The Democrats must seize the opportunity to educate voters about their values,well defined by Frank Bruni.They must also use this opportunity to highlight the egregious hypocrisy and lack of ethics by Trump and the Republican party, the lies about fiscal responsibility and deficits that Republicans have hid behind for decades , the damage done by Trump and Republicans to democratic institutions and norms. And, above all, the Democrats need to talk about their values loudly, because the Republicans have jettisoned any plausible attachment to their" values and brand."
4
The temptation to go "Republican Right" must be resisted. They did this in 2016 with Hillary Clinton and look where that go them. They also must resist swerving to the left offering up massive new spending schemes: that will lose them decent Republicans disgusted with Trump and the naked hypocrisy of the Republican Party, and similar independents. The way to go is to be seen as decent, responsible grown-ups concerned both with economic growth and employment and not blathering idealogues and bleeding hearts. They need to reassure centrists and rightist that they are no about to reinvent America as a social democratic state: the country is not ready for it. They need to keep up beating the drum for social justice, human rights, the environment, education and affordable health care but taking modest, sequential steps forward. They must appeal more to the middle majority-largely white-and not be considered the party only of feminists, socialists. minorities and marginal groups. America deserves a period of quiet, competent, not-in-your-face government, focussed on real priorities not on right-wing fantasies of small government and unregulated capitalism.
'....Try this on for size: Democrats are the party of family values because they promote the creation of more families....' Sure they are. And Germany should be praised because they built low income affordable housing for you know who in the 1930's.
1
This could be the boilerplate for all Democratic campaigns in 2018! It points out all of the hypocrisy - so much hypocrisy.
Frank, are you saying that the Republican Party will be fine once Donald Trump is gone? I disagree very bigly. They have been on a mission to destroy the middle class, dumb down the masses, and suppress the vote since Reagan's inauguration. See the Lewis Powell letter from 1972 that contained the formula for establishing fascism.
3
Our income is much less than $100,000/year. Based on this papers estimation of our future federal and state taxes we just got a greater than $10,000/yr increase. When the Republican party lies about what they have done is realized by people like our family I expect they will be swept away for being so drunken by their strange beliefs I doubt they will get in control of government for a long time.
1
Any similarity between Trump, the Christian right and Evangelicals is completely coincidental, assuming that Christianity still exists of course (a big if).
Trump represents bigotry, racism, misogyny, corruption, dishonesty and the pursuit of wealth. "Every man for himself and the Devil take the hindmost".
How Christian is that? Assuming that Christianity still exists in America.
1
Democrats have absolutely nothing to run on.
The time is now! Write letters to the editors of your local papers, speak up, be a positive agent for change! Seize the moment! Don't let the naysayers and Republican robots speak for you!
3
If Trump Fires Mueller, this country goes into all out revolution.
2
Yeah yeah but... sorry Frank I usually find your work inspiring.
A platform of "We are NOT the corrupt and vile GOP" is not a winning hand.
Playing 20th Century issues like Family Values is not what is at stake anymore.
Its far bigger and grave than that.
As advocated here and elsewhere, leadership needs to become a forceful, stringent and united voice of the people.
Speaking for the majority of Americans strong and loud, getting in the opponent's face, using very simple slogans.
We do not face a civilized opponent. Show some spine and fight hard, fight dirty.
As an Independent I keep waiting for the Dems to happen; but they continually and disappointingly fall impotent. All defense. No offense. Playing nice.
They should informing people of the truth, getting them to wake up, realize what is at stake and inciting protest over the way our country is being hi-jacked.
But no…
Who has heard that loud unforgettable angry opposition politician's voice?
Where are the headlines of "Dems create a ruckus on the floor of the House or Senate due to the malfeasance of the GOP”?
None of that is happening. Lacking forceful protest they will just keep getting steamrollered.
6
Those with increases in their paychecks may well decide to vote Republican.
1
I agree with the writer that said leadership in the Democratic Party does not exist. They proved that when they politically assassinated Al Franken during a media firestorm and me too fanaticism.
A party without leaders is adrift. It becomes a party that cannot motivate voters around a single goal or idea. It lacks what all people crave - a sense of character, honesty, and a rock solid belief that they will stand up to the rich and privileged and be FOR ordinary working people. FDR comes to mind.
It's a tradgedy that in this time of dire need we have lots of politicians - but no leaders.
9
Throwing Franken under the bus for what was arguably something that was in bad taste even for a comedian, but nevertheless momentary and partly consensual: this was not exemplary behavior by the Democrats, but rather crass politics. They should be having second thoughts. Perceptions can differ and everyone is entitled to their "day in court."
No argument with the rest of this thoughtful article.
8
“Family values." Of course, this picture could change with the offering of real choice in the electoral process, as disruptive candidates take the field. Don’t know if the voters are looking for Republican continuity in 2018 or more “change” like they were searching for in the whip sawed 2016 election cycle, when they lit upon the Trump camp. Factionalism out there now, may create more opportunity, and it may even be where the gold is mined in an upcoming election. That cohesive chunk of Christian values remains a kernel to be accessed now, but that could change once immigration picks back up after a serious wage inflation cycle could ensue and necessitate lots more green cards. Don’t know for sure if the U.S. work force grows to look more like Germany, as voters desire to preserve U.S. standards of living. At this future point, voters could again fall prey to Russian meddling, and distracting F.B.I. news releases, but a focal point of skilled labor shortages, could become a uniting force and even preserve those puffy stock prices of today. But then again there are no storm clouds on the horizon for 2018 on Wall Street so who knows. Can’t wait to see the Chines clone of the Tesla being imported into the U.S., to sell for 50% less. The disruption of the disruptors lies ahead.
1
One can scarcely read this with a straight face. Democrats the party of fiscal responsibility? Seriously, and what did Mr. Obama do to balance the budget pray tell? The ACA is the biggest entitlement program in a generation, funded by medicare cuts and more spending.
The party of National Security? Medline Albright will go down as the Neville Chamberlin of her generation, appeasing North Korea and allowing it to develop- not only nuclear weapons but the means to deliver them to the mainland US. Putting our national head in the sand is hardly enhancing national security. And how has our foreign policy helped us in the middle east?
The party of Law and order? Democrats support shorter jail terms and continue to offer amnesty to illegal immigrants who not only commit crimes but take jobs away from Americans. How does that help poor families?
Mr. Bruni is right on one account, they are the party of tradition. Since FDR, they have never opposed an increase in the size of government nor in the taxes we pay for it. That is one tradition I would be happy to forgo.
4
Thanks Frank - I've been thinking this way for over 20 years, and am no longer alone. I have always considered myself conservative, but left-oriented at the same time. There need not be any contradiction. It strengthens society to welcome all types of families to the table. It is conservative to rigorously protect the environment from liberal capitalism. Our connection to all that is sacred and venerable is indeed, as Republicans believe, under seige by liberals - but the liberals laying seige to it are all trying unscrupulously to turn our communities, communications, and our very minds into marketable commodities. Capitalism is inherently, irremediably liberal. It is held back by traditions, by settled community structures, by a populace centered enough to resist the relentless pressure to cultivate whims and desires and act on them instantly. Few people today are aware that the term "liberal" was hijacked from the business-friendly Republicans by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and affixed to a style of government activism that was at the time unprecedented. I wonder if it's not time to hijack "conservative" on behalf of a sober, fact-based, and socially responsible Democratic Party, and give the liberals their name back.
