electing pig castraters and know-nothings to Congress, and an empty fat suit with no idea what he's supposed to do, this country will be bleeding for a long time.
The democrats do have a message, and have had as long as I can remember, and it's not just "We're not them", though that's a pretty good message. They need to find solid candidates with ideas put into short, coherent sentences, who are energetic and hungry for the job. Somebody who seems like one of us. Like Obama, say. Even Sanders.
That wasn't Hillary Clinton in any way. She had no 'message'.
I voted for her, of course. But, just because she was way better than any of the 17 or so republicans on offer didn't make her any more desirable as president for those people who fell for Trump and his guff.
1
Some points in addition to Mr. Blow's excellent column:
Donna Brazile is an unreliable narrator. If we want to distance ourselves from political corruption, start with the fact that she was caught handing Hillary information about one of the debate questions.
Sanders isn't a Dem. He's a registered Indy, is listed in the Senate as an Indy, and doesn't loom large on my horizon because of his age. I'm a Boomer myself, and I'm disgusted with the political Old Guard, from any party.
It was the electoral college that handed trump the White House, Hillary won the popular vote by 2.9 million votes. We REALLY need to get rid of an electoral system conceived when there was sparse population across the US, plus slave states that wanted to fatten up their population tallies even though they never dreamed of letting slaves have a political voice (and after a couple hundred years, why are we still having to fight to lift that ugly boot?)
I believe it was Churchill who said Democracy is the worst type of government, until you look at all the others. I believe that also applies to the Dem party, for now. If we're headed toward a split into Dem and, just for defining the split, Progressive, so be it.
3
The Resistance is now where the Tea Party was when it first started, and like the Tea Party, will probably force the centrists in the party to move away from the center in order to placate them. If successful, it will make the choices between left and right more distinct but will lessen the possibility of compromise between the parties. I hope that this does occur, because it may set the stage for the introduction of a true centrist third party.
The jockeying for post position for 2020 starts. Donna Bazille's stunt is the first entry in the race, using a time honored tactic -- starts with whipping up a controversy that has everyone talking about you, backed up with a book.
None of this will stop until we change the manner in which we elect our public servants (i.e., politicians). Changing the system to a 100% publicly funded election system with a designated amount of FREE air and media time for each candidate should be the price these media entities pay for using the public airwaves. Debates should once again be organized/presented by the League of Women Voters or similar group, etc. Violators will be prosecuted. Etc.
Get money out of politics. Period.
5
The problem with your excellent suggestion to get money out of politics is that any changes to the system would have to be made by those who owe their entire lives to the system as it now exists; i.e., those currently enjoying the benefits of being elected officials or their appointees. Got any other ideas?
Here in Westchester County we have an election for County Executive TOMORROW, between a Trump-like Republican and an honest, experienced, true public servant. George Latimer, Democrat, has been supported by Indivisible, Moms Demand Action, Sierra Club, and many more grassroots groups. The Resistance is alive and well in our County and we will not stop until this nightmare ends. First to go - Astorino. Next up, the Republican Congress and Trump.
3
The strength and weakness of the Republican Party is they show up and vote for their candidate not matter what
The strength and weakness of the Democratic Party is they have high aspirations, and if the candidate doesn't meet their aspirations they may or may not vote for their candidate.
There's a reason we have all 3 branches of Government are Republican controlled - vote!
2
If Brazile thinks her book is going to set a fire under the D Party she is right on that count. But the fire is burning everything down. We have nothing to learn from this book except that Brazile was out to save the party despite all odds. What hubris. Her egotism is boundless.
1
The new number of Americans exposed to Russian adds is 150 million. Almost half of the entire population of the country. Resist. Remove.
It is time for a New Party. Let the Dems embrace identity and socialism. Let the Repubs flaunt nativism, greed and originalism. We crave a 21st c. government and leadership that can address our profound social ills through reason, intelligence, experience, commitment, and appreciation for historical and cultural perspective. We need a new sense of patriotism and collective pride. Neither party as now exists can deliver on these ideals. We must stop the blame game. Lincoln said it in response to the execrable, destructive principle of slavery, "we must disenthrall ourselves, and then we will save our country."
I... absolutely hate this article, I have to say. Democrats lost because of their own oversights within the party too, not just because of Russian hacking. They've failed to unite because the people in control simply have no message, or only unrelatable messages. If you think that Democrats should quash internal dissent 3 years out in order to better ensure a victory in the 2020 general victory when it isn't even clear whether or not that would help, I wonder if you care more about good politics or power. Take some responsibility for your own failures, Democrats.
3
Charles Blow, like his fellow NYT columnists could not believe their minds that Hillary lost so they have to invent or fuel whatever theory surfaces to make excuses for her shocking loss.
The most important thing the democrats can do (but won't) is realize the level of evil we're fighting with the Trump administration.
This calls for putting aside the petty bickering and squabbles to take on the greatest threat to American democracy since the civil war. Taking back the House in 2018 should be priority number 1, 2 and 3.
2
Yeah yeah yeah. Have you looked at the stock market since Trump's been elected? I think you can probably equally attribute the gains to serendipity and the possibility of tax reform; just as with Bill Clinton in the late 90's. Regardless, the market is going to need to have a few underperforming years if "The Resistance" is going to have any chance at success.
3
I agree with everything Mr. Blow describes, except for his comments about Donna Brazile's new book, which he calls an "obstacle" to digging out of the "hell" we are in. Let's be clear that a large part of the reason we are in this "hell" is because of numerous avoidable mistakes the Democratic Party made in the 2016 primaries and election. If we are to avoid future Trumps, we need to make sure we never again make those same mistakes! Seen this way, Ms. Brazile's book is not an "obstacle." What she tells us is part of the necessary path towards correction, and now -- right now -- is exactly when we need to hear it.
3
Bill Clinton and the DNC moved the Democrats to the right in the 1990's. Calling themselves new Democrats, really they were just old Republicans. The only place left for the GOP was to move further and further to the right. Which is where we find ourselves now.
America is ready for the political pendulum to swing all the way back to the left once again. The Democratic part should do as Wayne Gretzky advised in hockey, don't skate to where the puck is, skate to where it is going to be. The Democrats should head as far left as fast as they can to try to catch up with where the American people are headed.
2
"The problem is that we’re already in hell and trying to dig our way out, and many of us are crestfallen when any obstacle is added that might impede that effort."
Then use this so called obstacle as a rung on a ladder to get out of hell.
The DNC needs, absolutely must reform and become the party of the people again. Now, actually.
3
There is a well-worn but time-tested observation that is begging to be heard in the Democratic Party and among the people comprising Mr. Blow's "Resistance."
Revolutionaries make terrible governors.
President Trump got a lot of votes promising to be the revolutionary to upend the "swamp" of American politics. To some extent, he has done this, but in reality, he is nothing more than the poster boy for the greatest wishes of American big business. The GOP has been emboldened to put forward several major bills, without any hearings, constituency input, effort to seek bipartisanship or transparency - the leadership seems to be basically making these bills up in the classic smoke-filled room method. Hardly revolutionary, regardless of how authoritarian it has been.
The last thing the Democratic Party should become is a revolutionary response to Trumpism. The only hope for the Republic is for Democrats to thoughtfully and with great empathy and respect, go to the American people and lead a reassessment of what is really important to them, then craft campaign planks that address those matters in a way that all can see.
The GOP want to play grownup, or play at being the boss. Democrats must very quickly start acting like mature and responsible adults. But I have no hope if the Democrats simply become the Sandinistas.
Hillary Clinton ran a corrupt and inept campaign. Unless or until Democrats acknowledge their mistake, they are doomed to repeat it.
4
"I don’t begrudge anyone the right to tell his or her own story, but my focus now is on protecting the country from Trump, and nothing else."
Thank The Lord that you are here to save us!!! Sarcasm....
2
Perhaps we should also focus on why Russia wanted Donald Trump to be the President of the United States so badly.
2
Thank you Mr. Blow for helping us keep our eye on the ball, to help us focus on the path ahead, no matter how long and steep. Also for calling out Ms. Brazile. No her turn at the mic is not at all helpful. And to Ms. Clinton how could you possibly have written a book about what went wrong in this tragic election less than a year after it happened. A little more thought and introspection and a little less blame was needed. These are horrific times and those of us who oppose Trump and the Republican agenda must resist anyway we can. But I am old and have fought many battles (that I thought we'd won), so my resistance will be small; it is up to the young to save our country from ruin (and the world too).
"The Resistance is strong and resolute, passionate and focused." Focused? Really? Based on what exactly do you have that conclusion? The left is as unfocused as ever. Clueless as to how to win back the WH or ether house of congress. The only attention seems to be generated by competing book tours. One by HRC, blaming everyone, and indeed everything (except of course, her self) for her disastrous campaign. And now Donna Brazille has decided to (finally) tell the truth about the corrupt, scheming DNC. Keep feeding your readers what they want to hear. Expect the same election results Mr. Blow...
2
I've stopped donating to political parties. The Democrats, in particular, seem to have no message - they don't articulate any reason to vote for them. You may disagree with Trump, but he gives his followers reasons (misguided as they are) to vote for him every single day.
1
Charles, I assume you will lead the racism charge against all of the Democrats who have the audacity to criticize Brazille for speaking the truth.
4
Sadly the cleavage in American politics has moved from being Economic as it was after the depression, to being Racial and Cultural. Hillary Clinton left herself vulnerable to attack by her greed and insensitivity to appearance of corruption. The resistance must resist the instinct to become "Stalinist" and conducting purges of those not sufficiently "leftist". Likewise the leadership of the party needs to understand that nominating a moderate cannot be an excuse for nominating someone who doesn't have a message, (or a reason to run other than ambition). Cultural groups and ethnic groups must mature and become content with the party's support for their issues and stop forcing candidates to repeat "LBTQ, or Black Lives Matter" in every speech. This does not mean that they should or the party should retreat from support for their issues. It means they must become part of a coalition and stop using the party as an instrument to advance only their cause. The largest strategic question the party faces is whether to abandon the cause of white working class voters and instead pursue a new coalition of racial minorities and social liberals. The danger of the new coalition is the electoral college, with liberals and minorities bunched in cities and the coasts, can produce more Trump like candidates. So far the democratic party has been unable to convince the white working class voter that they have more in common with Blacks and Latinos than they do with the wealthy.
3
I think it would be advisable to become more pro-active then resisting. I can't spend more time being against something....that is what the GOP does. I really need to be for something and focus on that progress. The current corporate ruled DNC lost me when they refused to listen.....they simply do not represent my needs & interests. Sad, I wonder what FDR & LBJ would say?
2
The Democrats need to return to the economic policies of FDR, JFK and LBJ. It is time for the progressives to take back our country.
Please, Charles Blow, come to your better senses, which you always display except for . . . those dastardly Russians! Scoundrel Putin caused Hillary's defeat and not her own candidacy which was, by popular acclaim, the weakest by far that the Dems could have put up?
Here is the U.S. Judiciary Committee report that Mr. Blow cites but apparently cannot, or will not, absorb:
"Our best estimate is that approximately 126 million people may have been
served content from a Page associated with the IRA [Russian operation] at some point during the two-year period. This equals about four-thousandths of one percent (0.004%) of content in News Feed, orapproximately 1 out of 23,000 pieces of content. Though the volume of these posts was a tiny fraction of the overall content on Facebook,[and how's this for a kindergarten conclusion] any amount is too much."
2
This Liberal Resistance kinda reminds one of the Republican Tea Party. Hope it's similarly effective.
1
Resistance does not win elections.
5
First the US does this kind of thing as well. Check the billions spent on the Ukraine elections that Manafort was involved in. Add 3 or 4 hundred missiles on the Russian border and you have a problem.
Second, the ground has to be fertile for this inanity to take hold. I suggest with an illiterate population it is quite easy to turn the political screws.
And lastly your electoral system is gerrymandered to death. Could be why the quality of your representatives is so appalling.
Good night and good luck
1
I do remember how eloquent Mr. Blow was about "direct democracy" within the Democratic Party, as expressed by the grass-roots support for Bernie Sanders.
Oh, wait a minute, that wasn't Mr. Blow, who was totally in the tank for Hillary Clinton. But who now lectures his readers about integrity.
Perhaps a dose of humility might be in order.
As bad as Donald Trump may be - Hillary Clinton would have been worse.
3
How? WOuld she have appointed dozens of far-right judges to the Federal courts? Would she have nominated a Gorsuch for the Supreme Court? WOuld she have pulle dot of the Paris accords? Would she have appointed Cabinet heads that were opposed to the agencies that they run? I could go on, but if you don't feel silly by this point you never will.
1
The conundrum for those of us in small states heavily weighted toward the GOP is how to vote. At what point do we stop voting for the lesser of two evils? When Northam says he would sign a bill outlawing sanctuary cities, what kind of Democrat is he? And why is it that the Democrats keeping tilting right when the GOP never seems to tilt left? Perhaps Ms. Brazile is right that the forest fire needs to burn before renewal can come.
2
I like a good oxymoron, but in Joy-Ann Reid's description of Donna Brazile's memoir, it seems to me that if you "burn the village" there will be nothing left to save.
On the other hand, perhaps the Democratic Party unwittingly began burning the village when they allowed Bernie Sanders, a non-Democrat, into the primary process. He clearly did not help the Party nominee during the election, and since that time has only been an implement for division.
According to Ms. Brazil, the Democratic Party is anti-democratic. How are we supposed to trust these people in the future. And if we can't trust them, Trump will win a second term. So get it together Democrats. Get organized and on the same page. Win these midterms and find a candidate people can support for 2020. A candidate under 100 years old: Gillibrand, Booker, Newsom, Garcetti, somebody...
People ought to think a little more politically, including Mr. Blow. The only person who stands to gain from a splintered Democratic Party is Bernie Sanders. Don’t fall for the guy who says he’s your savior. He is also a politician. He wants you to hate the people who are the only ones left in our government standing for democracy, for what we Dems believe is right and good. He’s willing to burn what’s left of our village, not to build it up, but so he can rule. The other side did that a year ago. The millions who voted for Hillary want our country back more than we need Bernie to be president. Pass it on.
The Resistance, Indivisible etc need to focus all their energy on removing the vast majority of Democratic incumbents, otherwise they are the core of the problem. Focusing on how much they hate Republicans while ignoring that most Democrats are nearly as bad is how we got to the point of electing Trump.
One the DNC could now to demonstrate their new direction - would be to eliminate the special delegates. Doing so would be symbolic of the "new" DNC.
2
Charles, the tactic of distracting public attention, one that can be effective in politics, won't, as Sam Ervin once noted,"hunt no more", in the criminal justice system. The clintons need all the truth there is, to once and for all shut them up. More power to Ms.Brazile!
2
Democrats and other progressives have not done enough to create a New Democratic Party. In fact, they have lost the battle against money, bigotry, and authoritarianism. The only hope for a people’s party, whether Democratic or not, is to force a rematch by the use of organized and relentless mass national protests. Mass strikes. Mass picket lines. Mass marches. Mass peaceful civil disobedience. We must accept the fact that the oligarchs have won, for now. A radical new strategy is necessary. Who will be the next MLK, Gandhi, Mandela? As of now no one has come remotely close to this kind of profile in courage. Count me as skeptical.
1
Looking back at how Mr. Obama did things, you could say that authoritarian bigotry backed by enormously wealthy funders was right at home the last time that the Democrats owned the White House and Congress.
You may well be talking about those sad jobless years as the last Dem presidency for quite a long time.
2
Leadership is not given, it is taken. The Resistance is taking the leadership from the old leaders of the Democratic Party and that is good for the nation, and the Democratic Party.
3
'Resistance' is to politics what the 'prevent defense' is to football -- it attempts to keep you from losing, which is always a recipe for not winning.
Brasile hasn't said anything that we didn't already know by the Democratic convention. When she says there's no good time to release her book, she means there's no better time for her to profit from the Democrats current misfortunes.
Bernie did better than anyone thought he would, but Hillary beat him soundly by 5MM votes, due to the fact that while he had progressive ideas re, healthcare/education, his plan for funding them was unsustainable (per GAO). Sanders' constant disparagement of Hillary's integrity during the primary, refusal to outright support support her after the Convention, and 12% of his constituency that voted for Trump in the GA -- we beat ourselves. Now the runner-up for the California party leadership is suing the winner for a recount. The blame is on us, not the Russians, and it is highly unlikely that Mueller is going to save us. And what are we going to do when the Republicans run the very popular and now foreign-policy-experienced Nikki Haley as the 'first woman president'? That's right, we'll lose again. Democratic unity is the only answer. Stop the party infighting, move to compromise (not a dirty word), don't call the opposition 'deplorables' (we need them to win), whomever the nominee is support her, do vote, and for G-d's sake don't 'protest vote'.
Resist resistance to losing.
2
I voted for Trump and it had nothing to do with Russian Facebook ads; but hey, keep going with that!
3
Honestly, who bases their political decisions on what they read on *Facebook*?? This whole "Russians influenced the election" circus is a very expensive (for the taxpayer) face-saving exercise by Democrats who can't accept the reality that they nominated a Loser with a capital "L". (Yes, I know, 3 million more illegals voted for her in California, etc.) And face it, to lose to DT, you really are a Loser, and that's what's going to go down in the history books. The attempt to avoid which, I suspect, is the motivation behind the whole circus. Taxpayers should send the Clintons and the Obamas a bill for this nonsense.
No one has claimed that all trump voters were swayed by the Russians, but the claim HAS been made that many trump supporters just aren't too bright, a claim your post lends anecdotal evidence to.
Here we go again with Blow type hysteria. We know you have a burning hatred of conservative white America, but doing Russia's work for them is a step too far. It is and was Putin's goal to raise legitimacy questions no matter who won the election.
5
Democrats need the exact moral opposite of Trump-- a humble uniter, setting a great example for our children, someone who is respected and admired, but enjoys the game itself and isn't afraid to mix it up.