2
For most of my adult life, from about 1980 onward, the Republicans have become a gang of thieves who hide behind religion and patriotism, impugning others, and stoking and exploiting racial animosity, while stealing for their donors. A sickening bunch they are.
20
Yes, you are most certainly correct. That time period precisely coincides with Ronald Wilson Reagan's inauguration and his very untruthful political formation that "....in this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem...." Not only was that wrong then, but it is wrong now. At least Reagan correctly qualified his statement by stating it was "in this present crisis" - an adverbial prepositional phrase conservatives seem to have difficulty grasping.
3
Similarly, "A well regulated Militia ..."
1
How about this...why don't we stop pretending that majority rule and two-party governing is the way forward? Isn't that fundamentally what got us to this point?
Take a look at Germany, with their four or five parties that the citizens have to choose from. Angela Merkel's party receives merely a plurality in the election a couple of months ago, forcing - wait for it - compromise.
Here at home, just yesterday the last of the races from November 7th was settled, leaving a 50/50 split in the Virginia House of Delegates where now there is no choice but to seek bipartisan compromise.
When Occupy Wall Street started to emerge on the left, and the Tea Party emerged on the right, the sprouts of a true and vibrant multi-party system popped through. That's the direction that we need to go in if we are ever to escape the whiplash of our current political pendulum.
6
OWS was completely unsuccessful.
Please Mr. Bruni, can you & your editors make a very simple table showing how much each American will get in tax relief as a function of their wages? On the abscissa of the graph put incomes from 0 to 1 million or more in
$50K increments & in the ordinate put the amount of tax money each income group gets back per year. Keep it simple so the ignorant American voter can see that, "Yes, everyone gets some money" but to the point SHOW the public what $1200 tax for the middle class per year amounts in biweekly pay checks compared to the hundreds of thousands wealthy Americans get. Then, put that table on the front page of every national newspaper for all to see!!! Crumbs to the majority of income earners (< $75,000) and gold bullion free money packages to the real estate grifter in chief and the 10%. Then, have them wonder why there is no money for government projects such that the nation largest airport stops operating when someone pulls a plug or how a brand new train that reaches 80 MPH is considered a great feat! Give me European Social Democracy anytime!!
3
This has always been the case. The modern Republican party, is what it always has been since the Goldwater era, a reactionary, racist party of assorted religious fanatics, bigots, xenophobes, misogynists and selfish "I've got mine" businessmen. The Democratic party, while hardly perfect has generally purged itself of the bigots that were part of its southern past. The saddest part about all of this is that a large proportion of the American electorate really is represented by the Republican party. Thankfully, with every funeral of every grumpy, old, white man, the future looks just a little brighter.
5
Bit of racism showing through - actually, a lot of racism.
Try reading some history. Who created the majority of things we enjoy for the last 100 - 200 years?
Vaccines - white men - l796
Antibiotics - white men - 1928
Electricity - white men - 1819
Refrigeration - white men - 1755 and 1805
Air conditioning - white man - 1902
Automobiles - white men
Airplanes - white men - 1903
Automobile - white men - 1885
And the giant accomplishment: the Magna Carta, the magnificent charter - that the ruler rules with the consent of the governed.
You make, as you usually do, a sensible argument for a platform appealing to the wide swath of Americans of all economic classes, races, creeds, and education level. But alas, I'm afraid like most of the common sense you've written lately it will fall on too many deaf ears.
This is particularly true in your correct analysis concerning election security and integrity against foreign threats and hacking. A return to secure alliances with our friends and treaty allies. Alas, the identity politics activists are allergic to anything smacking of military overtones, law enforcement or security issues. If it isn't is the playbook of either economic class issues or pelvic politics you'll get a ho-hum at best or hostility at worst. Heaven help us if we can't get a wide coalition against this party in control now.
1
At last Frank Bruni can admit he's been a Log Cabin Republican all along.
1
Mr Bruni - you're correct that Democrats are the new Republicans, though for few, if any, of the reasons you list. Indeed, all that appears to have changed in the last year is that it's now the Democrats that are impotently howling into the wind. The Republicans' failure to make any legislative progress is almost a mirror image of that same failure by the Democrats in the first few years of Obama's presidency. The fact is that both parties have the time and luxury to engage in this elaborate theater - it's a luxury the middle and working classes do not have. What we need, Mr. Bruni, is fewer "true believers" like you who lionize either of the two parties, and more people who realize that what we actually need is a third (the Independents don't count), fourth and possibly even (dare I say it!) fifth party. Only then will anything truly be "new" in Washington D.C..
1
Republicans have always claimed to be the party of fiscal responsibility. Now, the Democrats are.
Republicans have always claimed to be the party of Christian morality. Now, only the Democrats act Christ-like towards the poor, the elderly, the disabled, the sick, women, people of color, minorities, immigrants and the forgotten.
2
I forgot one major group that Republicans have no charity for--children
The Republicans have either stood behind the Bible or wrapped themselves in the American flag, the confederate flag or the nazi flag. Or they pick and choose from the constitution ala carte.
Americans are going to have to find out for themselves how much hurt they can tolerate while the oligarchy wallows in the money of the poor and middle class. How much less coverage in medical care, in school support, in infrastructure they can live with before their Republican dreams vanish and reality sets in.
4
Too many current supporters of the democratic party are too easily sucked in by the rhetoric that Hillary and Co. espouse, now that they have lost the election for president. When Trump rails about fakeness in our current discourse, he is correct in one sense; our political landscape is rife with fake liberals who don't care that the DNC is taking money from corporations in the same manner and pace that the republicans are. Despite the Supreme Court messing with the definition of corruption, people should be aware enough to recognize a rigged game when they see it. Their lack of understanding of this is the blame of the media, the NYTs included, because after all aren't all the major media owned by corporations? Instead of an informed electorate, we have people supporting the mainstream democratic party who don't care that the candidate who eschewed corporate money and came close to winning was Bernie sanders. They have swallowed whole the corporate propaganda message that to expect the government to defend the interests or working people is too idealistic and we should just settle and support the lackeys of the corporate oligarchy.
2
Get up off your knees and stop the hero-worship. You know full well Clinton would never have done even half of what Trump and his cronies have done.
What the Democratic party doesn't need is someone who's only been a Democrat for five minutes coming in and dictating what it means to be a Democrat.
2
It’s a pretty widespread agreement that the GOP Congress is beholden to their donors, not the public. Unfortunately, their donors are among the wackiest of the rich, out to install some regressive form of authoritarianism. The Dems are still debating over the GOP model, wondering if the only problem with Oligarchy is just who are the oligarchs.
Remember this? “For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.” - Alexander Pope
1
We've also seen many of the more principled Republicans such as David Frum, Richard Painter, George Will, Michael Steele, and Richard Haass come forward siding with Democrats against this president.
This year has obliterated any contemporary concept of American political parties. And this tax bill that passed today was so naked an atrocity that it shocked my far more detached friends in Germany. Just got off the phone with one who remarked, "Even Putin is more subtle about theft."
1
The strategy of the democrats adopting Republican policies has already been done. For the staff of Bill Clinton it was called "triangulation" whereby he struck conservative blows against the working class and poor that Republicans could only dream about. The best example was "ending welfare as we know it" where the recipients are "helped" as long as they will agree to participate in work programs that provide no training or benefits for low wages. If you want to vote for a Republican then why settle for an imitation?
2
Republican family values are Donald Trump and Roy Moore.
Republican fiscal conservatism is the 2017 Tax giveaway to the stinking super rich.
1
Time for a new (old) slogan a fight for “Truth, Justice, & The American Way”!
3
I is high time that we stop using the acronym GOP. I think POG (party of greed) is much more appropriate.
1
There have been few periods over the past four decades where the differences between the parties and the ideologies they espouse have been so stark. America and Americans are at a cross-roads right now. The differences between the two parties are laid bare by Mr. Bruni. The choice Americans have is now clear for all who choose to see it, understand it and apply it to their current lives and the future lives of their family members not yet realized.
Does this country move forward with safety nets for her citizens, her lands and her constitution; or does it move forward for the benefit of those in power, with wealth, to do to the citizenry, the lands and its constitution whatever serves them the best?
The mid-term elections in 2018 will either move us closer to the vision of the wealthy and powerful or closer to the value of our basic premise of: We the People...all the people.
1
Would love to see Redstate try to repsond to this column.
The one good thing that will come out of the tax code overhaul should be the end of the GOP permanently. There is no way that the real GOP base in the reddest of red states will be able to stand by when their taxes go through the roof while billionaires are reaping windfall returns. The bill will come due, and the truth will expose all of the lies.
If the GOP law makers have any sense, they will cut Trump loose after he signs this bill. They will be able to stop defending his outrageous behavior, or worse, stay silent. With this bill signed, what else does Trump have to offer? Nuclear war? Thanks, but no thanks.
3
"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the GOP. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
3
"Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility because they don’t pretend that they can afford grand government commitments — whether distant wars or domestic programs — without collecting the revenue for them."
Democrats envision a safety net akin to those in Europe. European nations rely on much broader bases of taxation, especially the regressive VAT. Democrats are careful to use vague phrases like "fair share" because they will never support European taxes to pay for our bankrupt entitlement system.
Far as I can see, our only immediately-bankrupt entitlement system is military procurement.
2
you mean earned benefits? I pay into the system for my "entitlements" -- so do you! Wake up!!! Stop being manipulated!
1
Psst, deficits don't matter. But that's OK, I'm sure the people will appreciate the austerity that comes from their betters: the New Republicans
4
This has been expressed among online commenters to political news and commentary for decades.
The journalistic response has been "now, now -- everybody's entitled to see themselves as patriotic..." while not much made of the fact the Democrats are always more fiscally responsible when in both executive and legislative power than GOP ever were, for more decades than there's been an internet. One of the most numerous of talking points has been to point how unChrist-like Republican policy runs. Yet, these are ideas for us to try on for size, as if we don't already see this. The majority of us in the US are progressive/liberals, remember?
Why do we appear to not exist, then -- when we are the majority? A majority with families, vision, principles and morals. Why is this lost on so much of the journalistic news media? Is it because the line has been bought that it is the Republicans who are moderate and reasonable when it comes to business and economy, family and morality for far too long?
Why is it reasonable to say that the two parties are not the same -- yet, everybody should respect that which is *not patriotic nor Christian, because also part of the American picture?
Time to jettison that fallacy of reason. We've got a free republic based on democratic ideals to keep from making a wrong turn, here. We see the danger. That means getting to the polls and doing the work to get others there. It means realizing we can't be complacent any more. The meaning of woke.
3
This piece is spot on accurate. Paul Ryan recently said that he is so so worried about declining US fertility. Good golly Miss Milly! Fertility falls in countries that lack social support that shares the enormous risks of parenting. Republicans have become the party of "pro-life till birth, you're on your own afterwards." They justify their dishonesty, ignoring of economic science and sheer callousness by a claim about incentives but here's the thing: BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE. Just listen to the Republican leadership - even today they are claiming they lack the funds to renew CHIP support! Health care for children is too expensive but tax breaks for real estate moguls is not. Says it all.
4
More rationality; yeah, that gets us votes. In fact, for anyone who remembers the rise of Falwell's "Moral Majority" and the parade of clay feet that have come crumbling out of evangelicalism, "values" hypocrisy isn't news. There was no cognitive dissonance on the part of evangelical Christians who voted for Moore. They cheered him as one of their own. The electorate aren't rational, they're tribal.
3
I'm not sure what the point of this article is, comparing Democrats to Republicans on "family values."
See, I have lived with Republican ascendancy for nearly 40 years. They have NEVER been the party of family values. They have only used that as political cover for their real agenda.
Republicans are not conservatives. Republicans are moneyists, i.e., the party of money. Everything else is shield, distraction, and pandering to hide their true goals. The ones that they talk about privately, but would be tarred and feathered if they spoke of it openly.
Even today on the biggest upward redistribution of income (i.e., money) in memory, they still apply the "family values" justifications for what they are doing. How this tax bill helps the middle class.
Garbage. Even those with a third grade education can see that this is a money giveaway to the rich and powerful. There's nothing "family" at all about this terrible legislation.
3
Just remember these three words and it will explain why none of that mentioned in the column is relevant to conservatives:
Build
Ban
Beat
As in
Build the wall
Ban the Muslims
Beat up the blacks.
Dems need to come up with a message and frame that gets around that with the GOP base.
1
Empathy is now as dirty a word to GOP as, oh I don't know, being a career criminal USED to be - no place for it in the party.
2
Decency and indecency, racism and sexism, are only the cynical tools of divisiveness, not the goals of the Republican coalition. Nor is smaller government and lower deficits their goal in the abstract. Their record shows that they only object to big government when government serves the poor and middle class. Since Reagan, if you look at the GOP Congressional record, GOP votes on legislation and the negotiations leading to those votes, their regulations and deregulations, and their approvals of Presidential appointments, there is only one consistent thread.
Economic inequality.
These actions may be subconscious acts that emanate from subscribing to a cruel ideology, and not some grand conspiracy, but every vote has been in favor of policies that increased income inequality. So, while they may have switched sides on certain issues, their larger goal remains unchanged. Over the last 40 years, they have succeeded to the point where if Democrats just slow down the rate of the growth in inequality, it’s considered a progressive win.
3
As Bryce Covet's companion editorial illustrates, the meager services for those on the lowest rungs of society will be up for the slashing so that those at the top may rake in even more money. That means food programs. Farming subsidies. Healthcare. Even compensation for crime victims.
America, welcome back to the Reagan Years. We're going to be slumming it for a very, very long time.