What Trump proved is that the power of personality and presence is everything. Political experience is a liability--that 13% approval rating for Congress says a lot--but wanting to side with a winner who people can rally around is really the only way to go.
Mark Cuban--are you listening?
1
Just remember, the Russians hacked and stole DNC and John Podesta's private emails then passed them on to Julian Assange and his Wikileaks who released them. But it was the US media, including the NY Times, that published the stolen emails along with making extensive commentary on what was in the stolen emails that the US media itself published. It was only because of organizations like the NY Times, who paid Clinton hating Peter Schweizer to publish excerpts of his phony, error riddled, Clinton bashing tome. Nobody forced the Times or any media outlet to publish stolen, private emails. That was a decision, much like publishing Judy Miller's lies or Jayson Blair's lies, that rests solely with the NY Times and the US media. All of whom should take responsibility and apologize for their actions. Of course I will not be holding my breath.
1
Compromise. Compromis. Compromise. What is lacking in our federal government is mirrored in the Democratic Party. The far left cannot win without mainstream Democrats, yet refuse to understand that the process toward change takes time. Just as same sex marriage was a vision for some for many years before it became acceptable to the mainstream, extreme liberals must understand that educating rather than demanding will move our country forward. Find the common goals: keeping and working toward improving healthcare, making the rich pay their fair share, closing loopholes that allow tax evasion, equal rights, safety regulations, retraining, depoliticizing the Supreme Court, and sensible gun control are platforms that could bring the party together.
1
Trump, like other republican icons, is a square peg in a square hole when it comes to big money and big business. Sometimes he appears to be a round peg in a round hole. Either way, he is almost always a good fit. But that is not what got him elected. He did that by tapping into greed, locker room sexuality, hubris, dissatisfaction, lost status, and racism in a Country that has lost its moral way and hollowed out its democratic principles. Like a match made in Heaven, his insatiable ego meshed with the obsequy of a population that has abandoned education. And isn't his path to the bottom like everybody's funeral anyway? Will he go to Heaven with his wealth and a thousand servants like some Pharaoh when he eventually grasps the key to a nuclear expression of manhood? The groundswell of a new democracy hinted at in the support for Bernie, which happened in spite of the establishment of the democratic party, is a harbinger of hope; and I hope that sensible people will not follow the demon into the arena of irrationality. Let's sober up and cool down so that we can get back in control of our lives before the system comes in and does it for us.
Blow writes, "Russia stole and published emails and also generated fake news..." Charles is using the term "fake news" in its original meaning: a fictional news story passed off as factual. But the president and others use it differently; they mean a factual story that is unfavorable to them.
It's amazing that a term so recently coined now needs a modifier, like "genuine fake news," "real fake news." Or maybe it's just time to come up with another phrase and surrender "fake news" to Trump.
I'll suggest the one I used above, fictional news story. Perhaps you commenters can come up with others.
Yeah. He took the exact qualification that he forced upon the good people to adequately address his pestilential campaign strategy and now his presidential perma camp & paining style, and turned it right back at them to dicredit real testimony, real news and real analysis with a bigger megaphone spreading and blaring his smears and lies into so many more ears and eyes. That's what Big Money can do with impunity now that it virtually owns the entire media tent and stole Congress, the Presidency and the Supreme Court. Wait for the escalation stages. We ain't seen nothing yet.
Charles horrific solution to the Trump problem is to advocate silencing legitimate criticism (such as Donna Brazile's) of "anti-Trump" forces (such as the DNC). Astounding.
2
The sad part is that the New York Times "news" reporters did not have a story on the Brazile allegations for several days.
1
The president must be replaced by a coordinated effort of patriots with the necessary integrity to capture the enthusiasm and support of the required number of voters.
This is one time in American politics when only an alarmist call for his replacement will guarantee to deliver the needed numbers of campaigners.
The avoidance of a nuclear war with North Korea must be used to rally the energy from the voters to defeat Trump. Either impeachment or the twenty fifth amendment will suffice to do the job.
This entire effort must be led by an unquestionable patriot who is seen as solely motivated by a desire to save the country. I nominate Barack Obama for the job!
1
Good one! I didn't know you were being sarcastic until I read the last line. Well done.
2
I couldn't agree more with this op-ed. I groaned when I heard of Brazile's revelation about "rigging" (apparently somewhat of a misstatement, but close enough to be unsettling) the primary process in favor of the Clinton campaign. I share Brazile's anger and indignation about her own treatment by the Clinton people. However, I groaned in realizing that her revelations were simply going to undermine the democratic party even more. But maybe Joy Reid is right--Brazile's blast may shake up the DNC. And what the hell is Tom Perez doing at the top???? Do the Dems really want to lose 2018 that badly???
1
He ends like Brazile, albeit by another name, another byline. Democratic Party, you are not Liberalism, which owns you and Jumped Over you and now YOU FOLLOW US. Well, I've been a Dem all my life, shook Muskie's hand at a rally in 1968 at age eight, and young Mr. Blow doesn't own me or my own sense of where liberalism is and what the hack-led Indivisible thinks or is worth. Same old narrative, the center cannot exist, cannot be cool, cannot be diverse, cannot be actually busy earning a living and paying taxes.
2
Charles, you write the truth, as always. But the point you miss is that almost all Americans have no idea about any of this. The outrage coming out of the media for every Trump misstep is foreign to most Americans' experience. All they are concerned with is living their daily lives, providing for themselves and their families, and hoping to avoid financial disaster with joblessness, addiction, and broken personal lives staring them in the face. All this megadiscussion about Trump and his various scandals are just background noise to them, and they are unconcerned about it.
This is the landscape the Democrats face. How can they make these voters realize that their very existence is threatened by Trump, every day? How can the Democrats make themselves into the Party of the Average Person? All politics is local, as the voters know and live, but do the Democrats appeal to that with anti-Trump slogans?
Honestly, I think that Hillary's big mistake was casting herself primarily as the anti-Trump. The voters don't want to hear about these kinds of rock-throwing contests. They want to hear how their personal lives will be made easier and more secure, and wonkish diatribes won't cut it. This is the task facing Democrats - making the party appealing at a personal level to the voters. Forget about the idiocy of Trumpism. Focus on people's daily lives. If you don't, then the Trumps of the world will continue winning.
Make the race about THEM, not the Party.
5
Bravo!
The Democratic Party has a problem and has had one for years. It stinks at politics. It has been shedding voters an a record pace. As a result the Democrats control nothing, that's zero, zip, nada. It is like a family in need of an intervention. The elders, like Grandma Nancy, simply refuse to admit that there's a problem, that their world has changed. They cling to ther power and refuse to let new leaders emerge. Now Cousin Donna has gone public with the inside dirt. Oh My!
Many of the kids (mainstream Democrats) don't want to hear about how Aunt Hillary may or may not have cheated Uncle Bernie out of the nomination either. It's over, it's done with, why does it matter, he's not a Democrat. We need to focus on the future, they say.
That last part may be right but how do you focus on the future when you refuse to acknowledge the past? Do you do it by screaming at the members of the family, who side with Uncle Bernie, to shut up and get in line? Or do you do it by acknowledging that there was a problem and working to fix it in order to restore their trust.
The Democratic Party needs to get its house in order. It needs to channel the energy of the Resistance and of the Sanders movement. Above all It needs to boldly point the way to a future that is better than both the present and the past. If it can't do that it will join the Anti-Federalists in the dustbin of history.
Welcome to the Intervention.
1
Democrats cannot win until they stop going, "Oh, eek! a working class man."
And they need to listen with respect, not "hunt" for men just like them, as "their working class base."
1
Trump shows endlessly his contempt for things and people he does not understand. Sending him to asia is like sending a bull into a China shop. Asmall example but a potent one. The Japanese love and respect their Koi as cultural icons and as representatives of nature. As the prime minister feeds them carefully with a spoon Trump empties a full box of fish food into the pond threatening the lives of the fish and showing complete contempt for his hosts. Small things matter in these cultures and Donald Trump will never represent our interests unless he can learn to respect others, but perhaps this a hopeless cause that will take decades to overcome when this sociopath disappears. Sociopathic behavior seems to be the new normal in our country.
1
Liberals also have contempt for things and people they do not understand. You will notice this if you read NYT comments regularly.
Let's not baffle the masses with your poor math, OK? If you are going to continue to stress that those Russia ads (which cost perhaps $150,000) reached 126 million Americans, put it in the right context:
1. There are 350 million Americans, so at best those ads were presented (not READ) by 1 on 3 Americans, ONCE
2. The campaigns spent upwards of $250 million on similar ads. So if Russia's paltry-in-comparison ad spend really swayed us, that would be a stretch.
By the way, I missed the stat about how much of that Russia ad spend went against Trump vs against Hill. Did I miss that? No one has said all of those ads were anti-Hill.
1
It's not entirely clear how much of the blame for their current lack of support on 95% of the American landmass (which of course only represents about 40% of its people) you assign to the Democrats for their own mistakes, which have been legion.
The idea that memes posted on Facebook by the Russians had any serious affect on the election is laughable. They spent $100,000. HRC and her allied pacs spent $1,000,000,000.
The people who voted for Trump did so because he said he would support their interests. If the Democrats had told them the same thing they would have won some of those voters to their side. But the Democrats refused to campaign in the South, the Midwest or the interior West, they refused to offer a serious program for creating jobs, and they refused to acknowledge that a lot of white people need help, just as many non-white people do.
The Democrats campaigned as the party of the minority, and in Congress, in the Electoral College, and in the majority of state legislatures that is exactly what they became.
4
Hillary played the woman card and Bernie lost and we got Trump.
2
As a loyal NY Times subscriber, I must remind Charles and all of his fellow op-ed columnists that you guys did a heck of a job in sand-bagging Bernie’s campaign, which was funded by ordinary citizens and not big corporate donations.
7
All ELSE aside the simple truth is:
The Election Was Hacked.
Anything can be hacked.
75,000 votes spread out over 3 states determined the election of Trump.
I commented on 11/13/16 .... Note the date.
I maintain ANYTHING can be hacked and I say this from a background in information technology.
This election was hacked and it is to be hoped that somewhere some capable group or organization will take up the task of proving this to be or not to be the case.
Let chips fall where they may.
The Freedom of Information Act should be applied to a study of the system analysis for the compilation of voting results and applied to the study and examination of the software developed for the implementation of the system itself.
Modifying numbers to meet predetermined outcomes is certainly possible.
In fact examination of just 4 or 5 important states could well suffice.
Another question: Where was the system and the software developed and what specific entities where involved in this effort.
Trump decided to run for president - a great surprise to the world at large - and he did so because he knew that he would win.
His entire outrageous and offensive campaign, his demeaning attitude toward many groups of persons, and his blatant over-confidence and swagger was possible because he knew he would win.
Now add:
He said "The election is "Rigged". Implied/said rigged for Hillary.
He got the "rigged' part right - "rigged" for him.
May the proof emerge in the fullness of time.
After Donna Brazile's self-aggrandizing broadside against the Democratic Party, it is clear that we Democrats need a "new" Democratic Party. We need to recognize that Bernie Sanders is NOT a Democrat and the Party owes him nothing. His far-left progressive finger pointing progressive harangues led to the defeat of Hillary Clinton. Any baggage that Hillary carried was due to fictitious issues that the Republicans bombarded against her for years (tell a lie over and over and some will believe it). It's a shame that she has been so unfairly maligned that she stays in the background these days. We do need new leaders with the charisma to deliver a moderate to progressive leaning message to voters. Bill's old theme is always applicable - its the economy stupid. We need to work to overturn Citizens United. We need to work to overcome extreme inequality. We need to expose Republican candidates who are beholden to the likes of the Kochs and Mercers. We need to tell the truth against Republican lies on issues that matter, not just that we have a know-nothing "entertainer" would-be autocratic President who has mental issues that put us all in danger.
3
"Liberals have the will & the means to replace party officials"
MAYBE.
If you hate Trump - & who doesn't? - & he isn't forced from office, he'll run in 2020 & the Democrats will need a winning candidate.
If we run someone unlikable, uninspiring & shifty again in 2020, Trump'll be re-elected. With Clinton BFF/DNC Chair Tom Perez reportedly purging Sanders supporters, what's to stop Perez, DNC & Superdelegates from cherry-picking another nominee voters don't like - that Trump'll surely claim is a murderer or traitor?
HRC's smart & experienced but with SOS decisions possibly impacting the Clinton Foundation & her private speeches for $21 million before announcing her campaign - she made herself unelectable. The speech million$ were paid because powerful people assumed she was going to be POTUS. Those milion$ looked like influence peddling by a pre-president.
The Clintons were greedy & had a rep for decades as unethical actors.
DNC big wigs & voters must make sure their 2020 candidate can honestly account for every $ they have, every decision they've made. That means uber rich like Warner & Patrick will have a tough job, & those who look shady (McAuliffe, Booker) should do us a favor & not run.
Amy Klobuchar (who isn't rich) is brilliant, ethical & decent. I hope she'll run. But there'll likely be a flood of candidates who hope their shady finances won't be a problem.
If Democrats nominate another bad campaigner who's under an ethical cloud, Trump's re-elected.
2
What Resistance? A bunch of loud mouthed fools yelling at each other?
The far Left once it stops screaming ususally starts throwing firebombs at office buildings.
Some how I don't think that's a way to govern.
3
Charles Blow concludes:
"The only issue I see is that these efforts seem to be operating separately from the national Democratic Party, a dinosaur of bureaucratic machinery in an evolved age of direct democratic action.
Liberalism has leapt over the Democratic Party. Liberalism has its eye on a new beginning, while the mainstream party is stuck looking backward and bickering. The Resistance isn’t part of the old Democratic Party; The Resistance is the new Democratic Party, or at least its future."
Mr. Blow, the only issue I have with the foregoing conclusion is that nowhere in your column do you acknowledge that you were "all in " for the very same Dem Party establishment you criticize now (very much including the false and unfair attacks on Bernie Sanders by the Congressional Black Caucus and revered heroes of the Civil Rights Movement and others). How much credibility to you think your statements can have with the "liberals who have jumped over the old Democratic Party" now?
3
Look, Donna Brazile has been a loyal Democrat and Clinton ally for a long time. If she chose to reveal the questionable ethics of the Democratic Party at this time, I say "Brava."
The fact is that the Democratic Party needs reform desperately. Mainstream Democrats want everything else to be reformed, but don't see that the stranglehold that they allowed the Clintons to have on the party precluded new blood from entering and obliterated Bernie Sanders' message the message that galvanized the younger generation and re-inspired those of us who longed for the Democrats who once supported unions and the working class and not the one percent.
To those who whine about Bernie not being a Democrat, he obtained the signatures on the petition and paid his fees. He caucuses with the Dems, AND we don't have a way to make third-party runs viable in this country. The mainstream media would not cover him even when he ran as a Democrat!
Let's clean house. We have a year before the midterms.
PS: It's interesting that Obama is running a parallel coalition, Organizing for Action. Why is that? I received an email from OFA written by none other then Lin-Manuel Miranda. Who next? Chance the Rapper?
When are the Democrats going to understand that this is no way to run a party?
3
The easiest and hardest way for the Democratic party to return to power, and to cast Trump, et al, into the wilderness is to realize that a large majority of the Trump votes were either because there are real problems in those voters' lives and they don't see the Democrats (or "establishment" Republicans) as really hearing & understanding their issues -- much less doing anything useful about them. The two parties are perceived as worrying more about who pees in which bathroom than they are about "Making America Great Again" (or, equivalently, "Feeling your pain"/"Shining city on the hill"/"The Economy, Stupid").
Unless/until either party (or both, for that matter) get this, I think all they are doing is shuffling the deck chairs, ensuring that the right people use the right toilet, and ensuring that the band is the correct ethnic mix for the music it's playing.
1
It's becoming more evident by the hour that yes, history will agree with Mr Blow regarding our Trumpian electoral mistake.
My hope is that words alone don't serve to soothe the symptom that brought this political Frankenstein to life. The democrats bear an equal amount of blame and need to take a hard look at the self righteous mirror that they gaze into. Donna Brazile is simply shining a light (and selling a book) on the shenanigans that Hilary, Podesta, Debby Wasserman and the rest of their tribe force fed the voters on the left during the campaign.
I read Mr Blow's op ed because I'm curious how far the intellectual elite can travel before they realize that the democratic party is inconsequential; a muted footnote throughout our fly-over rural and country/suburban states. Take away the major metropolitan areas and you'll find a complete disconnect with most of the opinions generated by the established dems and NY Times writers.
It's a geographical and ideological civil war, and most have tuned out the noise, to get away from the talking heads that create sport out of our lives and families. Citizens who struggle with health care costs could care less if Hilary hijacked the party convention. They just want an honest days wage.
The Republicans are only one broken piece of this modern American puzzle.
1
Thank You, Charles Blow. Democrats have been abandoning true Democratic Values for years, starting with the first Clinton. We we do not stand up for what we believe in we will die whimpering in the gutter. The Democratic Party is supposed to be the party of the people not "Republican Lite."
2
Where's the NYTimes reporting on the real Russia scandal? Where's the investigation into the Obama admin and Hillary all rubber-stamping the Russia uranium deal? Where's the NYTimes on the Donna Brazile revelations?
When did NYTs' go full on Big Brother?
4
"All of those caveats are valid and necessary, but they don’t undo what has been done. They rightly call into question the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency, but they don’t nullify it."
Too bad the framers of our Constitution did not provide a framework for nullification because election 2016 qualifies.
1
As for Donna Brazile, in her own words, she can "go to hell." She's made a mess to make money selling a book. She has taken Elizabeth Warren down with her. And the Bernie Bros are cheering and chuckling. Until the national Democratic Party cleans its own house, gets strong and resolute leaders and makes Senator Sanders choose to join the party or to get out and stay and Independent, we cannot move forward. It is past time to get started. The longer Trump is in office, the less America there will be left to save.