2
Democrats have often been labeled "closet socialists" by Republicans. To the contrary, Democrats have always been strong supporters of a form of capitalism that reduces or eliminates its inefficiencies and inequalities.
Republicans may believe they promote a free market economy but they are instead creating the the very conditions that will cause its collapse. Capitalism cannot economically or politically be sustained when most of the nation's wealth goes to a very few. Democrats understand this and advocate regulations, benefits and taxation policies that promote a broad and thriving middle class. As Henry Ford wisely knew, average workers must earn living wages if corporations hope to have customers capable of buying their products. Our economy does best when the vast majority of its citizens are able to realize the American dream - affordable housing, healthcare and education along with the knowledge that each succeeding generation will be better off than the one before.
Politically, Republicans have lied to their supporters. Trump deceived his voters and he continues to do so by creating fake enemies like immigrants and the free press. Like many Republicans today, he has little interest in middle class well-being. His true intentions, and those of most Republicans, are to enrich themselves and their super wealthy donors who keep them in power. Fortunately, the American middle class is beginning to understand who their real friends are.
1
The GOP and their orange leader have set the bar so low that it's easy for the Dems to point out the glaring difference in ethical standing. Whether this translates into them having learned a valuable lesson from Donny's victory remains to be seen. The worst thing would be that they take a future win for granted and just want to get back to the pre-Trump staus quo. We the people want real change, like the one Bernie Saners advocated. Where are the new strong Dem leaders? I haven't seen one emerge yet that consistently and strongly calls out this government for their assault on our democracy. It's time to leave the pocket knives at home when the opponents always show up with guns to the fight. Time to grow a backbone, which the Al Franken debacle is a poor example of. That was just rushed and misplaced grandstanding in order to garner accolades for superior ethics.
1
This column pits Republicans vs. Democrats - which is as it should be in 2018/2020. Yet there is a vocal minority who are still - even after everything the Republicans have done - going to refuse to vote for "corporate Democrats". These third party voters sunk America in '16, and they're poised to try again in '20.
Hopefully there will be less of them because if the ones in CA/NY/NJ still rail against "corporate Democrats" after paying their Republican tax bills next year, there's honestly no hope for them. Sadly until they see some serious damage on their own personal doorstep, they will continue to agitate for Democrats to go down in defeat, for not catering to their every want and need.
Third party voters now damage U.S. presidential elections. Jill Stein got 1.1 % of the 2016 vote - but Gary Johnson was distinctly worse. From Ballotpedia:
Michigan (16 electoral votes)
Clinton 2,268,839 47.3%
Trump 2,279,543 47.5%
Johnson 172,136 3.6%
Wisconsin (10 electoral votes)
Clinton 1,382,536 46.5%
Trump 1,405,284 47.2%
Johnson 106,674 3.6%
Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes)
Clinton 2,926,441 47.5%
Trump 2,970,733 48.2%
Johnson 146,715 2.4%
Arizona (11 electoral votes)
Clinton 1,161,167 45.1%
Trump 1,252,401 48.7%
Johnson 106,327 4.1%
Florida (29 electoral votes)
Clinton 4,504,975 47.8%
Trump 4,617,886 49%
Johnson 207,043 2.2%
Like that recent one-vote margin in Virginia making an even split, *every* vote in 2018/2020 is going to count.
11
Frank - your half right. The Republican Party is a mess and deserves all the criticism you send their way on issues related to Roy Moore and adding to the deficit, etc. you should’ve stopped there. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party is just as bad in their own special way. For example, The Democrats can spare me they’re fake crying about adding 1 .4 trillion to the deficit in 10 years when they just chalked up 9 trillion in deficit during Obama‘s administration. Let’s face it both parties are totally corrupt and incompetent. We need new political parties to form. Why do we value disruption in everything but our political parties?
4
Democrats, keep it simple. Borrow from Reagan. Before going on TV, draw two charts. One one, the arrow goes up; on the other, the arrow points down. Tell the public the chart that points down is "their plan" and the chart that points up is "our plan." That's all there is to it!
5
What does he mean Democrats are the new Republicans? Last time the republicans were sincere about their professed beliefs - family values, fiscal responsibility, law and order etc was before WWII. Democrats are the new old Republicans maybe.
Republicans have been on the wrong side of all these issues for a long time in fact for decades, even before the tea party. It all started with Reagan: government is not the solution, government is the problem.
In the end Republicans are going to get stuck with the hard core die hard tribal members only.
Their lies are not going to work anymore.
But for this to happen Americans need to wise up and inform themselves. They have to learn how to recognize snake oil from true medicine.
4
I am wondering why no one on this comment board is writing about the root cause of this horribly unfair tax plan--the imposition of Citizens United on the everyday operation of our government, and the subsequent corruption. Obviously these so-called politicians must now appease their ultra-wealthy donors. Until we get rid of the influence of big money in our government we are doomed. We must say no to oligarchy and return to the democracy our founding fathers intended...
6
The Democratic leadership is old and yoked to complaining about the GOP instead of stating what it stands for. A statement with exactly Frank Bruni's use of contrasts should have spread across the country a long time ago. The Dems should hire him. Instead, we get sanctimonious, 77-year-old elite Nancy Pelosi whom the GOP will equate with Hillary in the 2018 midterms. Tim Ryan from blue-collar Youngstown, who lost to her in the voting for House minority leadership, should replace her immediately. Gillebrand replaces Schumer. Don't even think of Biden getting the nomination.
1
If 65M + Americans can figure it out what the Democrats are then the Democratic candidates can figure out what Americans want by 2018. Not by becoming like the Republicans/Conservatives but providing Americans what they have been asking for more than 4 decades. Living wages (including minimum wage), universal health insurance that a family can afford, securing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid so it is their for all generations, safe infrastructure, higher educational opportunities without crushing debt, justice reform, consumer protection from predatory corporations, sensible gun regulations, protection for DACA and the list goes on and on. 3M more people voted Democratic in the last Presidential election and they clearly understand what the Democrats stand for and what Americans want.
7
If the Democratic Party as currently structured is our only hope for prying control of this country away from the obscenely wealthy and the immorally powerful, then I fear we are doomed to a lengthy era of plutocracy.
We of hard work, modest means and appetites for a just society who view today's Democrat reps as our champions are living a fantasy. Forget looking at the Dem Party in terms of the macro. To truly understand it, study the micro. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in 2015, 13 of the 25 wealthiest members of Congress were Democrats. All had net worths of $15 million or more.
Do you really think Nancy Pelosi ($29 million) and Mark Warner ($95 million) are going to shake up a system that graces them with vacation homes, country club memberships and Ivy League tuition payments?
The best we can hope for from our current Dems is the occasional well-knawed bone. (I'm looking at you ACA.)
During his first days in the Oval Office, Obama called big bankers in and assured them they should not fear him, saying he was what was standing between them and the pitchforks. His administration's lack of prosecution of large financial entities after the great recession proves he wasn't kidding.
And that, I fear, has become the deception of the politicians of this Dem Party: They hope things get better for us but not at the cost of their personal comfort.