5
Yes, Trump will be replaced after his second term. The "Resistance", what Resistance? Most of us just live our "normal" life and try hard to keep head above water. We do need to work hard in order to survive. We are not the ruling elites, who are willing to share a few thousand dollars with middle class. We are not the socialists, who can just sell pie in the sky for a living. Of course tax cuts for business make sense. The government-industrial complex is becoming symbiosis. They need each other to prosper.
I am not sure what liberals are standing for? Resistance? Well, had they voted, we would have the first female President. Racial equality? Well, Portland is almost white. "Separate but equal" is the real story. We democrats are doomed.
1
The problem with Brazile apologist who fashion Potemkin justifications like she's burning the village to save it is that in the building and operation of the village she has served in roles ranging from architect to bureaucratic facilitator. As hacks go she's been a democratic hack of hacks for fifty years. That's why her claim to be SHOCKED at finding run-of-the-mill Clintonian skulduggery is the height of Casablancaian hypocrisy.
Where was all of this principled self righteousness when Govenor Bill Clinton shamelessly executed the brainless Ricky Ray Rector as a political expedient? Where was it when he inflated the status of Sista Soulja to deflate it as a sop to the racist in the right-of-center quadrant of Clintonian Centrism? Likewise where was it when welfare as we know it was being ended and Black "super predators" sent to the penitentiary in numbers unmatched on the planet earth? It was nowhere to be found!! Not only was it feeding at the very same politically compromised trough it now condemns but it was feeding at the very same trough it would been gorging itself from had Hillary been victorious!
1
Super predators belong in the penitentiary.
Trump Derangement Syndrome makes Mr. Blow blind to his own argument. There can be no "New Democratic Party" until somebody drives a stake through the undead political heart of Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Political Machine.
That is what Donna Brazile is obviously trying to do. The Democratic Party is corrupt, through and through. Everybody knows it. And the longer the Democrats remain in denial, the worse it will be for them.
Successful or not, Brazile's book will be seen as the last, best effort at salvaging that mangy party.
4
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama reformed the Democratic Party by moving it to the partisan political right of FDR and LBJ as expected but Ike and Nixon as well. In a change election Mrs. William Jefferson Clinton was a 69 year old hoary homage to the past. While 70 year old Donald John Trump appealed to the desperate, the despicable, the depressed and the deplorable white majority.
Mr. Blow condemns Donna Brasile while the ghostly harridan spectre of Hillary Clinton is screeching and screaming excuses about what happened. She lost and lacks the grace to move on. And to take Bernie Sandres, Eiizabeth Warren Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi with her to the white boned donkey graveyard
4
Flagged for obvious ageism as well as over the top and clearly personal hatred of whites in general and white women in particular. What if a white person wrote a post as nasty and personal as this or used a phrase like "white boned donkey graveyard"?
I am a white man who has worked very, very hard to be successful. I've worked as a welder and a machinist's assistant. I am now a successful professional. The Democratic party is anti-me. I will never vote for the likes of Donald Trump, but how can I vote for folks who despise me?
3
Charles, if calling everyone else racist will no longer be a pillar of the New Democrats, where does that leave you?
The New Democrats should replace their loyal, yet oh so ineffective, professional whiners and complainers. Or at least give them some topics to whine about that don't alienate the majority of the country,
4
Donna Brazille has put the final nail in run away liberal zealots, & I say Good Riddance to bad rubbish. All they were good for anyway, was marching against Israel & harassing Corporations to divest any interests in Israel, in other words they were outspoken Anti Semites,& are chasing Jews out of the Party.I wish the New York Times had a defender of Jews as you are a defender of African Americans.
2
Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM, famously said:
“…it's very difficult to build and very easy to destroy.”
The Bully in Chief in his criticisms of everyone and everything since he has taken office has chosen to travel down the easy path to destroy rather than climb the difficult road to build. While past Presidents and everyone would want to build a stronger, more equitable and prosperous society and economy, the Twitter in Chief has been reducing America’s position and status in the world and damaging America’s society, economy and its future.
While the Draft Dodger in Chief continues to grace his acidic comments and destructive decisions with superlative adjectives, reality shows that he is alone and divisive in his actions and decision making.
But none of the comments of revulsion and horror expressed by concerned citizens or responsible media against the Twitter in Chief matter. He marches on to his own tune and the voices in his head and listens to or takes the advice from no one !!! But the Bully in Chief believes that he is above reproach and that he is always right on anything.
Bottom Line: The Bully in Chief cares only about himself and nothing else, whether it is his country, voters, women or black professional athletes, and is moving forward with his eyes only on himself in the mirror,
This self-centered egotistical selfish unpatriotic misogynistic racist clown does not have the qualifications to serve as President.
America is paying the price !!!
1
Brazile's title claims that DNC shenanigans are why Trump is in power. The Democratic Party is sick. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Far form being a distraction from dealing with Trump, it would be a necessary corrective for American democracy to shed light on this topic.
The big reveal in the Brazile book, as reported on in Politico, is how the Clinton campaign controlled the DNC long, long before the convention, and how they did this through legal but unethical practices involving big-money donations. If this is true, it matters. It matters that the Times missed this at the time and is underplaying it now. It matters that the will of the voters was thwarted. It matters that confidence in parties and government has been further undermined. How can Democrats fight the post-truth president if their narrative is still based on falsehoods?
It is clear now that the Democratic Party has become no better then the Republican Party. Both are so focused upon self preservation that they can't see the forest, much less the trees. They are both parties of the Oligarchs.
If the peoples of the United States and the World are to take back their lives, the peoples of this planet must rise up and take back their lives!
I agree with your argument, but your observation "As Facebook’s general counsel testified ... 126 million Americans may have been exposed to Russia-generated content on [Facebook] ... only 137.5 million Americans voted in the 2016 election." is misleading.
First, the set of people exposed to Russian content are not the same people who voted. Second, the Facebook number is an upper bound -- its the number of American users whose FB accounts contained the content -- only a fraction of them viewed and read it.
But Charles, America did not elect Trump! He lost by almost 3 million votes! It's the outdated, non democratic Electoral College that elected Trump. We need to get rid of that monstrosity and elect our president by direct popular vote or this tragedy will surely happen again and again! Remember Al Gore?
And you're right, this is the most corrupt administration ever. Do you think a Democratic president would get away with all the graft and nepotism that's going on in this administration? When Jimmy Carter was elected President the Republicans demanded that he sell his family peanut farm lest he make some profit off of more peanuts being sold due to his presidency! And they had congressional committees to ensure that he never profited in any way from any of his assets!
Republicans care about the rule of law and deficits only when Democrats are in power. Then they do everything in their power to obstruct Democratic Presidents from carrying out their agenda to help the American people. The GOP is all about party over people and helping themselves and their paymasters, the super rich.
1
Unless Democrats can purge, the old guard and corrupt establishment and bring in young dynamic and bold leadership which can face head on with Republican Party's well oiled machine of lies, racial divisions and distractions, the fate of democratic party will be worst in 2018 and 2020 than the drubbing that they got in 2016.
Charles-- you would be more convincing if you didn't lead with hyperbole.
Drowning in Russian propaganda? Really? Some social media ads did not drown us in propaganda -- compared to the torrent of ads, news, etc. re both candidates that we had for years -- particularly HRC. This was an minimal amount of info that most recognized as propaganda.
A torrent of Russia-stolen e-mails? Really? Some e-mails, all vetted as real e-mails from the DNC, not damaging to HRC in particular although embarrassing to the DNC. And hardly anything comparable to the TMZ tape on Trump.
Voter suppression? I bet you there were many more votes that were illegally cast than those suppressed.
The exposure to ads on facebook doesn't mean anyone changed their vote. People tend to reject information that is odds with their existing beliefs and buy into info that confirms.
Mueller's investigation is a joke. He's indicted Manafort for crimes committed before he worked for Trump -- the indictments had nothing to do with the 2016 campaign or Trump.
Etc. Get a grip. You won't convince anyone except the rabid base with shall we say, propaganda, to be kind. To be more accurate, half truths and lies.
3
Sorry, Mr. Blow, but it's not the minds of the American "deplorables" who need changing.
It's you. You and your fellow members of the journalistic "elite" who, even now, still cannot bring themselves to accept the legitimacy of the Trump Presidency.
The more time you spend questioning Trump's right to work as the president, the less time you have to address the *real* issue: the weakness of a credible alternative.
You ignored the people who didn't buy into your narrative of the way your nation is going. That ignorance cost you last year. And dwelling on that loss means you don't have to face a very real fact: it is *you,* not Trump's voters, who have to change.
You have to accept that you only *made* the argument about climate change, you never actually *won* it. You have to accept that good people don't become monsters because they express a view that you oppose. You have to accept that you lose your moral authority whenever the hypocrisy of your allies is exposed, and you can no longer demand that your neighbors change *their* lifestyle to suit *your* agenda.
Most of all you have to recognize that it is *your* practice of politics that have turned off much of the electorate that otherwise might vote for you.
It is *you* who has to change, Mr. Blow. If you don't, the electorate will be more than happy to force that change upon you. Which is what they did last year.
2
If Blow really wants things to change, he needs to use his considerable talents to call attention to Democrats who can and will make a difference. This endless complaining about how bad Republicans are accomplishes nothing.
3
Indivisible, Indivisible, Indivisible. I’ll say it again. Indivisible. Join. Participate. Activate yourself.
3
There is some resistance that can be done tomorrow. VOTE!!! In NY and many other states we have elections for town boards, county legislatures and more. Send a message that, Yes, we are a democracy and we care. People in power carefully look at turnout. Please Vote.
1
"Russia used American technology and American companies as weapons against American democracy."
This outrage has become a mantra, but generally those who are expressing this outrage do not provide the context of American interventions against democracy in other countries. Indeed, I cannot remember hearing any of the complainers mentioning American interventions against democracy elsewhere. Yet, American interventions in the electoral decisions in other countries runs deeper and broader than what the Russians did in the 2016 American presidential election. Let us not forget the well documented coup against the elected government in Iran in 1953 that led to the Iranian hostility against America until today. Let us not forget Henry Kissinger joking that the people of Chile should not be allowed to make the mistake of electing Salvador Allende as President. And let us not forget that the military dictatorship in Brazil from 1964 until 1985 began with a telephone call to the Brazilian military from the American ambassador. Indeed, I have heard the same joke told by several Brazilians: Why has there never been a military coup in America? Because there is no U.S. ambassador in America to order the military to take over.
Our complaints about the Russians ring hypocritical when we are silent about American interference in the democracies of so many countries over so many years. The indignation should be tempered until we acknowledge our own sins.
2
A little clear-eyed review: The tenure of Barack Obama saw the Democrats lose the House and then the Senate. Meanwhile the legislative seats slid ever more red and most statehouses and governorships are now held by the GOP. As a result, our options are few as so few Dems are sitting in office. The groups that have made the Dem coalition--blue collar labor, Blacks, immigrants, progressives/liberals, academics are all weak on mid-term voting and even presidential turn-out. 7.5 million people--5% of the '16 vote--voted for third party candidates. Trump won more due to Dem voter lethargy than pro-Trump passion. The sad reality we must accept is that Barack Obama did not create a new political coalition nor articulate a broad vision for future Democrats. Beautiful man, inspiring speaker, lousy politician.
Let's say to Bernie and friends either become a Democrat (again) or get out of the way. Tell that to the entire boomer gang. The Korean and Vietnam war era has past. Time for the veterans of the policing actions in the 80s and 90s and this century's 9/11 warriors to make their way forward. Time to not be afraid of the word liberal; to call for the greater involvement of Hispanics, for South Asians to run and campaign for office; for East Asians to do the same. These groups of immigrants aren't the future, they're the present. Get going or watch the extreme proto-fascists continue to ruin the country. Time to care about something more than one's own self.
3
Obama deliberately harmed the US working class by expanding the H1B Visa program, by pushing TPP, and by cutting seniors' earned retirement benefits (SS). And you think he is a "beautiful man"???
Ma Clinton, the matriarch of the Clinton Gang, destroyed the Democratic Party for this election cycle, and likely beyond. Yet you choose to minimize her unethical (possibly criminal) acts here and gloss over her actions in the election. It is all part of the same criminal enterprise going back to the cattle futures heist. You are all fools and reaping what you sow. #ClintonGang #RICO #Persistence
1
bernie "I am not a Democrat. I am a socialist." sanders is to blame for the turmoil in the Democratic Party. He should have run as a socialist or independent instead of borrowing another party's label. Nobody forces voters to only vote republican or Democrat.
1
I can't believe the media is tripling down the fact that Russians only spent 100k on facebook ads, and 44k during the election cycle, 2 of which criticised Trump, 1 criticising Obama, another talking about puppies, none addressing the Madame Secretary and somehow that is an ocean of Russian Propaganda to be drowned in. Do these people even consider that us regular folks read widely?
1
As long as Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Nancy Pelosi (and possibly Chuck Schumer although I think he is good) hold office and as long as there is a rippled wake of Hillary's actions, there cannot be a "New Democratic Party".
2
The nicest thing one can say about Trump is that he is unfit for the ofifce he holds. Also he is unwilling to learn. The worst thing one can say about Trump is that Trump sees nothing wrong in what he is doing.
2
I wonder if the Editorial Board realizes that every time they indulge Mr. Blow in one of his tirades, they lose a little credibility with the public. As I understand it, the mission of a free press is to inform and act as a check on power. The Trump administration offers plenty of opportunity for that and it is welcome. What is not productive is repetitive vitriol born of disappointment and frustration. As I understand it, that is called propaganda. Your readers can tell the difference.
2
Who cares about Donna Brazile or Hillary Clinton? We’ve moved on, even if they haven’t. Even Schumer and Pelosi seem hide-bound and ineffectual. Time for the old dinosaurs to get out of the way. The most promising new member of the party was Bernie, and the Democratic Party shat all over him. Had they supported him, we’d be saying President Sanders today, instead of waking up every day to this abominable administration. It’s time to create a new party with bold ideas and real plans and new leaders courageous enough to do what’s necessary to bring the United States into the 21st century. We’ve got big challenges ahead, but every one of them, if addressed boldly and with vision, would eradicate poverty and unemployment, preserve the environment, create robust healthcare and education institutions, and set us on the path to prosperity. We need radical education reform, new infrastructure, energy transformation, healthcare reform, NOW, not yesterday. America could be the shining example to the world in things that really matter, that would inspire others to follow us. Our exports should be ideas and solutions to the dire problems that face the world, not arms and violence. We have an historic opportunity to transform ourselves. If the people lead, the leaders will follow.
Agenda for new Democrats: Equality of opportunity.
Most Americans will embrace an agenda that says, "we're going to invest in your children."
1
As long as Democrats focus on Russia, Russia, Russia, they will continue to lose elections. Why did Democrats lose the election? Because you ran a lousy candidate with no platform. You can keep saying that Hillary Clinton got more votes, but the presidency is a national election, not a little regional election.
What do Democrats stand for? Calling Americans "racists," "deplorables," "nazi's," "white supremacists;" burning flags, assaulting police, rioting in our streets is not a vote getter. Fighting against our national security by opposing a border wall and sane immigration is not a vote getter. Democrats are on record defending the NFL kneelers and every other America hater. How do you expect to win elections when you consistently stand against America and its citizens?
Americans want a president who cares about our country and it's citizens; who has a plan to improve America. We see the opposite from Democrats. Until that changes, I predict Democrats will sink further and further into irrelevance.
Trump won because he was the best candidate, period.
1
Perhaps The Resistance should become its own political party separate from the two others.
This opinion piece by an angry liberal further exemplifies how the democratic party is going through the 5 stages of grief with the election of Trump: denial (Trump is illegitimate), grief, anger (violent demonstrations), bargaining (Mueller will remove him) depression and acceptance (yet to come). And does it surprise anyone with the revelation that the elites in the democratic party tried to fix the primary for their chosen leader by rigging the primaries for Clinton? For self righteous liberals who think they know best, they will do whatever it takes to "run the show" even if that means fixing a primary, or trying to remove a fairly elected POTUS.
2
The resistance in the Democratic Party needs new leadership. Sanders is not that leader.
1
Trump has lit a fire of action to oppose his kleptocracy. We now need to fan these flames into a conflagration of democracy that securely creates a people's democracy!
The Democrats need to hone their message to focus on helping American workers raise their pay and benefits.
alas, mr blow, if your "...focus now is on protecting the country from Trump, and nothing else" please, please, consider the possibility that there IS something else, something better for we the people that will also guarantee "removal."
in a word: election.
the mistake of the election that gave trump the presidency could have given us hillary clinton, who to this old line progressive, was hardly a beacon and continues to inspire dread as she demonstrates (and witnesses and emergent facts confirm) an essentially shabby, self-centered character.
that these two got so far has to be credited, in large measure, to an incurious press, one that drank all the kool aid the clinton campaign served and mistook the hard edges of a deal maker's persistence for the antics of a clown.
the russian stuff, subversion, to use another word, is old hat, it began in earnest while the communist revolution was still revolving, today's chicken little squawking only proves prior complacency.
you want meddling, check out any of divisive defensive special interests, from the campus speech censors, to the brick throwers in the street, to the closed mind identity politicals. you'll find hired help and russian cash in the lot.
so rail at trump but remember, there's an ELECTION coming and a chance, the "something else" you might want to consider, that replacing blind rage with cogent opposition, including discovery and development of a new wave of real democrat candidates, might be a best bet.
1
Excellent, thank you, best columnist in the nyt. Someone should check about corruption in the Regan whitehouse- may be another point of comparison.
A tweet from "the Resistance"
Nancy PelosiVerified account @NancyPelosi Nov 2
A GOP tax bill that explodes the deficit by $1.5 trillion means dumping $4600 in debt on every man, woman & child in America.
The leader of the Democrats in Congress recycling decades-old GOP talking points. I wonder if we'd get something better from here if she weren't going to benefit from the tax plan. #draintheswamp
America was awoken a year. We realized that we are being ripped off, culturally and financially. The brainwashed "journalists" like Blow need to wake up, too.
1
While logic dictates that the DNC should develop a powerful and clear platform that reminds of what Democrats should be like, the truth is that we are still so unevolved that what it will take is a charismatic leader with speaking gifts. We dont vote for our better interests after logically evaluating a qualfied candidates positions. We vote emotionally.
That being said, it is high time we get behind Bernies platform. Dont you wish we could have witnessed debates between Bernie and Trump?
However, the next leader must be young and eloquent with a good back story. Harris? Booker? Moulton? Or maybe someone with no history of ever receiving donations? If Trump can do it, anything is possible!
1
Oh, I'd be happy with a good dollop of the Old Democratic Party. That one with a clear pro-choice platform, for example, as opposed to the new "no litmus test" leaders.
Or the ones who liked actual Democrats who were registered as voting Democrats.
Like most women I know, I contribute to progressive pro-choice Democratic candidates and am avoiding the DNC. I'm for "real" Democrats. And there ARE some really good ones around! Let's stop the internal bickering and get down to brass tacks and real issues.
4
Progressives, not liberals. If the Democratic Party wants to win elections, it must embrace progressive voters, something which Hillary’s neo-liberals failed to do
DC politicians must either help the country as a whole or get out of the way.
1
8 years of the delightful Mr Obama, and not one high profile case of sexual harassment or assault emerges. (But he's black and liberal so who cares, right?)
Less than 1 year of Trump, and we've already seen substantial progress made, including takedowns of both high profile republicans AND democrats.
Stop using Trump as a scapegoat for your own party's blatant hypocrisy. You let this country down when you silenced Bernie. You call Trump a dictator, but clearly have a god complex of your own.
5
When Obama was elected it didn't take an essay to understand what voters expected. We expected to see Wall Street conspirators punished and permanent reforms enacted We expected to see those who told lies to promote a disastrous war punished. We expected to see Medicare extended to all Americans. We expected to see women receive equal pay. We expected women to have control over their own bodies confirmed. We expected to see a gutless military command replaced with responsible leadership. Mr Obama had two years to get the ball rolling and six more to keep it there. Now we have Trump.
4
"The reign of Trump is the reign of ruin" that why we have the lowest unemployment rate in 17 years, lowest inflation rate, our 401k is at its peak - thanks to the highest stock market, lowest regulation , best business environment and confidence in years, close to defeat ISIS etc etc etc Charles Blow continue to lie about "Trump collusion' while trying to hide the DNC corruption and Clinton/Obama uranium deal
I wonder how more freak out The "resistance " and Charles will be once they get defeated in 2018.
1
The Democrats lost me when Gore gave up the recount and let a dangerous nincompoop W. be our leader. It showed spinelessness and that attitude has been ongoing since then.
2
Hillary Clinton was the only candidate who could lose to Trump. ANY other Dem would have won.
5
Yes, Charles...while the pinks hats became Indivisible, the Dems have been invisible. The party should have been present at as many local post-election meetings as possible. Listening, taking email and organizing. Now, they ignore these groups until they have a candidate that needs money. The development of the Liberal movement in this country runs parallel to the Dem Party. We are divisible, we are divided. The DNC needs to blow.
1
We have to go after Democrats who are being bought by GOP, including Governor Cuomo..IDC/NO!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mESf-kjuSI film on IDC ( Independent Democratic )
1
Blow and others wasting time and energy on the Russia nonsense is a red herring, a shiny object, averting our eyes from at least one clear nefarious reason that Hilary lost: Comey. His letter claiming she was not criminal but ethically questionable was enough to caboche, put the kibosh on, her electoral chances. He should be vigorously investigated, the election annulled, and either rerun it or give the presidency to the one candidate who won through honest means.
Stop wasting time on Russia. It's consuming time and resources of the silliest and addlebrained among us. First--no proof that Russia did anything nefarious, Second--only dips would fall for what silly Schiff and company are touting as persuasive propaganda.
2
Yet again the democrats squandering a brilliant focused opportunity to take back America by forming a circular firing squad. While Donna Brazile’s story will be interesting, to your point Charles, does it absolutely, positively have to be told now? Democrats don’t focus and are all over the map. No wonder they are a national car wreck in terms of gaining political office. Focus, people, focus...the objective of running for office is to WIN....
1
I love reading fiction about fantasy worlds. Good Job, Mr. Blow.
1
It's very disappointing to see the Left vilify Brazile for delivering chapter and verse on Democratic party corruption and dysfunction while it simultaneously delights in Republican crackup narratives. It's akin to the culture of omerta (silence) you find in abusive households; you're not supposed to say anything that will make the neighbors think less of your family. Yes, with the midterms only a year off, this is not a great time to drag all that Clinton / Wasserman Schultz / etc. dirty laundry out onto the front lawn. But remember that concealed dysfunction fueled the 2016 loss; do we want a repeat? You've got to rip the Band-Aid off and go for candor, even if it hurts. The impulse to keep up appearances while things backstage are actually falling apart is a proven disastrous one. Moving on depends on cleaning up.
3
We all know the the electoral college was rigged by the Founding fathers including Jefferson, Wasington, Madison an others who owned slaves and depended upon their slave wealth. They manipulated the census to allocate the congressional seats. Now the census manipulation has been corrected but we still need to correct the electoral college. The president should be elected by the people and not states. There should not be senate representation such as 2 electors per state. Finally, the system designed in 1788 whe there was poor communication and long travels needs to be changed to the 21st century of information world - The president shomocratic Party going to be.
1
I have repeatedly written the Democratic National Committee and all they do is send me requests for contributions. They don’t respond to my concerns and suggestions. Ideas and programs will save the party if anything will save the Democratic Party— not just more contributions.
Tell me what you stand for, Democratic leadership! Where are the leaders? Al Franken is the closest you have to a viable leader. Corey Booker and Elizabeth Warren are fine people.
1
When will the Clintonistas get off the fake news that Russia aided Trump in winning the election. He won fair and square, with a system (Electoral Votes) devised by the Democrats themselves. If anyone hurt Clinton's chance of being elected, it was Clinton herself as well as her fellow Democrats who continuously disseminated fake news about Trump.
2
How can Nancy Pelosi, who has led the Democratic party over cliff after cliff, still be in power? It is time for a change. The coastal elites have to start paying attention to what the rest of the country cares about. Democratic values can play in the whole country, but the current Democratic brand cannot.
1
As long as the so called mainstream of the party continues to ignore the base not to mention working Americans you can just forget about winning any elections. And here we go again this morning with this paper; "It’s Not Too Soon to Debate Gun Control". Will the Times and its stripe of Democrats ever learn?
Sure we support reasonable gun laws but do you want to be in position to do something about them or do you want to go on yammering with your wedge issues and identity politics until you are so far gone you have become completely irrelevant in American politics?
For those of you who actually want to know what is really going on;
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-18/democrats-plan-to-nam...
How in the world does the Times explain ignoring big news at the DNC while devoting so much space to the Brazil book stink?
1
Blow's Opinions exemplify the problem for the Democratic Party.
He dislikes and distrusts, the police, the military, Republicans, and white men.
He sympathizes with criminals who he considers victims of "racial injustice".
He repetitively depicts black Americans , as a group, as separate and different than all other Americans.
Promoting racial,gender,religious, and ethnic divisiveness is the problem not the solution.
1
The Democratic Party is now anything but. Why are media not reporting on Tom Perez’ recent purge of liberals from DNC committees? Travesty! In Minnesota, as a delegate to the state convention, I did my homework. I learned that the resolutions for the state DFL party that delegates propose are NOT determined by majority. All resolutions are reviewed by a committee and chosen by the committee. Thus, the resolution to eliminate Super Delegates was not even listed at the state convention. All we could do was vote on a non-binding resolution. We did. The vote to eliminate super delegates WON. Yet—it was not accepted. As a result, even though the majority of delegates voted to eliminate Super Delegates, the “committee” didn’t allow it. Obviously- our party is NOT democratic. Resistance? Absolutely! Sadly, the old guard of our party has ruined it.
7
The reign of ruin is the result of a careless irresponsible statement gone bad. Mixing a presidential platform built on divisive fear and hatred with a congress which has relied on the same for at least a decade now was bound to be disastrous. The presidency Imo should be a protection of sorts against a congress gone bad. Not an active tool in the process. A politically uneducated personal agenda driven partisan racist bigot tool without a clue.
Dems as far as I am concerned can learn from the mistakes of the right and choose a path forward that is built on the needs of the people and the nation. They should find party leaders that are genuine in their concerns for the welfare of this country as a whole. Do so by way of reaching consensus via compromise. Compromise of course means working across the aisle in an adult manner no matter how bad it stinks. In other words don't sink to the same singular childish and selfish lows that the right has accepted as normal operating procedure.
If nothing else the reign of ruin will teach us all why we should never take elections lightly and should always consider the potential consequences of our actions.
1
Mr. Blow appears "glamoured " by the words, "The Resistance," as if everyone involved were a Jean Moulin, Yves Godard, member of FFL or FTP(Francs Tireurs Partisans), brave Frenchmen who risked their lives to save France from the Third Reich. Folks you speak about are unwilling to risk anything, When Deray Mckesson of BLM was challenged to try out for the police force after killings of those 5 p.o.'s, he got cold feet!Is there a case for probable cause between Mckesson's call for dead police officers--"What do want? Dead cops..." and the actual assassinations?Even Van Jones of CNN admitted that Russian meddling was a "nothing burger!"Joy Anne Reid, wnom you quote, claimed, and 1 am paraphrasing, that Scalise had it coming because of his opposition to gun control. Not very nice of her.You question Trump's competence,his fitness for office,but you have said all that before. To the disappointment of this faithful reader, this article reads as though it were written while the pot was boiling on the stove. Mr. Blow,you can do much better!
1
OK. Excellent call to arms. Now, where's the ToDo list?
That indeed must be the focus....to stop Trump's "reign of ruin." I see nothing but ruins and destruction and dysfunction since Trump's arrival on the national scene even before he set up shop in the White House.
The "resistance" thus far has felt decidedly anti-male, which is profoundly aliening to (just about) half the party. Insisting most white men are racist rapists and pounding the media relentlessly with that message is terrible politics. I'm a lifetime democrat but don't know how I could vote for a party that clearly hates me and wants me out of the way.
1
The Bloviator demanded the Japanese "build your cars" in the USA. To which the Japanese replied We already do. Donald didn't seem to hear. Then, without hesitation, Bloviator spoke of the latest gun terror in Texas, declaring "It's all mental health!" To which the Japanese replied "Show us the diagnosis." Next, "Japanese cars are fake news."
1
Trump calls it “a mental health problem at the highest level.”
"A very, very sad event, but that's the way I view it.”
Finally, he and I are agreed on the state of the country and his record as President.
2
Just a foolish proposition overall to ignore the corruption of the Democratic Party in order to better focus on some sort of resistance. The answer has to include a thorough overhaul of the party, as happened 1968-1974, and the purging of the institutionally corrupt aspects of Clintons, CBC, BLM, Unions, Hollywood and Wall St. money, and LGBTQ and feminist interest power groups that need to be subordinated to the people and the needs of the people that these entrenched elites purport to represent.
1
How will Dems even begin to enter the next Presidential selection process of debates, primaries and on up to the convention without a massive food-fight/re-litigation of the “rigged” 2016?
Indivisible chapters ought to begin articulating a set of principles regarding the process:
—candidates will accept small donors only
—candidates will not accept corporate speaking fees
—candidates must renounce creation of any all PACs supporting their candidacy
—candidates must oppose the Citizens United decision, state rules regarding voter suppression
—candidates must support a reversal of gerrymandering of Congressional districts by bi-partisan commission recommendation
—the Democratic chairman must pledge to support these principles and congressional candidates will be denied support if they don’t.
—states must take immediate action to secure their ballot boxes from Cyber-warfare and foreign meddling
—pledge to eliminate the electoral college
If Indivisible wants to be a force at all, it must be first and foremost a force for reform of the old, and top-heavy and yes, corrupt Democratic Party, and of the befouled national electoral process.
These ought to be minimum requirements for all Democratic candidates to pledge. Let the candidates fight it out on Medicare For All, income inequality, and guns, and a carbon tax. But let the process be above suspicion and let whoever emerges as the Democratic POTUS candidate be fairly chosen. That would be real progress.
1
How did Russia trick Hillary into not campaigning in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvanian?
Stop making excuses. It's weak and pathetic.
4
Interesting that Mr. Blow mentions Liberals but not Progressives. The press rarely if ever defines the two. I for one would be interested in seeing what both are supposed to mean. Is this the same manner of linguistic evolution as when Global Warming became Climate Change? I have nothing against the environment but I do appreciate clear and rational language. Perhaps this is one of the Democratic Party's problems?
Given that the Republican Party has been bought off, it seems odd that Mr. Blow hasn't considered the possibility here that the Democratic Party has also been bought off.
2
The really sad part of all of this is that a woman like Brazile somehow was the head of the DNC. And they ran a low character candidate like Clinton who still can't understood the ethical implications of leaving politics briefly for a huge money grab then coming back to run for President with her pockets disgorging million dollar bills. Who are these people? How are they in charge of one of the two heads of our political duopoly? The pure lack of talent and character of all the people with power in both political parties is jaw dropping.
2
Brazile comes off as a bitter selfish woman. She needs to go away from public life. Who in the party will ever trust her again?
4
Tomorrow, the second Tuesday of November 2017 is Election Day...it may be an “off year” election, but it’s still important. Get out to your local polls and make smart choices, set the narrative for 2018 and 2020. Send a message to Donald J Trump, even if someone will have to explain it to him.
4
Charles Blow: “ I’m trying too save America from Trump”, you might have tried to save America from itself and our broken Political System that has evolved over the last several decades, you might have tried honest reporting not only surrounding the election and the continued media onslaught against Bernie Sanders the candidate who would have wiped the floor with Trump. You might have tried issuing forth the truth regarding the pre invasion fake news dished out prior to the invasion of Iraq, you might have attempted to shed a bit of honesty on our involvement in the Ukraine coup and the attempt by American neon cons to drag us into a war with Russia and Iran as the rest of the world led by China is forging long term mutually benefial ties with countries that our diplomacy ends with bombs. You and your fellow Times journalists have much to answer for and not a great deal to be proud of as you willfully or otherwise have aided in dragging the world to the edge of the abyss with your fabricated news such as that surrounding the invasion of Iraq and further diminishing your image by obfuscation and outright lies surrounding the Ukraine coup initiated under a Clinton’s watch by her fellow neocon Victoria Nuland. A sad chapter in American history and I see no indication of change on the horizon. We had our chance with Bernie and the well respected Donna Brazile has confirmed my worst fears in her new book. The system is broken.
1
I see that we're still using Trumpist conspiracy theory as a way to avoid simple things--like Bernie getting whupped in the primary.
Dear Mr. Blow, we will know whether the Resistance you talk about really exists or simply is a figment of our collective imaginations once the votes are tallied in tomorrow’s gubernatorial race in Virginia. If the GOP candidate wins the race we will know for sure the Resistance is all talk and no action; it will be proof once again that liberal “purists” rather live under the rule of men and women fashioned under the Trump mold than support a more reasonable candidate unless he or she scores 100% on the “pure progressive” scale, notwithstanding the fact no such candidate would ever be appealing to the broader electorate needed for victory.
As to Donna Brazile, she simply decided that selling books and cashing in was better than protecting the country. As Trump likes to say, sad.
“Facebook… 126 million Americans may have been exposed to Russia-generated content…”
Sadly most people will either chastise Facebook for not reporting news better, or search the psyche of the American public to see why they think Facebook replaces the old newsroom. Both are a waste of time.
The myth is that American’s today have more news outlets then ever before. Sadly, it's easy to prove the opposite.
In 1987 politicians gutted the laws regulating American media and news industry. There were 50 individual markets just like what banking had, and after the same deregulation, consolidation of ownership, and bad practices banking collapsed in 2008. Each media market had several newspapers, radio, and TV stations competing, monopolization and market distortion was difficult.
There were lots of dubious outlets before, but the contrast was obvious. As for the argument that technology changes made this happen. Sorry, the rules were changed first, not the technology. All you need is a system w/ enough reporting from the public's interest, the delivery platform is second.
Today’s media has scriptwriters hopelessly re-inventing new norms every day. Senior analyst at CNN opines that Trump’s tweeting maybe “good” for American politics, or just ratings. Old news outlets are busy balancing a pro-GOP viewpoint, and a pro-Dem viewpoint. I feel like I need water to keep hydrated, but Washington has made new market rules and my choice is only between Coke or Pepsi.
1
I'm not sure anyone understands what happened last November or before or how the correction should take place. The Republican Party has been using a scorched earth policy of obstruction and lies for decades now. This is how we got Trump. Divisions in the DNC, like the RNC will always be present. The problem is that Republicans are willing to use deception, lies, obstruction, gerrymandering, voter suppression, legal challenges and even a government shutdown to advance their agenda. The stolen Supreme Court seat by the Senate with 8 months left in the Obama Administration is another example of how far these people will go. Hillary, with her elitist faults and endless bogus investigations that went no place was the worst person to go against Trump and his Russian friends no matter how qualified she was. It's like sending a wounded boy scout to break up a biker bar fight. In this political climate liberals and democrats have to challenge and resist EVERYTHING. We can start with Wilbur Ross. He forgot he was in business with Putin's son in law? How about Jeff Sessions continued loss of memory concerning Russians? Ethics issues, the emoluments clause, the Logan Act and Trumps obstruction of justice should be demonstrated on a daily basis. Indivisible should be filing lawsuits EVERY SINGLE DAY. There can be an impact if the democrats played the same politics as republicans. But they don't. The high ground will just make things worse and further empower the crazies.
1
Once again the press misses the truth. Travel an hour west of NYCity and and hour east of San Francisco the folks still love Trump.