4
Let me just add a couple of things to this excellent article:
Democrats believe in real, competitive capitalism not crony capitalism. Democrats really do support small business rather than paying it lip service like Republicans in Congress. Crony capitalism is NOT fiscally conservative because it does not maximize GDP and good jobs. Real competitive capitalism whereby small business is on an equal footing with large corporations is fiscally conservative. That's what Democrats want. Democrats are the real fiscal conservatives! Fox News is a tool of crony capitalists. That's their real purpose, to deflect Americans from the important issues of our time.
Democrats do not want to redistribute wealth. Democrats want to return the distribution of wealth to what it was when the United States was most successful. The current distribution of wealth is worse than during the robber baron era. If this continues, the United States will fail. By reducing this spectacular income inequality, the United States will truly be made great again.
Democrats believe that the Pentagon must reduce administrative costs dramatically in order to justify such large defense spending. Right now, it is about 24%. Medicare has a 6% overhead. Democrats should demand that DOD put in place a plan to reduce overhead by half over a period of 7 years. This would save incredible amounts of taxpayer funds for other purposes, e.g., desperately needed infrastructure funding.
5
Republicans only want to dismantle government; everything else is negotiable. Tax cuts are a means to their end. It is well recognized that the welfare state is their next target and it will continue until virtually no government is left. Who can forget Rick Perry’s three departments he would kill; pick any three except defense of course. Their goal is some form of libertarian apocalypse where the second amendment is all that stands between life and death.
5
Having ceded ALL socio-economic strata, except the super-rich, the modern Republican Party has dug its own grave and purchased a top-of-the-line bronze casket. It's now time for the Democratic Party to lower it into the ground and bury it!
The Republican constituency is now clearly delineated... the super-rich and the despicable. Who knew there were so many despicable?
Past Democratic Party actions regarding "meeting Republicans halfway" having proved foolhardy, it is time to put forth an agenda based on long held democratic principle that: levels the field for the advancement of all, redresses the unprincipled Republican budget, ensures that American corporations are subservient to human citizens, punishes those whose avarice destroys us from within, and vanquishes those nations who attempt to subvert it from without.
While this all seems a tall order, 2018 and 2020 should prove pivotal.
Before 2018 the Democratic Party should formulate a budget that unashamedly redistributes wealth through taxation reform, eliminating loopholes, and bringing some semblance of fairness. The American people deserve nothing less!
3
Mr. Bruni, you can add that Democrats are the "new Republicans" in terms of seeing Russia as a clear and present threat, whereas the Party of Trump has no problem being willfully ignorant (or complicit) in allowing our country to become a post-Soviet satellite (complete with a one-Party system and Party-controlled media).
2
"Under Trump’s thumb and spell, the Republican Party is watching the pillars of its brand crumble."
Sadly, I fear we are watching our democracy crumble too. Republicans are accomplishing, without a care in the world, what our enemies could never achieve. I truly despise them for what they are wittingly and selfishly doing to our country.
6
Yes, let the Democrats become the party of intolerance, moral superiority, overpopulation, paranoia of the influence of foreign powers and growing the military budget to even more absurd heights at the expense of the working classes. Then they can just change their names to Republicans and have done with it.
2
"Who among us doesn’t care about family values, defined justly and embraced honestly? Who doesn’t see the good in patriotism, tradition and decency?"
Apparently, about 35% of your population.
6
Trump bashing does not get the Dems anywhere. Come 2018 people need to know why they are the better alternative.
2
Okay, so the Republican party has utterly collapsed in an all out sellout bid to the oligarchs. The Democrats will likely win sweeping victories in 2018. What then? I propose that you continue to act like Republicans - real conservatives - not the gang of posers we now have. Please don't blow it all by cramming hard core socialist agendas down American's throats, like President Obama did with the ACA. I know in his heart that he felt he was doing the right thing, but this was the biggest reason for Trump's election.
You cannot force people to pay for other people's needs to their own detriment, as the ACA does with the individual mandate. Tens of millions of people like me are paying for nothing, so someone else can get what they "need". We need fewer, not more low income families, who pay no taxes but disproportionately use resources that others pay for but do not benefit from.
Democrats: when you take the reigns in 2018, please do your best to promote policies that encourage individual responsibility and initiative. Please make high quality education your top priority, so all Americans can be self reliant, and have a chance to pursue their ambitions and achieve financial success. Please strive to enact legislation that will discourage millions of people from taking the low road and allowing society to carry them and their children into and through a dead end life of poverty, incarceration, and homelessness - the primary symptoms of a society deprived of education.
2
The primary aim of those in power of the republican party is to create a nation of impoverished, poorly educated inhabitants. Moore's belief that the antebellum south was a place of happiness and family values is an idea held more and more openly by the far right. They may not be uttering this idea in words, yet. What we are seeing now is the ground work.
2
It's true, the GOP is the party of lies and hypocrisy. It's so obvious to any reasonably well informed person who pays attention. The party of family values? Rich families maybe. The party of fiscal responsibility? Absurd given the facts. And yet as wrong and destructive as the GOP has been, they've won the propaganda war. They've duped millions of Americans into believing the GOP actually represents them! That's America's great political tragedy for this century. It has enabled the republicans to undermine the foundations of our democracy and the fairness of our economy, and to sell the nation's future in exchange for another tax cut for the rich. Until the Democratic Party learns to communicate as effectively and to fight fire with fire, nothing will change.
2
Thank you for this. It is absolutely true. We are the party of the people-- all the people. We understand that we must go forward together, or we will all fail together. Democratic leadership must speak more loudly and LEAD the people into the streets. For the sake of every single person in this country. Revolution is an awful, bloody mess that harms all, and if we want to avoid one, Democrats must stand up right now and make it clear that together we can oust these corrupt criminals and work together toward a more perfect union.
3
The real three pillars of the GOP, as my barber told me one day in 1992, are fear, ignorance, and greed. Without these three things, he said, there would be no GOP. How right he was, and I am hopeful that many who have been dazzled by the rhetoric of the GOP through the years will now see these hypocrites for exactly what they are. Every last one of them on the ballot next year must be defeated.
6
Democrats are going to face political problems in 2018 and 2020 if they are not centrist. Free health care for all, free college for all....and the rich guy pays! does not appeal to people who believe in hard work, sacrifice and paying your own way. Refusing to acknowledge that unauthorized (illegal) immigration,,,,sneaking into America, is offensive to Americans who believe the rule of law is important. Democrats lose even more votes when they advocate for public benefits for people who are here illegally. And then there is the abortion issue....not all, but enough Democrats argue for abortion at any stage of development, which is not playing well in the polls. Finally, without proof, but more akin to a new religion, the Democrats have grabbed the idea of fossil fuel created climate change....because it plays well with their base. Even though the biggest proponents live in mansions, use private jets, drive Hummers, etc., the Democrats have latched onto the idea of rationing energy to save the planet. And of course they want to ration by way of a tax on energy consumption, which will hurt most families.
These things hurt their political chances. Will they give an inch? We shall see.
4
Great article! I agree that the Democrats are the true stewards of what America stands for and for the values that have always made our country great. I pray that Democrats remain resolute and committed to pointing out their strengths and the Republican party’s glaring hypocrisy and destructive effects on our country. Only then will America will have the chance to regain its strength, decency, fairness, inclusion, patriotism, prosperity and international respect we so greatly deserve.
2
Sorry. But any attempt to normalize Republicans, or make them seem less odious than they really are, or ever were -- holds no water, at least not with me.
In fact you'd have to go rather far back in history, say, around the time of Abraham Lincoln, to find a time when Republicans meant something to the country, and not just to themselves.
In the interim what they've tried to do is co-copt what should be held as AMERICAN values, as their own; namely, pride in country, honesty, family, charity -- and in doing so, they've perverted and disenfranchised these values one by one, until finally becoming the party of bank-rolled elites and racists that they are today.
Their attacks are not only on the middle-class, but on the working-class and the working-poor as well -- which ultimately made their choice of presidential candidate, and his stage-crafted appeal to blue-collar folk all the more ridiculous.
If anything, Democrats should take a lesson from what is happening now, and distance themselves from Republicans as far as possible -- Not pick up their pieces.
3
No kidding "Democrats Are the New Republicans".
They are now the right-wing whereas Republicans are the extreme right-wing.
I don't think this is a reason for celebration as Frank Bruni seems to suggest.
This is what happens if your enemy is Trump.
Everything you do against him and his allies automatically becomes a good deed, even barely defeating a homophobic, xenophobic, radical Christian jihadist, alleged child molester with the slightest margin of victory, with a Republican-lite candidate that might actually vote with Republicans in the Senate on a lot of issues.
It's been decades since the Republican party has stood for anything. The "values" were always a facade for championing corporate welfare.
Today's Democratic establishment is basically moderate Republicans from the 70s and 80s.
With more Republicans flipping to the Democrats it will only get worse for those of us who want a party that actually represents working people and believes in peace.
We don't have a liberal party and a conservative party in the US. We have a pro-war, corporate centrist party and an insanity party.
One thing is clear that the Democrats are on a witch hunt for any enemy they can get their hands on in order to keep the topic of Democratic corruption off the agenda. And sadly, they're winning that ludicrous battle.
The Republicans have become the party of doing bad things. The Democrats have become the party of justifying those things while explaining why their voters can’t have good ones.
2
Isjogren, I think you have that wrong. The Democrats are protesting the destruction of our nation by a hostile power; I refer to the Republican Party, which is presiding over the "deconstruction of the administrative state", in the words of a key Trump adviser (and champion of white supremacy). That's treason.
I am not using hyperbole. Our government is rapidly being dismantled, and the largest economy in the world is being looted for the benefit of a few thousand really rich people. Why do they need all that money? Past a certain point, the need to acquire wealth is a personality disorder. Libertarians say, "But it's their money! Taxation is theft! " I say that's nonsense; move to Somalia, build your own roads and schools, and hire a private army if you don't want to pay taxes.
Respecting the rule of law doesn't mean rolling over and allowing our democracy to become an oligarchy. Actually, that has already happened. Trump is a Putin wannabe. I think that if we don't eject the Republicans from office in the 2018 elections, it will be all over. That's if we get that far without a nuclear conflict breaking out, of course, which is a real possibility.
2
The position of the two parties isn't really symmetric, so the premise of the op-ed is wrong.
It's not upholding religious family values to reject sexual assault of minors, as voters did when they elected Jones over Moore. There's a widespread consensus, or at least there used to be, that we shouldn't have people who have been accused multiple times by parties acting without coordination of sexual contact with minors serving in elected office. It's similarly not puritanism to reject gropers or people who engage in sexual assault. Even if we were to accept that everyone ought to be sexual libertines unmoored by tradition, we should still think that assault and harassment are wrong.
The Republican position on deficits in the past was premised on the idea that some indeterminate bad thing would happen if the debt became too high. It's perfectly consistent to reject that view and to think that deficit spending to finance a tax cut for the wealthy is bad. For while high debt won't necessarily (or even usually) result in a financial disaster, it does have to be paid at some point. And it will be paid through a tax code that, as a consequence of this very bill, will be slanted more heavily toward those who work and away from people whose income comes from owning capital and other assets. The problem with deficit financing a regressive tax bill is that it partially hides the bill's very bad distributional consequences.
1
I think what you should have titled this is "Democrats are the new New England Republicans." Which are Moderate, fiscally conservative, socially conscious, secular pragmatists. The Republicans in the south have always been defined by what they hate. Look at the civil rights act of 1964 when they abandoned the Democratic Party in favor of racism and xenophobia.
2
Democrats definitely need some fresh faces and younger leadership to shake off the mantle of tired, old, boring and stuck. And I say that as a 65 year old. What passes for a shake up at the DNC would be funny, if it wasn’t so sad. I have much faith in the next generation. Let them in!!
No! The last thing Democrats should do is try to look like Republicans (or what Republicans themselves try to look like). They need a solid, realistic, non-hypocritical agenda that delivers what voters need, and not representing just the sum of all special interest and victim groups.
"They’re recognizing that a hostile foreign power [worked diligently and effectively] to change the course of an American presidential election."
There...Fixed it for you.
2
Who's the champion of Union's? No one!
Beyonce said it best: "to the left, to the left. Everything you want is in a box to the left."
2
First, tax cuts cost nothing; it’s spending which is expensive. $150B per annum? That's a rounding error on BHO's debt. Or consider the unfunded liabilities for SS and Medicare: about $50 trillion. And, yet, the left hypocritically excoriates anyone who expresses concern over same. (the ACA cut Medicare by $800B).
There is nothing the least bit inconsistent about demanding balanced budgets coupled with low taxes; it simply requires ending wasteful spending, like repealing the ACA.
“Marriage equality” did nothing to “create more families”; gays always lived as they wished. This simply provided them with various benefits attendant to traditional marriage – an institution designed to benefit children (“matrimony”; root - “mother”). “Family values” do not include handouts. Nor are policies which cost jobs family friendly.
Democrats dishonestly pretend that “grand government” can be funded by “taxing the rich”. Nope. Check out Denmark’s rates on “rich” people making $60K. Or even CA’s 9.3% rate on families making a princely $53K. Indeed, if the Dems were honest, they wouldn’t have paid for the ACA rather than adding $1T to the deficit. (There wouldn’t be any Dems left in Congress if they did.)
And Dem suspicion of Russia? Hahaha. Who said: “The 1980's called; they want their foreign policy back”. The Dems have a 100 year record of ignoring the threat from Russia.
One could continue. But honesty isn’t your strong suit.
1
Indeed. And if you look at military spending, your theory is spot on.
Bravo, Bruni!
I want the government out of my bedroom, I want government out of my personal communications, to the extent possible, I want government out of my bank account, and I want religion out of my government. The only party that supports my positions is the Democratic Party.
4
The Republican party is the party of Extraction. Extraction of our national resources, and extraction of the wealth generated by the people of this country into the coffers of the ultra-rich. The Democratic party on the other hand is the party of Investment. Democratic policies have been proven time and again to generate a net gain over and above the cost of implementing them, both in financial terms, and in terms of net benefit of our people (SNAP, early childhood education, etc. etc.). This is the message the Democratic party should be shouting from the rooftops.