It is that simple.
Try it.
1
Sounds to me like the New Democratic Party still owes money to the Clintons.
I do hope all those mega donors who donated to the democratic party (including Weinstein) hold Hillary's campaign accountable to the last penny.
1
While all of this may be true, let's see who wins the Virginia election tomorrow. Russian ads didn't change vote totals. People who were influenced by ads in which Satan was arm wrestling Jesus...well, they probably weren't reading editorials in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal.
1
If the explosive allegations in Brazille's new book are true then it will require further investigation. When Senator Warren was asked last week on CNN if she believed that the primary election had been rigged against Sanders, she said, “Yes." Hate to break it Blow but any high school journalism student would recognize this as important NEWS...all caps. It's not the purpose or the function of the NYT to be a mouthpiece for the so-called resistance as this columnist would have it. Their job is to report the facts as accurately, as responsibly, as fairly as possible. This is why millions of us read this paper every day. Blow is shocked mind you that 126 million Americans may...may being the operative word....have been exposed to Russia-generated content Facebook. Even if it's true so what? First, the ads began in 2015, suggesting that this wasn’t necessarily tightly tied to Trump. Second, the ad buy was limited in scope; $100,000 over 18 months that's minuscule. With seven weeks until Election Day, HRC & her allies outspent Trump by a huge margin during the homestretch. HRC spent $143.2 million on TV ads, versus only $6.8 million for Trump. I can't emphasize this enough ...given the results, ad spending had zero impact. The overwhelming majority of voters had made up their mind about HRC long before she announced. I have yet to see any evidence that Russia's micro ad buy changed the outcome in one district let alone one state.This column is irresponsible on so many levels.
Charles, you seem to be critical of Donna Brazile’s book (or at least its timing) and yet also note the utter incompetence and fecklessness of the Democratic Party. The Democratic leadership of septuagenarians has demonstrated its ability to fail at even the most routine political tasks countless times and the potential loss of Virginia’s governorship would be one more hideous feather in that dunce cap. If the only way to release the party from the gnarly old hands of it’s perennial losers is to “burn down the village”, then go get ‘em Donna.
1
Oh, you old Liberals are all the same, "Big Hat and No Cattle".
You can call yourselves whatever you want, but until you focus on lifting the poor and middle class family's financial fortunes you're going nowhere. This Republican President, Administration, and Congress are not focused on the poor and middle class, they just talk a good game. Its really simple, develop industrial and technology strategies to foster consistent and sustained economic growth for the poor and middle class and your on the road to success. Oh, it would be helpful to stop your internal bickering and get your economic message front and center.
Praise be to Jesus...
1
They did. The Times reported it extensively.
You refused to pay attention.
@Clear Eye - These are the things The Resistance wants:
Rebuilding Our Crumbling Infrastructure
Reversing Climate Change
Creating Worker Co-ops
Growing the Trade Union Movement
Raising the Minimum Wage
Pay Equity for Women Workers
Trade Policies that Benefit American Workers
Making College Affordable for All
Taking on Wall Street
Health Care as a Right for All
Protecting the Most Vulnerable Americans
Real Tax Reform
AND real, serious, severe campaign finance reform.
There are Corporate Democrats, sustained by Wall Street and bribes from big pharma and then there are the non-corporate Democrats. The energy created among the young who supported Senator Sanders was sucked out of the party by the way the Corporate Democrats (bribed, bought candidates) futzed with the whole process in order to install their corporate Democratic leader. The DNC could begin to reverse this now and advocate for what they DO want by ridding themselves of the corporate Democrat who leads them and replacing that man with someone more progressive. If Trump is impeached (and I don't think he will be) we'll worse off with Pence. The base would have voted if Bernie had been the nominee. They probably even would have voted if Biden had been the nominee. Many people do not trust the Clintons. It goes back to Glass-Steagall.. ..The Democrats must move left or there will be a new party formed.
2
I would start with the word, Trump.
Democrats have to out trump, Trump.
=============================
They have to come up with their own comic book characters that instantly connect with the media and with the people.
What propelled Trump was his name and his comic book character and his cell phone Tweets. The Democrats still don't get this. Obama and Hillary rambled on and on and they lost the voters. The NY Times did the same thing, with its endless ramblings, on and on.
No, we remember Trump and his Tweets, because they are short and shocking.
===========================================================
Why can't Democrats wake up? When will they start to impact the media?
1
The best thing that could have happened to the democrats was Donna Brazile's story. If only they recognized the opportunity that it created to finally put some distance between the Party and the Clintons. While Bill and Hillary brought a lot of good to the table, they also brought a ton of baggage. It's time for the Democrats to turn the page and look to the future. And yes, throw Hillary under the bus. She was a horrible candidate who simply handed this election to Trump. And the typical Clinton playbook of trying to tilt every situation to favor them is on full display with Brazile's book.
Unfortunately, the Dems don't get. On Meet the Press this Sunday, Tom Perez, just belittled the charges, and questioned Brazile's motive and integrity. In other words just put his finger in the dyke. At least his second in command, Keith Ellison, made a statement saying that Donna Brazile's comments "could not simply be dismissed". To Mr. Perez and all the Democrat operatives out there, please take this opportunity to clean house, restore the integrity that has always been missing while Bill and Hillary were shuffling around the Party, and give the people a reason to think that the Democratic party is looking to the future with new leadership and new candidates.
You haven't done this but the media is still making false equivalencies between Clinton and Trump. That was one of the problems with the reporting (including that of the Times) during the election
I have been a Democrat my whole life.I am no longer a Democrat because they do not represent me any longer. they have turned their backs on working people. Hillary lost because even those that voted for Obama did not vote for her, not because of Russia but because of the if not real but perceived disdain of working people. She does not work to get your vote she wags her finger and tells you you must vote for her. She is an awful candidate. She did not talk about issues she talked about tRump.
Please Please Please Please Please Please Please Please stop talking about Russia. It is a non issue. The working people of the US did not vote for her because she offered them nothing. Schumer did not help when he said that for every blue collar person they lose in the rust belt they will pick up two suburban white collar Republicans. And the statement by the Dems that blue collar people have no where else to go was so disrespectful and demeaning of working people. Stop the nonsense and take a look at Clinton's campaign. It is there you will find the answer to why we have tRump. Democrats must stop treating working people like disgusting leeches on society to win. If they do not they will continue to lose not only the presidency but as they are still doing losing the state and local elections.
The American people deserve respect not disdain and finger wagging. We are smart enough to understand the issues and will not vote for someone who is just not as bad as the other guy.
2
The "Trump won because of Russia" trope is essentially a lie repeated so often that people start to believe it. It has become like "the State Department betrayed China" or "the Jews betrayed Germany." The sooner people realize this, the sooner the country will be back on the road to mental health
2
The party needs new leadership, a 'Give em hell Harry (Truman)' to take the reins (now!), wipe the slate clean, and get the party focused on fighting for the middle class. Jobs, healthcare, and infrastructure. Socially liberal, a believer in science, and fiscally responsible (aka not Bernie). A fighter above all, ready and willing to get down in the dirt and go toe to toe with the backward plutocracy that call themselves conservatives.
1
Charles Blow suffers from the same myopia as all other Eastern Progressives. He believes Liberalism can win elections--it just hasn't been tried in its purist form yet.
I'm not unlike so many other voters who put Trump in office. I didn't vote for Trump--I voted against Hillary--a self-entitled elitist shrew who offered to continue Obama's failed economic policies.
But the problem in 2016 wasn't simply the candidate. It's everything--including Democrat leaders...Pelosi, Schumer, Warren, Sanders--and all the other Socialists. These days, JFK could never run as a Democrat.
Until Democrats start to elect more mainstream candidates, their destiny will be an also-ran party. Their losing issues?
Anti-family
Anti-achievement
Anti-military
Anti-religion/traditional values
Anti-blue collar/Southern/Blue Collar
Anti-development
Anti-capitalism
Anti-energy
Anti-White
Anti-immigration & drug enforcement
Anti-school choice
Anti-right to work
Anti-first amendment (universities)
Anti-second amendment (gun bans)
Anti-voter verification
It's as if Democrats do not understand that all of their positions are extreme--and if they do understand, they don't care that the country is still center-right. It's going to take one of their own to point it out. Until then, Liberals will continue to smugly alienate mainstream voters--and wail, whine and gnash their teeth at every election loss--because they'd rather stick to their elitist, socialist agenda--than win elections.
5
"Socialist agenda"
They never say 'socialist" as if the citizens are too stupid to recognize the very fact that Democrats ARE socialists. Offering everything under the sun for "free" is a DEAD GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!
I agree and Donna Brazile should not have released this book. There would be a much better time after we get rid of Donald. She is self serving and short sighted. Since the last Presidential election getting rid of Donald has become the most important issue of our time!
"facing the stiff arm of renewed voter suppression"
Speaking of fake news...
History will show that the Clintons were the key to destroying the Democratic party ... from becoming the party of growth, to repeal of Glass-Steagall, signing NAFTA without safeguards and letting China into the WTO. Not keeping the elder Bush's promise not to expand NATO - now our "Russia problem". And creating a sleazy "foundation" to amass personal wealth.
The Democratic party has no future with any Clinton taint. Even in the shadows.
Joe Biden, possible 20I6 choice for Dems, gone like Bernie with the DNC HRClinton-wind. Cory Booker, now wisely bending with politics zeitgeist will rise with Dems like our Illinois Sen. comet sped from Honolulu birth into our 44th Presidency.
Thanks Charles. I have two thoughts on what Donna did. On the positive side, she exposed a lot of the dirt that goes on behind closed doors of any political party. On the negative side that could hurt the only chance to get rid of Trump and the corrupt Republican Party. We're all pretty familiar with the phrase, "You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free". From a religious point of view, I love it. From a political point of view, it's a death wish. Why? Because political parties NEVER really tell us the truth.
I'm 79 years old. I traveled with Robert Kennedy when we went to announce his candidacy for President. My ex-partner Errol and I entertained him as we drove back to the airport to fly back to NYC. I was so full of hope that night. Days later he was killed.
O'Bama gave me that same hope, but it was short lived.
I voted for Hillary, but wasn't enthusiastic about her.
When Trump got elected, my faith in America dropped to its lowest level.
I really don't worry about myself. I worry about my daughter and her family. What opportunities are they going to have?
The only solution for change is a united Democratic Party. Not a perfect party, but right now, the only party that can save this country. Believe this. Please!
2
Republicans are here, yet again in the past 90 years or so, to pick the peoples' pockets.
Bleak Unfairness is their name.
The rich, they come perennially to harm. How's that working for the people around the world in these rapaciously plutocratic times? How are they to act, this time around?
In America, will we buy yet more millions of guns; binge watch more TV? Increase our swelling numbers among our obese population? More Impoverish our struggling public colleges and universities?
1
Let’s all understand what is at stake in our country. If it is not clear, please read Nancy McLean’s new book, “Democracy in Chains”.
At stake is our democracy itself. Through years of buying of influence, wealthy donors with the help of political economists like James Buchanan have been influencing the GOP toward a political philosophy that no individual should be forced by the government to pay for a social good (or anything) that they do not agree with. Since it means that the government cannot pay for anything without a virtual unanimous consensus, it is NOT a democracy. Decades ago, these folks realized that the majority would never accept this political philosophy, it was quietly decided by the leaders of this movement that work had to go on undercover and through untruths. So what we see now is the ideas are supported with lies, sometimes claiming that a policy will do the opposite of what it will actually do. For example, a tax bill will help the “middle class” when it is in fact (and known to the purveyors) going to help corporations and rich individuals.
This important insight comes from a truly academic study of the papers in Buchanan’s office which Professor McLean had access to when he died in 2013. Her book ties this political philosophy to the Koch brothers, the Cato Institute, and other organizations on the political right. It is fascinating and for me is the “Grand Unifying Political Theory” which explains almost everything I see from the GOP today.
1
Donna should have fallen on her really dull sword, a year ago. Didn't get the message my perfectly coiffed dear. Here it is. The least qualified, most charismatic(entertaining), sicko little rich boy had the sadistic pleasure of firing you'all.
Screaming in the parking lot ain't gonna undo one thing. Yer boring my mum. Hillary.
Local contests are all about taxes. Property goes up inexorably with no real improvement to look at proudly. Low wages. Completely off the wall expensive college or training. Checked out Trump University yet(go after him for gods sake). Everything way more expensive compared to very few years ago. We build Taj Mahool bus garages and all the parents are so over protective they drive the kid to school. The only thing the rednecks care about is the price of ammo, diesel for the Cummins and the size of the disability check . Shoot a big buck, put it on your phone, probably parlay that into state recognition. Tom Reed puts on his Elmer Fudd suit and wins hands down. Doesn't hurt that the Repubs are putting up losers disguised as dems to run against him.
Easy for BO and his wife to take the highroad, didn't hear that nonsense when they were running. Get dirt and make it stick. Ridicule Trump on his ridiculous lies. Call em on the coddling of the over coddled wealthy. Maybe Jared Kushner could present his brief. Solar for sure and wind if you can do it. Protect the current reasonable environmental laws. Oh, too busy, too bad, stay comfy.
Democrats must remove the mask of 'a do-gooder' and really start to do good. They must accept the fact too many politicians posing as Democrats, have accepted greed as part of the job. They must accept the fact that Bernie understood what Americans want, a better life in the richest country in the world. A piece of that disappearing pie, disappearing into the bank accounts of a few in the new mob. This country can afford much more then they are leading us to believe, and that includes Hillary Clinton, Schumer, Pelosi and the DNC.
1
Before you can declare the New Democrat party a reality, you would think you would have something new.
Let’s check:
Pelosi: Nope. Still an (really) old white billionaire pretending to care about the little people. and still in charge.
Clintons: Hillary is still hanging around making wveryone’s life difficult although Bill seems to be in hiding since nobody wants to pay him to show up anywhere any more.
How about the party strategy? Seems to still be just call everyone else racist and then blame the Russians when the Anerican people reject you.
You can’t just rehash the same excuses with the same players and declare a new beginning.
3
So after Trump is gone THEN establishment Democrats will consider looking into the money-laundering, voter suppression, media collusion, super-delegates and gas-lighting that fundamentally corrupted and subverted the democratic process in the Democratic primaries?
FAT CHANCE!
This is pure deflection...nothing more. The Democrats under HRC held an undemocratic primary which fundamentally threw out any chance of a legitimate electoral process. Most Democrats seemed to know this from the off, which is why the field was so small and weak to begin with.
If the actions of HRC and DNC took place in a third world country we'd all decry the outcome as illegitimate on the very face of it.....and they want you to forget this fact as soon as possible. Make no mistake about it.
1
In the list if reasons that Blow mentions as reasons why Trump won he forgot to list the most important one and the main cause for Trump's win.
HRC was a very bad candidate and she ran the worst campaign in modern times against the most vulnerable Republican candidate in modern times.
1
Culture wars bad; cultural change hard. Republicans are united to their quest to acquire and wield power; Democrats are united in their quest to be right on matters of policy (and to let everyone know that they are right--thus "Progressive" litmus tests). The result is the Democrats avoid the fundamentals of organizing themselves so that they can translate their policies into effective law and regulation. The proof is that a majority of Americans on most important issues believe in Democratic policy positions but a near majority vote for better organized state and local parties and better publicized candidates. Until Democrats--I shall include Progressives--become pragmatic, they cannot hope to prevail.
So Mr. Blow wants to impeach Trump? President Pence would be better? The Republicans sure think so. They could finally do away with big government. They could finally undo all of what FDR and Eleanor put in place as human rights so we could all be little Ayn Rands-- individual money-grubbing, dog-eat-dog, gun-totin citizens. Un-Jesus-like Christians like Mr. Pence, knocking on heaven's door with one hand with the codes in the other.
2
Trump will prevail for two terms unless the rest of us stop whining and pushing each other aside to get ahead and be the one in the limelight. The thing to do is eliminate all the old faces from before and move on with new initiatives and leave the old stories behind.
Hillary, Joe, Bernie, Nancy and Donna need to move on and stop trying to make the record read differently when what we need is youthful, dynamic leadership with no stories to rehash but new solutions to forge that will capture the badly beaten spirit of so many good citizens.
If these old soldiers would step aside, finally, the talent in their midst could surface and save us.
I feel it is a moral imperative these oldies but goodies must replace themselves and then we must activate the millions of citizens who normally do not vote to get involved and vote for a balanced, capable and good person reflective of what America was and should be now.
2
I share Mr Blow's contempt for the republican party, its leadership, its policies and its divisive propaganda.
There is no question but that the democratic party did the country a major disservice in the last election by its inept nomination and campaign.
That said, "liberalism" if it is defined as a continuation of the identity politics that have failed us so miserably is not the answer. "Liberalism" that focuses on preserving the equal opportunity and accountability under the rule of law is the answer. Note that "opportunity" and "accountability" must be linked in order to have credibility.
The "resistance" as defined in Mr Blow's opinion smells too much of the SDS era of political opposition. It didn't work then and it will not work now.
Bill Clinton got it right and got it right in a big way. Unfortunately, his personal hubris and greed, along with that of Hillary, destroyed what had been a promising restart for the party.
Barack Obama got it right in so many ways and, though certainly not deserving of his Nobel Peace Prize, did deserve something of the same for navigating our country through is second greatest financial catastrophe in the past 120 or so years. Unfortunately, he was opposed by the most divisive political and racist propaganda that the republicans would devise, not to mention their lockstep transformation of our pragmatic compromise governance into something more akin to tag team mud wrestling.
We need leadership, not platitudes.
Donna Brazile is every bit as guilty as the rest of the DNC. She fed questions to the Hilary campaign and denied, denied, denied that she did it. When she could not deny it any longer, she was fired from CNN. Meanwhile the normal, every day Democrat was the loser, as they lost a solid chance to vote for an eminently better choice. Hence the Trump presidency. And the United States has been suffering ever since. Neither party is to be trusted. They have a long way to go before the every day voter will trust them again.
2
So much rage Chuck. Keep it up and give yourself a premature heart attack. Trump 2020!
2
The problem with the Democratic Party is they have turned too far left. Open borders, “racist” name calling for those who disagree , college “snowflakes,” BLM, Antifa,, unruly protests about anything and everything..,,these are the faces of the democrat party. Not pretty and they wonder why they can’t win.
3
But the stock markets are at all time highs, unemployment near all time lows, people are snapping up Apple's new $1,000.00+ shiny toy, they're playing Christmas carols in the crowded stores and there's an Amazon package on the porch practically every day. How many people really cares if the country is going to hell in a hatbag? (That's not a rhetorical question.)
Elephant in room department
Americans want and hunger for rebels. Trump is a rebel to millions. It was Sanders only who could’ve beaten him. Yet even Brazile fails to even mention him. The establishment Dems and their corporate media including the NY Times and Washington Post and the cable and corporate tv just can’t wrap their intelligence and instincts around rebellion. Rebellion means alt energy. Single payer health care. A bolstering of the public commons. Anti war. High speed rail.
1
I agree but what's the point. This same column has been written thousands of times since his election. Write something new Mr. Blow. Otherwise you're just wasting your readers time.
3
Yes, retire Bill and Hillary from the Democratic Party so that some as yet unnamed savior can swoop in and save the party from the crafty duo who have raised billions for the institution!
Yes, banish Hillary for having the audacity to raise $1B, win three debates and the popular vote during her run for the presidency! No, don't blame Putin, Trump or Comey for her defeat!
Flock to Bernie, the "socialist independent," whose malignant narcissism disorder is second only to the president's in its degree of intensity. He's not a Democrat and has no desire to save the party or raise money to operate it.
2
Well, isn't that precious. Charles Blow has decided to give the DNC over to the Sanders camp.
2
All what you say Mr. Blow you say because America gave you god given rights to say them. President Trump is now my blowhard and I'll defend the historical American democratic legacy that put him in the oval office until my death.
Liberalism is dying a slow death with the final realization that the democratic party, the party of slavery and now identity politics has been exposed.
2
Promotion of Clinton/Obama/centrist democrat derangement syndrome serves the right. Putitanicals on the left opened the door for a Trump presidency in 2016, & now help Trumpista Gillespie make the gubernatorial race in Virginia close! Compared to Mr. Emoluments & his authoritarian right grifters, Hillary is Joan of Arc… burned at the stake for an imperfect lifetime dedicated to social justice. When wanna be puritanicals promote the likes of Jill Stein who sat with Putin & Flynn at the Dec 2015 RT gala in Moscow, the puritanicals do the bidding of the authoritarian right.
MSM & @SenWarren need to check the details/read the memo before bloviating based on Brazile's book selling campaign.
You say Liberalism, Trump will say Socialism. Good luck trying to show the difference.
3
These days, there is no difference. Pelosi, Sanders, Hillary, Perez, Schumer, Elizabeth Warren are all business-hating, government-loving Socialists. They believe in their hearts that Government is better at running the economy, and running our lives than private citizens can.
And if you're a fair-minded person, you KNOW this beyond all doubt. When confronted with any problem, these are the people who reflexively ask the question: "How can we use government to solve this". That's what Socialists do--and eventually, we end up like Cuba or Venezuela--because the only way Liberals can convince all citizens to go along with them is by brute force.
The vote last year had absolutely nothing to do with any and all of the things you mentioned. As you state in your second to the last paragraph, ""efforts seem to be operating separately from the national Democratic Party". Thank God.
It was apparent last year that Republicans AND Democrats wanted change. Only one of those parties actually offered change and that party won the election with help from angry white Democrats.
The Democrats offered us one of the most unpopular persons around. The Democratic party failed to hear the bells. The Democratic party appoints super delegates How democratic is that? DWS colluded with other Democrats to nominate HRC.
As a Democratic woman, I cannot wait to read Donna Brazile's new book. Uncover the Democrat's dirty little secrets. And a little honesty might actually help the Democrats to improve in the elections.
3
The problem isn't that the Democratic party is "stuck looking back and bickering." The problem is that Democrats, like Republicans, are in office for the primary purpose of enrichiing themselves. Until we have term limits and an end to the Citizens United ruling, we cannot expect things to get better.
1
Mr. Blow suffers from one of the worst cases of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) on record. HRC colluding with British spies to create fake dossiers, HRC buying the DNC, HRC selling our Uranium to the Russians, the DNC is being run by incompetants, and the organization is broke. Obama, Wasserman-Schultz and HRC destroyed the Democrat party and now the party is essentially made-up of Hollywood elites, Antifa, McCain-Corker-Flake and Bowe Bergdahl. It reminds me of when as a chile my mother told me to clean my room. I would clean everything visible and throw all the dirty clothes in the closet. My mother would inspect the room and praise me for a job well done and when I left the room and returned, all the dirty clothes were piled on my bed. It seems mom knew just where to look. Mr. Blow do you?
4
I've been alienated from my family, church and friends because I am against Trump, a vile and vicious man. However, if these institutions support such a vulgar, possibly evil human being, what does that say about my nation?
2
Great analysis with a glimmer of hope in it. I'll take what I can get. For those wondering why Democrats are not leaping at the chance to announce their candidacy for POTUS 2020, how fast would you move to do that when you know that DJT will immediately come up with a label for you and play it nonstop on his Twitter account? My hope is that these prospective candidates are waiting and watching to see if Mueller is going to get Trump or at least see the tide turn against Trump, finally and decisively, among the idiots in his base. Then, make your move. For now, he's winning the media war and everything else (except the grass roots movement described here), and if he takes us to war, which we all know he will--he has been itching to do that all along--his popularity may soar, God forbid. Patience is rewarded, along with quiet organizing. This is war, too.
1
"Donna Brazile may be burning the village in order to save it.”
Not quite, more like "may be burning the village to enrich herself"! Brazile as I remember handed off some questions for one of the debates to the Clinton campaign before hand. And hid that until exposed by the hacked emails. Not a very stellar character reference in my mind.
And liberalism is taking over the party. I have lived in Atlanta for 22 years and for the first time there is a gay white woman, Cathy Woolard, running for Mayor along with 10 or so other candidates. I voted early and just had to vote for her. And it felt good too. More diversity is always welcome. Oh, she is more than qualified to be Mayor.
Not all old white men are Republicans!
3
If by the "Democratic Party" you mean the Republican-lite, corporatist, Wall Street, donor-friendly establishment --- good riddance.
On the political spectrum, the establishment Democrats stand to the right of such Republicans as Eisenhower (the largest infrastructure program other than the New Deal) and Nixon (the EPA).
"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!" (Oliver Cromwell to the Rump Parliament)
1
>
The only poll that counts was in Nov 2016. Next one scheduled for Nov 2018, it's outcome far from certain. Also never forget that tasking many people if they approve of DJT affords a totally different answer from the same person when the choice is between DJT and a Democrat
Nothing can be done until the GOP is removed from the House and Senate
Mueller could find DJT guilty of a number of very serious high crimes, today, but it will not matter. The GOP is not going to touch DJT as long as 80% of GOP voters support DJT, full stop. This 80% is as rock solid as it is irrational, and just as long as the snow flakes are unhappy they're happy.
As to the Dems they're as done as the GOP.
2020 will be the craziest and nastiest election we have ever seen, and quite possibly the last one.
2020 will see 4 parties of winnable size:
1] Old Dem
2] Bernies spoilers
3] Old GOP
4] The Trumpkin Party
This is the only set up that DJT can win. He cannot get 50% on anything, but will not need to.
"The Resistance is the new Democratic Party, or at least its future." CB
The operable language unit to this sentence is the clause "its future". Germany had a future in 1920. We can see it right now before us and it is now good, but so often the case with optimists they leave out the pain & suffering part.
"For optimists, human life never needs justification, no matter how much hurt piles up, because they can always tell themselves that things will get better."
T. Ligotti
2
The DNC should not have backed Hillary. She was disliked and not trusted right out of the gate. And we all had Clinton fatigue. Her husband with his own disgusting behavior at the end of his second term gave us George W. Bush as the next president. Hillary gave us Donald Trump. Basically the Democratic machine gave us "well its her turn now" as their rallying cry. Hope the Dems learn from their mistake and quickly.
3
Is it not ironic that Donna Brazile, faced "sexism" from Hillary's camp? Perhaps "racism" too.
Read about it
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donna-brazile-clinton-sexism_us_5a0...
Can a black woman who is not oprah, ever get respect, Democrats or republicans, this is a problem, guys.
The date still haunts me too. I'm still angry. All the news outlets I rely on (starting with The NYTs) were dead wrong or somehow blinded in the last presidential election. Your publication had Hillary with over a 90% chance of being our next president. The Hufffington Post had her chances at 99%. How many Clinton supporters relied on that information and didn't bother to go and vote? Please point me to the apology letter from either paper. Hillary's camp apparently counted on these numbers too because she didn't sprint through the finish line in the ridiculously important swing states. She was in NY selecting her transition team. It costs us everything. Where is your accountability for helping create the Frankenstein monster?
3
My friend in Indiana says that you want to keep Trump as president. As much of a buffoon Trump is, Mike Pence is a slick and evil demagogue who could be just as dangerous, but with polish. He, like Trump, is a total pawn of the Koch brothers and the Mercer family.
Trump brilliantly or tragically picked a running mate that would give any impeachment process serious pause.
3
Clearly, it's time to let the old DNC expire. Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic won't save us in 2018.
3
I'm sorry, bit the Democratic party will only come to grips with it's defeat of the "most qualified individual to have ever run for president" when it finally admits she wasn't. quite frankly it was disgusting to see that she was just "waiting her turn"...sorry, no one gets a "turn" at being president. I can't wait to have a woman lead this country, then maybe it'll get many of these mysoginists to finally shut up, however, I am not going to vote for you just because you are a woman and it'll "make history". no, the Dems lost because they became the Clinton machine...Bush and Clinton, 2 names that have to disappear from presidential politics...
4
We’re going to go a lot further down before we can climb out again.
26 dead worshippers are taking the spotlight away from Wilbur Ross’ corruption. Can there be any better sign that the US is doomed?
1
Anything to gain visibility.
I agree that Donna Brazile with her new book is trying to “ burn or wipe out “ the Democratic Party , perhaps hoping that that a brand new Phoenix will be born from its ashes.
Given the actual political clima her timing couldn’t have been worse.
4
Oh Charles, do get over it. Nowhere in your article do you articulate what the Democrat Party stands for. What are their plans? What do they want to achieve? How do they plan to reconcile the concerns of the left wing with the moderate positions they will need to gain support of working class Americans. This party is fractured.
1
When the debate was taking place over who and how the DNC should be run, a prominent democratic operative (young, female, black, bernie supporter) actually had the audacity during an NPR interview to make this statement:"the director of the DNC must be a person of color." I am a life-long dem-- woman, suburban, white. Had I been an activist dem, I would have insisted that the democratic party was no place for that spokesperson. Your questions are spot on and currently there are no answers emanating from anyone.The whole idea of the modern-day (since JFK/LBJ perhaps) democratic party is inclusivity-- and last I checked, that includes older white males. Howard Dean anyone?
Laissez rouler le Resistance!
It was clear to me when Perez was voted top dog of the DNC that a year later, we would be exactly where we are right now: a do nothing party of ossified insiders circled on all sides by people who want to actually do the work those rotten chestnuts (thank you Mr, Dickens for that one) should have been doing from before Obama's second term began. Now we're finding out that it was true, the DNC handed the party to Hillary, suppressed all other options for leadership, and shamed themselves out of office at a critical point in an election all but sealing the win for trump.
I heard a story on npr about newer voices trying to run in NYC who got snubbed and barred by the same types in Queens. No change!
We keep hearing stories like was in the NYTimes this week that the DNC does not have interesting new blood in the pipeline when it's most sorely needed.
It's there and all but trying to get out of the pipeline, but party gatekeepers are pinching it off even if it means their own demise.
I can't believe it that I at almost 60 think more like a very young voter when it comes to leadership. That's how out of date and out of touch the DNC has become. If nothing else, it makes me feel very young again with regard to politics.
Laissez rouler le Resistance!
2
How uncouth is that our 71 year old president kissing the new tax plan playing for the cameras. Let's move beyond Trump and Clinton and focus on how to get more women into politics. Hopefully the women movement will infuse politics with a fresh new air. Women need to realize the rigged male system doesn't stop at the CEO's office but goes all the way to the top. Come on all you males out there you know that if something not working for you it's time to change course.
The last thing we Democratic voters need is for Donald Trump to be fed fodder to rail against the Democratic party. Brazile, while having the 1st Amendment right to release this damaging information, deserves to be held accountable for the timing of this allegation. Why couldn't she have gone to bat for justice and fairness DURING the primary, when Bernie was building up a head of steam in the caucuses. Hillary, with her sycophantic Democrat operatives at her side, steamrolled Bernie, then arrogantly ignored visiting blue-leaning states, which handed the election to Trump. People blamed Bernie for having the gumption to refuse to climb aboard the Hillary bandwagon, but he knew that 1) his message was resonating with us and 2) Hillary was a fatally flawed candidate. What are we left with? An astonishingly incompetent and treacherous president and a Democratic party that gives us no hope that Trump will not be a 2-term president.
Hillary's fatal flaw as you put it, was that she was a woman. I sure hope the dems are smart enough to avoid that mistake next time, and I say that as a life-long feminist who has supported HRC since she was Bill's right-hand "person," in the last time America felt and was "great." . Hillary's fatal flaw was not that she lost-- she in fact won by a land-slide.
Donna Brazile said she thought of replacing Hillary, as if she had the power to do this. She has disgraced herself.
2
David, Hillary was ill, she had a fainting spell, they had to think fast. She thought of Biden first and then many other combinations.
"Liberals have the will and determination to turn this giant mistake around, to pressure their elected officials or possibly replace them."
How to replace Pelosi and her regime?
She is holding firm and will not let go. She believes she has a divine right to be Speaker again. We lost four consecutive elections under her "leadership", still, she can't seem to realize her generation must let a new blood lead.
Disgraceful indeed.
1
According to this article, the Democrat Party is still ignorant of what happened to them. Most Americans do NOT care about identity politics. They want good jobs, a good economy to keep them believing the good job they have will last a while. My husband was a Democrat voter and most in his family too. They are so disgusted with the Democrat Party & what they represent (laziness, anger, hate, violence, Socialism) he has pretty much switched to Independent & Republican voting. I never thought I would ever witness it but it happened and I highly doubt today's Democrats will be able to bring him back.
1
We have a two-part system at a time when parties are obsolete. People give directly to candidates. Information and organization flow directly through social media.
The Congress runs more along the lines of a parliamentary system while our constitution is not designed for such a system.
So, here we are with an ignorant, lying, sexual predator, birther, coward, minority president. Here we are with the Republican party and it's voters who will tolerate anything for conservative judges and tax cuts.
It is imperative that those of us on the left unify to stop the policies that will hurt the entire nation and the world. Whether we are Democrats or Independents or Socialists or Green, we have to vote for the person whose views are closest to our own and who can win.
Charles, the Democratic "village" could use a bit of purifying fire.
Everyone suspected that the primary campaign was compromised. Now Brazile, the head of the DNC, has said it absolutely was.
That is super bad.
But by pointing out the obvious, perhaps we can try to make the next primary a REAL primary.
The superdelegate smarties in the Democratic Party (not to mention the smarties on the NY Times editorial page) told us that Clinton was the best candidate before the first primary was even held.
And then she lost to Donald Trump.
Maybe instead of telling Brazile to keep her mouth shut, the smarties might want to consider following their own advice next time around.
4
Thye wont follow their own advice. Advice is for the little people, the "everyday Americans." Until this changes Democrats will continue to lose.
Does Donna Brazile realize most of us voted for Hillary Clinton because we wanted to, it was the right moment for the Country ?
Politics is full of corruption, and Brazile was not a very ethical person as we found out, otherwise why would she give away questions to Ms. Clinton ? So she was fired justifiably by CNN.
Now Donna has become a destructive force for the Democratic Party, this is not the right time or the moment to trash the Party where she once belonged to.
This is only for a few bucks !
4
the mistake of McGovern all over again
2
Mr. Blow ignores the fact that Hillary and her campaign also heavily relied on the Russians to try to derail Trump. The Trump dossier was bought and paid for by the Democrats and relied upon scurrilous information from the Kremlin. I'm sorry, Mr. Blow, but you and fellow Democrats let us all down by vigorously supporting a candidate almost as bad as Trump himself. You enabled his election, any other Democrat could have beaten Trump hands down.
Mr Blow writes: "A year ago this week, America made what I believe history will record as one of the greatest electoral mistakes in the life of the nation: It elected Donald Trump president of the United States."
No, actually "America" did not make "one of the greatest electoral mistakes" and it did not "elect Donald Trump." Well over sixty million American citizens, real live people like Mr Blow voted, to the best of their knowledge and perceived interests as citizens, for one of the two candidates for president. Mr Blow's argument is not with "America." It is with the tens of millions of his fellow citizens who did not vote the way he thinks they should have voted, who, rightly or wrongly, saw their own personal interests differently from what Mr Blow saw his own.
1
There is plenty of blame to go around for Donald Trump's ascendancy to the Presidency and of Mr. Blow's list the most troubling is voter suppression. The whole Russian dynamic is overblown in that it assumes that the population of malleable minds in the country is so great in number and so intellectually challenged that even a well run and coherent campaign by the Democrats would have been doomed at the onset. Trump won with the absolute fraud of Make America Great Again, an old school Democratic battle cry if there ever was one. He stole the votes of those that Hillary ultimately called the deplorables. I've seen a lot of comments here in the Times from respondents who insist that surely the working class knew better than to trust Trump; the same respondents who insist that the only reason Hillary lost was because of the Russians. Think about it. If they knew better than to trust Trump, why didn't they know better than to trust stories made up by the Russians? Now Mr. Blow suggests that a new and more divisive Democratic Party has emerged, one that is more liberal. Oh goody. Not that the country couldn't use a more liberal path, but because the Democratic Party needs to regain voters to its side. Ask yourself this question: of the two alternatives, transgender restrooms or an infrastructure plan that will not only improve the nation's framework but will also provide an economic boon to every level of society, which is going to draw more people to the polls?