5
I don't often agree with Bruni, but well said! I've thought for a while that the party system did a 180. Perhaps it is that the Democrats have always been embarrassed with people who act illegally and immorally, it just hasn't been obvious until the Republicans jettisoned any sense of decency with the embrace of Trump, Moore, and passing of legislation aimed at only certain special interests (including anti-abortionists) without any understanding of the immoral/unethical/irreligious Implications.
How can an allegedly Christian person believe that taking away a person's healthcare, education, and adding a bunch of debt is not a cynically immoral and anti-religious act? We seem to live in a world where you always have to fact check under the hood if you want to see the truth. Every pernicious Republican bill has a positive name that actually represents the opposite of the truth. The fiscally conservative Republicans are actually the tax-cut & spend party. Evangelical Christians have become the anti-Christians in their acts & beliefs. And Democrats have become the only adults in the room.
Who would have thought!
4
It would help if the democrats remembered what they used to be, and still should be - not republicans, but a true opposition party to the republicans. The author of this article, in trying to praise the democrats, actually summarized why so few Americans identify with the modern democrat party. Being a clone of the republicans, even if doing so, by comparison, might appear to be a good thing, is still failing to be a true alternative to the republicans.
Case in point - where is the democrat party outrage at the passing of this thievery disguised as a "tax bill"? Sending out Tweets is not an adequate demonstration of outrage. Filibustering the whole thing, that's displaying outrage. Marching out and refusing to even vote on such an obvious display of open class warfare, now there would be a good display of outrage. Firing up your base to hit the republicans where it hurts, boycotting key industries and corporations for example, that would be a way to be a true opposition party. Or calling for a general strike.
Oh, but the democrats don't have that kind of grassroots support anymore, they stabbed the unions and working class democrats in the back long ago.....so they are left with tweets.....
1
Amen. And nothing is as revealing of GOP hypocrisy and cruelty as the attack on CHIP, Child Health Insurance Protection. In the name of family values they want to cut that program, a beathtaking insult to ordinary human wisdom at best and, at worst, the needless deaths of children. Thanks for this architectural column, built so well it could carry a lot of the day's details toward the frightening conclusion that our federal social and environmental programs are being destroyed.
2
Excellent article. It put into words what I've been thinking and feeling for some time now. Hippocrits doesn't begin to describe what the GOP has become.
2
I am a democrat. I'm not completely comfortable with this article, as I feel it is myopic. The democrats are not perfect. Witness Nancy Pelosi ramming the ACA down the throats of the republicans. While I have more in common with democratic values, let's remember that these people are politicians and will do whatever it takes to win.
"But Republicans are poised to enact a sweeping overhaul of the tax code that will add nearly $1.5 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade. In all the news coverage of their need to finesse the math so that they don’t exceed that amount, the fact that they’re plunging the country so much deeper into the red in the first place almost gets lost."
Can anyone please clarify one very important detail? Are we increasing the debt or the deficit. It does matter significantly. An additional $1.5 trillion to the debt over a decade could very well be devalued by the normal growth in GDP. But $1.5 to the deficit over ten years DOUBLES or current national debt to the where the debt exceeds 100% of our GDP.
This is a very important detail that I begged my congressman to answer and got only the canned response about how the tax plan will grow jobs and how much it will save the "average" American household (if not the average New Yorker, whom he actually represents...).
If the dire scenario I suggest is true, than a pox on all the GOP for the shear irresponsibility of their actions, and for the enormous financial burden dumped on to future generations just to reward the GOP's donor class.
This will not be forgotten. You may have just signed the order for your own demise.
2
My point exactly. I am conservative. Therefore I vote Democrat.
2
Democratic party boosters like Bruni who adopt the rhetoric of the Republican party decade after decade are just joining the GOP in their policy agenda of the ever-further concentration of wealth at the very top achieved through increasing income inequality, stagnating wages for middle and working class, and perpetual war.
1
For all its failings as long-term fiscal policy, the tax bill will lower taxes for a lot of people, and they will vote in 2018. It may be premature for Democrats to assume there will be a major turn-around in Congress due to the present unpopularity of the bill.
1
Except that no one will see a change on their tax return until 2019. Withholding may go down, but that's not going to be linked in most people's minds with the tax bill.
1
If the Democratic Party insists on sticking with its aged (I'm 68, btw), compromised and baggage-laden leadership, I'm confident they will once again snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
1
There is no need to worry about whether the Democrats should try to woo minorities or working class whites. They just need to make sure that they realize they all have the same basic interests and are working to serve those interests.
A die hard Republican friend told me yesterday "the debt is already 20 trillion. What's an extra 2 trillion?"
That is how you know the Republican Party was never about fiscal responsibility. It's the party that wants zero taxes and wants to not have to worry about people who are less fortunate than them.
Yes, fortunate. There are intelligent, capable people, who, through no fault of their own, end up barely able to care for themselves or their families, even working in the same job and as hard as someone fortunate enough to be in a well paying industry.
5
Scratch a Republican, you get an authoritarian — groupthink, group speak, group grope.
2
Any optimism I feel is guarded, to say the least. America's problem is a populace that is increasingly venal, willfully uninformed, out of touch with the fundamental tenets of representative democracy and - lest we forget - armed to the teeth. The Dems - of which I am a lifelong party member and always will be - have proven themselves utterly incapable of meeting any of the challenges such a populace presents us with. So, we'll see. Yes, Benjamin Franklin - we have a republic. If we can keep it.
37
Can you even hear how condescending you sound? Republicans voters are ignoramuses but Democrats are god gift to humanity? No wonder Democrats have lost both houses of Congress, the Presidency, and most of Governorships.
Unfortunately, that ship has sailed. The battle is over, and we've lost. It's just most people do not realize it yet.
We have ONE party with two heads -- of, by, and for the DONORS.
1
Frank, you are right about almost everything you say. But you leave out the one really bad point of all this. Those Republicans, as horrible as they are, hold the power in all three branches of the Federal government and most statehouses. With their grip on power they are continuing to make life worse for ordinary Americans outside of the top 1%, endanger the world on a short term basis with all their war rhetoric, and endanger the world on a long term basis with their refusal to come to terms with human induced climate change. Let's hope the people get wise to the Republican game plan and reject it.
3
While I agree with Frank to a great degree, it is sad that that what the Democratic party stands for has to articulated by him rather than party leaders. Hillary's conversion to being progressive came late in the game. Outside of a longer run of identity politics posturing, the Dems have really become a "go along to get along" party and that is why the Republicans control the presidency, the house, the senate and the majority of state governorships. Clinging to the center which has shifted far right isn't offering anything to those who want real change so it is easy for the Republicans to falsely claim that they are draining the swamp.
"But Republicans are poised to enact a sweeping overhaul of the tax code that will add nearly $1.5 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade."
Maybe.
Obama added $10 trillion to the national debt in eight years. What have we got to show for it?