1
1. The Dems must disregard Bernie Sanders.
1
“. . . a splintered and dysfunctional Democratic Party . . “
You didn’t think so during the primary season, Mr. Blow. In fact, you had every confidence in the party’s choice (and funding, as we know now) of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. You wouldn’t give the “unelectable” alternative the time of day.
We can never know just how much “influence” the Russians actually had in our election. Certainly they tried. But they also provide cover for a disastrous campaign with a candidate who began not even knowing clearly why she was running, with an email story that should have been put to bed long before, and with only a tenuous grip on the mood of the country. Some of us amateurs with our ears to the ground would have been more dependable than Robby Mook.
If Democrats continue to convince themselves that a combination of misogyny, the Russians, and James Comey managed to turn a slam dunk into a humiliating defeat, then they are dodging the deeper truth: they completely messed up. I would feel better if party leaders, the DNC, and the candidate herself would at least acknowledge as much. So we can move on with a winning plan.
1
You are correct , there is no greater threat to America or the republic than Donald Trump. He endangers all the things we like to believe America was built on and stands for . He revels in division , authoritarian policies and hate. There is no greater enemy to people of color , women , immigrants and the poor than this poor excuse for a human being . Yet at a time Americans are finally engaged and increasingly angry , frustrated and ready to effect change , Hillary Clinton and Donna Brazele deem it more important to destroy the Democratic Party and divide it for book deals and ego . In all due respect ladies it’s time for you both to exit the stage and to accept responsibility for your role in the disaster that is the Presidency of Donald Trump.
1
The “Resistance “ are nothing more than apologists for Hillary Clinton and the feckless Democratic Leadership giving them succor and sympathy , wallowing in Russia hysteria and “resisting “ much needed reform to a Party consistently losing to RW barbarians hellbent on taking away healthcare , civil rights and giving more tax cuts to the already perversely wealthy.
It’s amazing how Progressive and egalitarian policies that focus on quality of life and bolstering the common good are always put on the back burner while we deal with Crisis X .
Until the Democratic Party regains it’s purpose and identity and gets behind bold initiatives like Medicare For All and the Fight for 15 they’ll continue to lose to scorched earth nihilists who at least fight for their godawful policies instead of trying to thread the needle between being the Party of big money and the Party of the people.
1
this book that just came out needs to be read by all. the name Hillary has to be gone from further discussions regarding the running of this democrat party.
Pelosi Schumer need to start backing off also. it is a new world and a new generation is in the process of inheriting.
They get the right to run this place now. we seniors have had a fun run but the light needs to be passed to that new generation. Time for fossil removal and a new rebirth. Trump is a stain. the correct spot remover will accomplish this feat. does not matter which party but new blood is needed and i do not mean as in running in the gutters. there might, just might be a true leader in the wings. we need to hope cause the ones trying to lead are all kind of OLD School types.
1
Bernie needs to back off too.
"I don’t begrudge anyone the right to tell his or her own story.." and then "Brazile [says]..that people questioning the timing [her book release] could 'go to hell.' The problem is that...many of us are crestfallen when any obstacle [Brazile] is added that might impede that effort [defeating Trump]." Huh?! Hell awaits you Mr. Blow.
The NYT clings to the specious narrative that the Kremlin & angry white men elected Trump- and turn away from acknowledging how the obstruction of the Sanders' campaign by an opponent covertly in command of the DNC paved the way for the nomination of a vastly-disliked & justifiably-mistrusted candidate. Ms. Brazile has detailed the extent to which Clinton Inc. and its DNC subsidiary rigged the presidential primary in 2015-2016. During that time NYT reporters stood blithely on the sidelines of an uneven playing field. Heads in the sand, your reporting consisted of accusations of impropriety from the Sanders camp and lies from the Clinton camp and the DNC. No investigation of truth, simple "he said she said" journalism. WikiLeaks and Ms. Brazile eventually informed the public what the Times missed, dismissed or buried.
The Democratic Party is a corrupt, self-dealing, deceptive, coercive and tightly-controlled ministry of the political elite. Ms. Brazile- once part of the problem- has now made clear there ain’t nothing democratic about the Democratic Party. She just handed the Resistance critical knowledge necessary to avoid a replay of 2016.
2
We now know that since going public a very large amount of Facebook stock was sold to a Russian oligarch. The country and the world have reached a point where the very wealthy have a stranglehold on government in most places. The US was the last to fall to the threat of big money, but we now know that it was all the dirty money from here, provided by the Mercers, Adelson, Kochs, and dirty money from Russia. In order to restore anything resembling democracy, we must first end inequality and all big money in politics.
This is the same women who leaked debate questions to the Clinton campaign..I question her motives and reputation..
1
At this point, with the Virginia governor's race so close and some of the more rational (and some irrational) Republicans leaving Congress making way not for Democrats, but for Tea Party loonies, two things are needed. One is to get non-Republicans out to vote for the Democrat no matter who that is. The second is to get the best Democrats to run for office -- let's just start with smart, rational, science-believers, who understand the basic challenges of our times (yes, I know, Hillary fits here) and then try to get more progressive ones. But plesse, no more Debbie Wasserman Schultz - types. We do not need mindless spouting of buzzwords with little depth. We do not need backroom deals. We need straight-shooters who can clearly state and defend basic democratic values and who can understand the global context (from climate change to Middle East politics) at the same time -- and who can think on their feet. We're seeing some of these in Texas (Beto O'Rourke, Joaquín Castro, and a lot of unheard of folks running for local offices). Maybe Charles Blow can start highlighting some of these hard-working Democrats in his column -- let's encourage that.
2
Until the non-wealthy Trump/GOP voters ( aided by gerrymandering and the electoral college) stop voting in their legislators based on what could be called “The Three P’s” -fake news induced paranoia, faux patriotism, and prejudice against “the other,” the Resistance will not fly.
And they all run the other way when Donna Brazile shows up
1
I agree with many of the ideas in this column, but I seem to recall that Charles Blow spent all of 2016 championing Hillary Clinton and the establishment wing of the Democratic Party, while deiriding its progressive challenger and his supporters as a gang of loonies.
Now Blow calls the Democratic Party "dysfunctional" and a "dinosaur." Yet, oddly, he criticizes Donna Brazile for exposing the party's dysfunction and rot. Brazile, a longtime party official and centrist, has in fact done us all a great service by revealing that the Democratic Party is badly-run and, even worse, not very democratic.
2
Donna Brazile's "Go To Hell" moment on national television may just be the Democrats' needed jolt to cut clean from its sclerotic, corrupt establishment and to begin, again, addressing the nation's real concerns. After all, someone on the other side got himself elected President by leading a revolt against his party's pharaohs along the same lines. But Blow's political prescription of obsessionally drumming the doom beat over Trump's head won't move the Dems forward. Not one inch. Hilary's final nail in her campaign coffin, in my view, was her "basket of deplorables" pronouncement - unless we Dems bury this deplorable sentiment and reach out to the just concerns of an America long forgotten by both political parties, no amount of investigations and indictments will breathe new life and direction into my once great party.
2
This article is great however it misses the biggest mistake Democratic Party has made by rigging the Democratic primaries: The Democratic Party was not at all democratic during the primaries and they actively tried to tilt the race towards Hillary which in return kept many Bernie people not voting for her. Charles Blow was one of those people that openly turned a blind eye to this ridiculous approach. And now he's talking about why it is a good thing to burn the village in order to save it. The village did not have to be burnt. It just needed democracy.
1
Nail on the head as usual Charles. Thank you.
I am a DEM, my advice to the party is to stop looking in the rear view mirror. Look ahead! If some one want to write book stop giving it free press, Look ahead. The real story, the one that counts for all America and the world will take place a year from tomorrow. Election day 2018, the day the people take back congress!!!
1
Donna Brazile should be commended for her honesty and integrity motivated by her love for democratic institutions and our country. The title of her book,
(Hacks) is entirely appropriate demonstrating that one party doesn’t have a monopoly on good governance.
3
Stay woke
Vote in every election
Democratic voters are too complacent, too lazy and too pragmatic
Vote in every election as if your life depends on it - because if you pay attention to what the kleptocracy really wants to implement you will realize that your vote in every election is what will save the republic
Vote - even if its raining
Vote - even if the lines are long
Vote.
6
as long as the atrophied democratic 'leadership' remain in control, the democrats are doomed to failure...
there need to be radical changes in support of what is left of the american working class - and a move away from being a party of the liberal rich. anything less will not work...
1
Why is all the foreign meddling focused on the Russians? Isn't Rupert Murdoch also a foreigner? Fox News is far more of a danger to US democracy than Vladimir Putin. On Fresh Air on NPR a few months ago, Thomas Ricks, the author of the recent book on Orwell and Churchill, described Murdoch as the "greatest threat to the republic since Robert E Lee." That others have not seen this blindingly obvious fact is amazing to me.
As long as there is no fairness doctrine and Fox continues to spew poison, the Democratic party has no chance. Heck, forget about the Democratic party, American democracy itself has no chance.
3
This is the most important post of the entire day, and probably The entire political year. I wholeheartedly agree. Discredit Fox and we get our country back.
1
The wide and varied comments here explain the schism in both parties. So many people nursing grudges. So many people just flat out ill informed. So many people who missed Mr. Blow's message because they don't know how or don't care to listen.
And most of the people commenting here at least on paper share a goal. And yet they can't put aside their petty selfishness to even try to understand what Mr. Blow is trying to say.
We live in a culture that has no desire to see anything in the mirror but it's own reflection. You wonder why we are where we are? Try looking at yourself instead of your neighbor.
5
Isn't Perez trying to update/upgrade the dinosaur? The power to change the party truly rests with the state party apparati. Is Perez making progress? Blow doesn't offer much in the way of specifics for his points. I wish he had.
“It’s the economy, stupid,” the 1992 refrain still echoing even as more and more special interests try to silence the national dirge through hidden funding. A revolution is ahead, or we go the way of Rome. Pray it be peaceful.
A friend of mine said recently, "The Republican are burning the country to the ground while the Democrats dither over cultural diversity in the fire department." Just something to think about.
2
In an age where marketing is everything, it might be best to call this new party the Liberal Party or the Phoenix Party and forget the Democratic Party all together. Otherwise, what's the sales pitch,... "We lie, cheat, and steal, but we're better than the Republicans?" Frankly, I think that slogan is true, but there isn't anything I would support there. I think the Resistance needs to be a People's Resistance and primarily an economic one while new parties are formed out of our political ash heap.
1
Trump has been called by many, including me since his election, a Trojan horse stalking for someone. Russia, the NRA, who knows? He is an insidious enemy of the American republic that has been nursed like a viper in its bosom, so perhaps an analogy to ancient Rome's Caligula would be fitting. But here we are, looking once again at the worn-out political paradigm of the two-party system. Is there nothing else for Americans? If Trump does not succeed in his nihilistic agenda to destroy our political system, if not the world through a contrived nuclear conflict, we should all be thankful and prepare to do the heavy lifting necessary to rebuild our corrupted system.
3
Charles I loved this column! When I first saw the headline, I was prepared to disagree. Not only is the Democratic Party the resistance but even some former Republicans are resisting! But you do have a point. Democrats.org is a cheap, lame email newsletter and website(although they finally let me unsubscribe after a lot of acreaming) and I guess now that Hillary spent her $1B and lost, the coffers are empty, which may be why they’re desperate. But I agree with you that Donna Brazile might want to get on the Resist page. Part of why Republicans beat us aside from the Comey Coup, Russia hadks. and voter suppression(all enough to beat us already) is that they’re better at messag discipline. They also bait us into petty arguments and make themselves lookmlike the party of unfettered freedom while we say, e.g, no more sugary soda.
“Burning Down the House” is an okay Talking Heads song but contraindicated as federal policy. People don’t realze how incredibly complicated the federal government is. You can slightly change the direction of the ship of state but it doesn’t whiplash 180 degrees overnight.
It can also be argued that Trump defeated Hilary partly because the Obama administration failed to catch the Russian meddling in real time.
2
Sorry, but as far as I'm concerned Ms Brazile was as complicit as anyone else in the Democratic morass. Her tell all book is nothing more than opportunistic attempt to cash in. I hope she distances herself from all attempts to recover the parties image.
1
As the Christian Trump supporters are still praising God and saying "Hallelujah" for him, their president, no matter what, I am still proud to call myself a Democrat.
I'm proud I marched in Washington on January 21st, as my sisters and brothers marched across the country and across the world, to not only protest Donald Trump, but to protest injustice for the world I knew he and Republicans would try to pull off.
I'm proud for all the calls I made to legislators this year, as a nurse, about
citizen, a Dem, to oppose the Republican version of the Affordable Care Act.
I'm proud to support public schools, environmental causes, racial and gender equality, all things my Democratic Party stands for.
Yes, the Democratic Party has a ways to go now. Who doesn't that's at all decent with Donald Trump at the helm? We need to rethink strategy. We have new leadership and the leadership needs to help the party be what it can be. We have to maybe try harder than ever, yes. We have not had insanity as a challenge before as we have had since a year ago.
We've made mistakes for sure. But Democratic values and virtues are the ones I want to be remembered by. I may not outlive a Trump regime in the White House. But my heart is in the right place, with the Democratic Party. So glad I found it and as they say, "joined up". And face it, we didn't depend on Russians to throw a monkey wrench in our Democracy to win an election.
3
Let us hope the conclusion of this analysis is correct. Off tonight to phone bank for the governors race in VA tonight. Can only hope enough people in and around the DC area show up to vote. Polls say it is a toss up. Donnie John Land has been inflamed by the Willie Horton level racist rhetoric of the whorebeast Gillespie. As for the stale of the leadership of what remains of the Old Democratic Party I bid them adieu.(and good riddance) Slow boat groveling to big money got big money. However, it came with bills. Get the base out. That's the key to getting more people elected.
1
"How did we get here?"
The triangulation between the content of Mr. Blow's essays, his reader comments and the election results tell the entire story in a convenient nutshell.
The stunning resilience of Donald J. Trump is part of that equation.
2
Yes, Robin, Hisself does possess a “stunning resilience”.
So did Benito Mussolini and Muanmar Khadafy, until those similar despots were dragged from their hiding places and eliminated from the countries that they had ruined.
He kissed the millions of dollars this plan will bring to his family.
Let’s be clear. Donna Brazile called out the DNC for its contract with the Clinton campaign that gave them leverage on hires and structure. She also said the following in Politico:
“I had tried to search out any other evidence of internal corruption that would show that the DNC was rigging the system to throw the primary to Hillary, but I could not find any in party affairs or among the staff. “ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks...
Jake Tapper asked Elizabeth Warren if she thought the primary was “rigged” for Hillary Clinton, and Warren responded, “Yes.” Donna Brazile never said it was rigged. Jake Tapper should not have asked the question that way. Elizabeth Warren needs to be more circumspect if she wants to lead the Democratic Party or the Nation. We already have a “leader” in the White House who answers before he thinks.
3
Enough of this ongoing rehash of the 2016 misery and predictions of washed-out roads ahead for Democrats in 2018 and 2020. Where are the stories about the new breed of activists doing the serious work for change NOW?
NEWSFLASH -- there are potentially game-changing ELECTIONS happening literally TOMORROW, Nov 7th; serious efforts underway all across this nation by a new group of dedicated Democrats in local races to reignite decency in government at its most grass roots.
Progressives, Indivisibles and these New Democrats have already moved ahead of that old game and are walking their neighborhoods and talking to voters. I am a 70 year old church organist who is running for office to help end the 25-year one-party, pay-for-play Republican rule in Dutchess County, and to return local government to the people. I am one of many.
Here in Poughkeepsie, we have a stellar set of candidates running in all 6 wards, supervisor, and the county legislature. We stand for a fairer stewardship of tax dollars, and in support of our struggling, working families. Charles, why not write about this effort instead of yet another Dems critique? Frankly, we could use your support.
Liberals, it's simple -- stop wringing your hands and get your butts to the polls tomorrow! Don’t wait for Mueller or some avenging angel to rid this nation of Trumpism -- Do it yourself the old fashioned way – VOTE them out!
Dan Fannon
Democrat/Green Party Candidate – Councilman Ward One
Town of Poughkeepsie
2
Mr. Charles Blow:
Your ignorance is breathtaking. By far the biggest electoral mistake made by the American people was the re-election of George W. Bush in 2004. America is still paying dearly in blood and treasure for his colossal blunders in economic and foreign policy management. This huge mistake all but assures that China will overtake the United States economically, militarily, technologically AND culturally within the next 20-40 years. The American people will soon know the humiliation of being a second rate power.
Donald Trump has not done anywhere near the damage that Bush 43 has done and is unlikely to do so. Trump's limitations are well known by both domestic and foreign institutions and governments who are already acting to constrain any mischief he might cause. This did not happen with Bush 43.
The only thing your braying is doing is engendering sympathy for Mr. Trump; galvanizing his base and making it more likely that he will be re-elected in 2020.
2
if you're really all that fussed about China's rise, and you prolly should be, our recent rejection of TPP looks like about as big a screwup as the lunatic Iraq War.
Bad article. Misnomer. Called "The New Democratic Party", but 90% of it devoted just to downgrading Trump. Tunnel vision. Hatred of Trump overwhelms any self analysis, self criticism of the Democratic party. Democrats need to win local elections, based on local issues. Anti-Trump platform is not going to do it for the most part of the US. You also need a good candidate. The US is still alive and well after 10 months of Trump...stockmarket, unemployment, etc. Don't underestimate Trump and his followers like you did in the presidential election.
Maybe it is time to refurbish the cell in which Kushner's father had a stay to help the son recall daddy's legacy
I am inclined to ignore Donna Brazile.
Fortunately she does not represent the immense talent we have in the Democratic Party, people such as Brenda Lawrence and Maxine Waters, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. Keith Ellison, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Jon Orsoff, Debbie Stabenow, the mayors of Flint, New York, San Juan and Detroit...when I looked into it, I was really impressed with how wide and deep the bench is.
Really I don’t have time for whining. I spent a lot of time in the last four weeks helping neighbors to register to vote and phone banking to get out the vote here in Detroit. We have some wonderful new young candidates on the ballot Nov 7, such as Garlin Gilchrist for the important job of voter registration and ballot counting in the City Clerk office.
We have all learned the hard way that the only way to stop this is to vote.
2
The hint of resignation and the realization that the Ds play Sisyphus to the President's boulder makes the start of the day ever sunny despite the weather. The " mountain" in the metaphor is the utter disdain the vast voting public has for this author's brand of governance, which of course is rule by mob. A mob of screaming mimis. A mob of academic fascists looking to strong-arm dissent. A mob of identity-obsessed losers, with the intellectual underpinning of goldfish. Bringing all this further into the light can only aid the effort to completely discredit and render impossible any serious challenge to the emerging course corrections. We did not need the lady's book to open our eyes; but we do know you and others preferred slumber, lest those woken up see the hypocrisy at the core of your rhetoric. Perhaps the attending physicians will slap you awake too; but given the severity of the ailment, we doubt it. Enjoy your dream-state obsolescence.
Personally, if I were going to trumpet my intellectual superiority, I'd do so in less turgid prose.
But then, I'd also prefer facts to the typical sprays of adjectives and titterings about the girliness of people I disagreed with.
We need more candidates of color and we need to register more voters of color. It's the simple answer to Democratic problems. You can call it simplistic, but it's the only way to bulldoze our way over all the cheating on the other side. We have the majority. Let's use it! And then once in office, let's really use it to reverse every ridiculous thing Republicans have done, including the illegitimate appointment of Neil Gorsuch, the most unqualified and arrogant Supreme Court Injustice.
Democrats and the Left need to get it through their heads, once and for all, that what McConnell pulled was despicable, but perfectly within the Constitution.
And then, Gorsuch was nominated, had his hearings, and was appointed to the Court.
Unless you'd like to have a junta run the country, that's the end of the story. Myself, I would think it'd be easier to stop with the circular firing squads and show up to vote next time around.
My step-father-in-law is an 82 year old white male who voted for Trump. A while back I asked him why he voted for Trump and he replied "because he was the Republican nominee". I visited him yesterday and, after he raised the subject of Trump's performance with me - I think trying to provoke me, I asked him if a snap election were held tomorrow would you still vote for Trump? He replied immediately, "it depends who he was running against".
The Democrats need a leader to unite behind, who might that be?
After seeing the performance of Trump, why would his opponent matter?
1
The DNC is perfectly capable of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The old guard is as entrenched as ever. No one trusts them. No one is about to trust them with funds. The same old third way quislings are in charge.
2
Thank you, Mr. Blow. The first paragraph tells a basic fact that it's time to admit. And Bravo Ms. Brazile - and yes, it's past time to shake up the Democratic Party. Bernie tried - but this paper and all the others barely gave him space in their publications, while giving enormous amounts of space to Trump - and, of course, Clinton. One of the old sayings in advertising - is a bad reputation is better than no reputation at all. Gving Trump space even for his ridiculousness just put his name out there. Sad. Now, since the Republican party has been traumatized - maybe there's no better time than the present for the book to come out and shake up the democrats, who will hopefully find a progressive voice - and be heard. We're still behind you, Bernie!!!
1
Charles, I'm for removing this cancer form office, but is Pence any better? He could be even more dangerous...We should work on taking the house and Senate back in 2018. That will stop DJT from inflicting more damage. After 2018, we should work to get a competent person nominated and elected.
The old guard won’t let go of power and they’re too easy to demonize on the right. It’s time for Pelosi to pass the torch. We need new, younger dems who can better relate to the populace.
Nancy, it’s time to let go...
And thanks for the knife in the back, Brazile. Time for you to retire as well.
the chances that Trump will be impeached are slim and none.Mr.Blow's chicken little,
the sky is falling routine is getting old quickly.our nation is strong enough to survive
one term of Donald Trump. if the Democrats
can stop feasting upon each other's guts for
long enough, they will probably get back the
house and make enough gains in the senate
to offset any Trump disaster. as for a potential
President Pence, he might be harder to defeat
in 2020,if only because people will want to give him a chance to prove he is a "real true
blue conservative." Trump is a bad President,
granted, but America will survive him.
"I don’t begrudge anyone the right to tell his or her own story, but my focus now is on protecting the country from Trump, and nothing else."
To be a bit more blunt about it, this is not the time for individual egos to bring the spotlight on themselves at the expense of liberation from a looming, irreversible tragedy: this is an emergency! There is a fascist dictator in the making sitting in the White House, itching to take over the justice department and, along with S. Bannon, start concocting his very own white supremacist regulations.
Resistance is a state of mind. A just reaction to oppression. The Democratic Party already has it within them in a powerful way, they need only not impede its growth by self-indulgent bickering.
1
“To be a bit more blunt about it, this is not the time for individual egos to bring the spotlight on themselves...”
Unless, of course, you are Hillary, with an outsized need to blame everyone but yourself for your defeat.
Donna Brazile offers an explanation. No one in the Democratic Party seems to have offered an apology though. Maybe the book will prove me wrong. However, you're wrong to think I'll pay for the demeaning privilege of finding out. Like the New York Times, I was not granted the courtesy of an advanced copy.
Speaking as someone feeling shutout of the political process on both sides, I don't see how resistance is the true takeaway from the Trump era. I agree with all the rightly deserved criticism. However, the Democratic failure persists. Unifying "liberals" won't help. The victory will prove shallow. Most Trump resisters weren't and aren't ideological "liberal" in the first place.
We're confusing a political philosophy with the nation's true Trumpian discomfiture. Obama was at least trusted as an individual but the Party had this coming. Democrats need to start listening before they speak. Democrats blew the public trust big time in 2016. Trump, Russia, or no: The system was in fact rigged.
Who provides the greater disservice? Trump or the Parties, plural, that willfully enabled his election? Democrats punched America in the eye. I'm happy to do my part to "resist" Trump but that doesn't mean I have any sympathy for the Democratic Party. This wound is not going to heal easy.
Remember that Charles Blow was one of the most consistent attackers of the attempt by Bernie Sanders and his supporters to reform the Democratic Party during the primary. He stubbornly ignored criticism of Hillary Clinton's debt to Wall Street bankers, support for US military aggression or abandonment of the working class. Now, he adds to the chorus condemning Brazile only days after declaring his need to be a greater ally to women (in spite of 'confessing' to have been a wonderful ally throughout his career). Here is a powerful, articulate woman of color speaking out, so I hope that readers will note and remember Blow's reaction to her in these pages.
Although many would have a difficult time praising the swelling movement to rid the Democratic party of its corruption and collusion with the 1% without giving props to Sanders, Charles manages the feat with ease.
2
Charles Blow again: superb!
The Clintons have helped foreigners more than their own countrymen and women. Their compulsion for power and attention turned Bill C's 8 years into out Reagan-ing Reagan. All talk is hot air until it isn't.
Both parties have lied to the American people for a long time. When a pol says he will help you, he is lying, that is what most voters believe. There are a few exceptions. Progressives believe Sanders and Warren really want to help them and hate inequality. When voters see that the actual policies made into law lead only to massive welfare for business and the wealthy, over and over, for 40 years, they become furious. If it seems hopeless, why not elect the worst bum of all to blow it all up, just for emotional catharsis?
This reaction is dead wrong. History proves that ALL help for everyday people comes from the progressives, the believers in ethics, justice and opportunity. Mass progressive movements thus far are the only way to force the ruling class to give up power. They never give it willingly because it's the moral thing to do. All conservative mass movements hurt the common people. Any working class person who loves the right is a damn fool economically. Social values are a different ball game.
What would be the best is a new, uncorrupt, truly progressive party. Donna B. says "Go to hell" about the timing of her book. Being right is useless if you make it even harder to gain power. Why not be the "illuminator" after the mid-terms and VA governor's race?
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Back at the start of the milennium, i was a Democrat. And a New Yorker. Somehow, in a state of 33 million (mostly) fine people, it was buzzed to us, and then we were informed, that the best candidate for our new Senator was going to be the carpetbagging wife of the exiting potus. Backed by every sleazebag Dem politician in the state. And as Dems, we were supposed to just roll with the program and show up. I gave them back their D, and took an I instead and my vote along with it. Best political decision i have ever made.
Dear Donna Brazile -
I'm an utterly insignificant nobody. But if you're not too picky, I'll be your friend. I suspect you won't have too many old ones left.
Dear Bernie Sanders -
Don't ever give up that I. That's your ace in the hole.
Dear DNC -
Want save yourself from becoming the burnt toast that you are, lose the incompetent Perez and hire Howard Dean. Who gets it.
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Mr. Blow,
The focus on Russia is a huge distraction.
The democrats lost this election by their own hubris & party corruption.
Our whole election process is corrupted.
There is no country in the world worse than the US in interfering with elections abroad.
If we had a truly transparent and reformed election process we would have a chance at developing a real democracy, as it is, the media is confusing this issue with blaming Russia for everything.
If one really thinks about how they did this, it is laughable.
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Democrats will win again when they stand for something.
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While i don't mean to be a grouch, it strikes me that the Restistance could also be the one forming an anti-war movement nationally, besides thiniking locally, and acting globally. Ditto for Anti-fa, even as they are very good at that they do. if there was an anti-war movemnt against war with North Korea, it could encompass everything else. There could be general strikes as well as huge marches. It might even topple Trump. The Democrats would have to unite again to take part, I'd like to hope that they would.
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I was raised in a Yellow Dog Democratic home by parents who came of age during FDR. My father repeatedly admonished me, ‟If those Republicans ever get control of Washington again, they’ll ruin this country just like they did when I was a boy.” Sure enough, they have.
But they did not do it alone.
Republicans accomplished their destruction with accomplices in high places. Wall Street cracked in 2007 because of laws Bill Clinton inked. Medicare drug plans bankrupt the nation while enriching Big Pharma because Democrats signed on. And senior Democrats now in power, most ‟Nixon Babies” who came of age in the 1970s/1980s, dismissed the old FDR guard – back then aged, gray, and dying out – as backward thinking and unaware of the power of the free market to heal itself. But those Nixon Babies, of which Bill Clinton was one, were likewise unaware: of the desolation a market left to its own devices could birth. So here we are, with unions left to the dust bin, anti-trust a faint memory, and progressive taxation and viable minimum wage equally abandoned – by the Democratic Party itself, ‟the party of the people.”
What does a nation do when both political parties are beholden to the wealthy? When the rich have seats at both tables? What do a people do when no one speaks for them? Or worse, when a party speaks for them but works for their oppressor?
The Democratic Party has lost me. And others. And so it loses power. And so it should.
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does that mean you have become a Republican? God forbid!
For a democracy to function well, an informed electorate is paramount. This means people have to spend at least some of their time reading about and trying to understand the issues.
This was made more difficult last year because the mainstream media (MSM) focused more on scandals & Trump's idiotic pronouncements than on policy. Why? Because it was good for business. Healthy bottom lines were a proxy for much of the electorate paying attention to drivel, rather than substance. The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard published a thorough study showing what the MSM favored. (https://cyber.harvard.edu/publications/2017/08/mediacloud).
Nevertheless, it was possible and not all that difficult to find out what Sec. Clinton's policies were from her website: these remain available here: https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/
How many people, including people commenting here, took the time to read them? My guess is not as many as should given their importance. (Trump's, on the other hand were a mess and made as much sense as he does—not much.)
Until enough of the electorate realizes that elections have consequences, simply changing the DNC modus operandi probably won't make a difference.
If Trump screws things up enough (short of nuclear war), perhaps that will wake people up to the fact they need to get involved, get informed & do what it takes to vote. Then maybe we can right the ship of state before it sinks.
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I second your endorsement of the Harvard study. It is critical to understanding this past 2016 election.
Yes Mr. Blow we are approaching the most horrible anniversary our country has ever faced. I'm with you 100% that protecting our nation from this abomination of a president needs to be our single-minded focus. I also find it regrettable that Donna Brazile, while well within her rights, is aiding and abetting Trump in his desire to deflect and distract people from the Mueller investigation. I personally could care less about anything she has to say, unless it is help save us from the horror and blasphemy of this pathetic excuse for a president. I welcome and pray for the inevitable success of the Resistance.
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Please don’t leave out James Comey’s devasting contribution to the Trump victory as you write about this disaster. History at least deserves the full picture.
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"President Pence" is sounding better every day.
Trump may be bad, but the leadership of the Democratic party participated in widespread fraud. That'e where the Special Prosecutor is needed. Every time anyone from the the Brooklyn campaign headquarters for said "we need your money to win the Democratic Primary", there was fraud. The nomination was in the bag because as we now know the DNC was brought by Clinton.
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Donna Brazile can rationalize it any way she likes, but the plain truth is that she has done Trump and his monstrous crew a huge favour by publishing her book. Trump is already triumphantly citing passages from it in speeches. So Brazile thinks those who question her timing can go to hell?? With the publication of this backstabbing book she has done her bit to help keep us all in the Trumpian hell that threatens to incinerate not only America but the world itself. I expect any day now to hear that she's been retained by the GOP as a political consultant.
When are politicians in the middle going to wake up and realize that the fringes of the Left AND the Right are already well-enough represented, while the majority of America is MODERATE and CENTRIST.
We need a third party in this country that wants to govern, not dictums from on high. A party that understands there are no "ultimate solutions." We don't need the income redistribution efforts proposed by the Far Right or the Far Left radical tax plans -- we need jobs and an increase in the minimum wage, and trade policy that enables a rebirth in manufacturing Stateside, and reasonably priced healthcare insurance -- we can't afford to have "healthcareless insurance" and we sure can't afford "single-payer," at least not in one radical fell swoop. Let's get real and start working on governance that is in the realm of the possible.
The Democratic Party will be built from the bottom up with the new candidates being supported by the "woke" and women who see their rights being stripped away but their claims of sexual assault are finally being taken seriously. A long time since Anita Hill. With this new energy, new candidates, new representatives will come to the party and infuse it with new energy!
You take an obviously disturbed man and you add to that the Mueller investigation; and the news about Manafort and Flynn; and the daily news leaks about his falling apart cabinet and the constant infighting in the White House; and the current death struggle between Bannon and Ryan and McConnell; and his lack of success in getting any bills passed; and the extremely slow recovery in Puerto Rico; and this new shooting attack in Texas; and the recent terror attack in New York; and his continued obsession with Mrs. Clinton and President Obama; and his recent spat with the Gold Star widow; and the threat of a nuclear war with another obviously disturbed man in North Korea; and on and on and on; and what do you get?
You get an obviously disturbed man who is coming apart at the his seams while 35 percent of the American public, the Republican Party and Fox News pretend not to notice.
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The only reason why. Mr. Stanton, that you are talking about this is that Hillary Clinton LOST an election that was hers to lose.
From where I sit, I would go further than saying that she lost what was hers to lose...
She gave it away.
The longer you take to understand this,the harder it is going to be for you on the left to resolve the issues of your loss and move forward to taking steps that will allow you to do the simple thing that elections are all about:
Winning the votes needed to win according to the rules of the game
To me the Democratic party act like the kids who got their lunch money taken at recess on a regular basis. While they are still fighting about getting robbed in 2016 the clock is ticking on 2018 and 2020.This Who Done It that is played out in the house and Mueller investigations is just playing to the right. Good luck getting the House to bring articles of impeachment and the Senate to hold a trial when they are running the show.Anybody who watched 2016 campaign could see it was tilted for Hillary.Bernie Saunder's, Don Quixote act was cute and exciting but one would have to be naive to believe the DNC wanted this non-party member to be its standard bearer.The Democratic Party thinks it lost because they neglected tho forgotten White Guy who earns a living by the sweat of his brow.When in reality the Dems lost because they had no message and Hillary thought beating Trump was a cake walk. Did the Donna Brazille book shoot the party in the foot?Yes, it did.Did the party need to be shot in the foot? Yes, it did.It is sad to say if there was an election today Trump with his low 30's approval rating would win because the opposition is still fighting 2016.In the parlance of the boxing world, Hillary got in the ring with someone she thought was a bum and got sucker punched and lost. If the Dems don't right the boat soon they will get their lunch money taken again in 2018 and 2020.
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Bill Clinton won two terms because he was a Centrist and not a liberal or leftist. The majority of this country is not liberal NY, the East Coast or liberal LA, the West Coast. It is moderate, centrist and leans more conservative than liberal. Democrats, please keep promoting liberal, leftist, Antifa and Black Lives Matter agendas. Keep promoting identity politics. You will lose in 2020. This country had enough of 8 years of liberal/socialist Obama.
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You do realize there's a reason WHY Black Lives Matter and anti-Fascist groups exist, don't you???
Start there.
Mr. Blow,
I completely agree. Further, please convince the "resistance" to build a collaboration platform similar to Facebook which would allow Democrats to voice direct participation in the process without the party elite side-tracking the momentum. Lets take "woke" to societal rather than just individual level.
Thanks in advance....
Maybe the resistance can hire DWS’ Pakistani IT dream team to build your collaboration platform.
They can insert shopping carts and one click ordering so any foreign spy who wants to can purchase the DNC info easily.
It will be way easier for the Pakistanis to do it that way than to have to schlep all the DNC data over to servers in Pakistan and sell it out the back door there.
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