You make many valid points. But as is generally the case in todays politically divisive environment, you unfortunately attempt to stretch individual points in an attempt to justify a grossly broad generalization. For example, Trumps unjustified disparagement of the FBI hardly makes the Democrats the "law-and-order party", particularly given the widespread refusal of Republicans to support his view. Also, it is completely valid to question whether the current Republican tax plan reflects fiscal responsibility. But lavish spending of other peoples money, as Democrats usually do when in power, also is as not fiscal responsibility, even if paid with higher taxes on those other people.
2
Did the George W. Bush tax cuts ever pay for themselves?
Also, during a national emergency, either natural or man made, where will that money appear from to handle that problem, after Republicans have given all of our money away?
2
The Democrats have always suffered from a severe marketing deficiency, which, in such a media-conscious environment, is unfathomable. Never again should we use the word "abortion" - "family planning" has a positive spin and can easily generate soundbites like "every child a wanted child." In our short-attention- span, snappy soundbite culture, Dems need to focus on simple and effective communication. It shouldn't be this complicated. We have the better message - we just need to deliver it effectively!
2
This is an interesting piece. But it really is just more hand wringing over the proper policy mix. How about more focus on identifying a leader who can carry the Party to victory. A great candidate that can hold the base and pull from the middle. Consider the most recent Gallup poll that shows that only 33% of Independent voters view Hillary Clinton favorably.
http://news.gallup.com/poll/224330/hillary-clinton-favorable-rating-new-...
This is awful. You are not a viable presidential candidate when 2 out of 3 independent voters can't stand you. At that point policy is blurred or totally obscured by personal anathema. The middle that went for Obama was lost. They will be brought back by a little bit of policy and a lot of personality.
But only if the Dems can find the candidate that has "IT".
The Democrats aren't the "new" Republicans. They always were the Republicans. They're still the old Republicans. The only difference is the Republicans tell you they are Republicans and are proud of their awfulness while the Democrats are still in denial, and delude themselves, and attempt to delude anyone who will listen, that they are nice people with our best interests at heart. Neither is even remotely true.
1
...Frank, would you agree Establishment Dems, like CSchumer, NPelosi, TPerez et.al. are still totally in-bed with Wall Street & Corporations ... so this too, is another aspect of how (Establishment) Dems are the New Republicans .... or to paraphrase GWallace, 'there's not $0.10 worth of difference...'
your thots?
2
Democrats have been Republicans for decades. The Republicans are becoming a neo-fascist party. What we need is a new party that actually represents the interests of the 99%.
2
From LBJ's Great Society to DJT's Greed Society.
I have never been more ashamed of my country. The deliberate cruelty, the naked avarice, the blatant lies, the willingness to subvert democracy itself...
I understand, Mr. Bruni, that Democrats are the (not-effective-enough) bearers of laudable goals. But let us not suggest that we are appropriating Republican values. Let us, rather, remember that they stole those values from us.
3
Thanks for this excellent op-ed. I hope you continue to expand on this and fine tune it. I have always been a proud liberal Democrat, patriot, fiscally conservative, pro-choice, pro-family, pro-marriage equality, pro-giving people a hand up (education, social services, health services, affordable housing), for separation of church and state so all can practice their religion as they will, in support of common decency and treatment of all individuals (black lives matter, equal rights amendment, supporting Dreamers and fair immigration rules), in support of free speech, well-regulated state militias or military, free press and the separation of 3 branches of government. As far as I can tell, Republicans have left these principles far behind. I am sure the win by Doug Jones is in large part due to his hard work and especially decency.
2
It is time for the Democrats to aggressively push their agenda and win back both houses in 2018. President Tump and his cohorts the Republican party rule by platitudes. Republicans use jingoisms to appeal to the undereducated and greedy. Trump loves the military, but he never served and used every phony excuse to get out of serving. This is the same formula that dictators use to get the people riled up. Trump and the Republican party are never for moving anything forward, it's all about fake sentiments. The say one thing, but privately they will do the opposite. How about the Republican representative that wanted his mistress to have an abortion. I thought the party line was pro-choice. Trump and his party are just laughing at us. Trump thinks the American people are suckers because they voted for his baloney sandwich. Enough is enough.
2
Fine Frank, but it's less about rebranding Democrats than it is about protecting America from a fascist dictatorship, not unlike Putin in Russia.
Oligarchs rule in America and the Fake President wants absolute power. The looming firing of Mueller will put millions into the streets, and their safety will be in danger.
2
Sure. The Democrats will win it all. Just kill off their Al Frankens and inspiring best in the name of a binary choice of state of purity and lead with a Hillary Clinton type of smartest-kid-in the-room policy wonk. And, of course, as the article suggests, lead with a politicizing "family values" plank vs. how're we going to help you preserve your family's economic lasting well being. That'll do it.
2
"This, mind you, is the same political party that fetishized balanced budgets and browbeat Democrats about being the foolishly, fatally profligate ones." You mean like eliminating the debt during the Clinton Presidency, and making it smaller during the Obama Presidency, even with having to bail out the country after Bush II destroyed the economy by, yep, you guessed it tax cuts for the rich and all war all the time isolationism. Why should Democrats emulate that?
Americans like liberal policies (i.e. Social Security and Medicare), but hate liberals, in part thanks to the anti-American mouthpiece Fox News. Then there is the problem of Democrats that cannot be bothered to vote.
3
Meh. I've been seeing pieces similar to Bruni's lately. Democrats are the new Republicans. Or Democrats' path back to controlling at least one house of Congress goes through Republican-leaning suburban districts.
May I suggest that both of these ideas are hogwash?
Democrats do not win by aping Republican talking points or appealing to Republican-leaning voters. If anything, Trump's election showed that these voters - largely white suburbanites - will vote for an unfit and corrupt charlatan if the alternative means voting for a Democrat.
Doug Jones's recent squeaker of a victory in Alabama came about because the Democratic base went to the polls en-masse. Republican-leaning voters - white voters - voted overwhelmingly for Moore. To paraphrase the old political saying: It's the base, stupid.
It's been proven over and over that when the Democratic base is engaged, it can win elections. But establishment Democrats - and the pundit and consultant class that favors them - continue to hold on to the fantasy that appealing to Republican voters and values is the key to victory. It ain't. Appeal to your working class base! And do so inclusively!
1
We need Democrats back in power or else this great American experiment may be bust.
3
Democrats are excluded from our government. Who can lead a Free American Government in Exile?
1
Thank you for this.
"Jettisoning Al Franken … was part of that effort." [rebuilding the Democrats’ brand]
Are you kidding? Ousting Franken without due process or taking into account his sterling record on women’s issues was as boneheaded as any mistake I’ve seen in a lifetime in and out of politics.
It has produced an angry backlash among Democrats and swing voters, alike, and among women as well as men. The most often expressed sentiment is, "he got a raw deal."
It was a cynical ploy by Democratic senators to protect their left flank, and by at least one senator to advance her presidential ambitions.
The DNC and other Democratic groups have finally learned to keep a low profile while helping local candidates, to avoid the appearance of trying to dictate which candidates voters should support. This has paid off big-time in Alabama and Virginia. http://tinyurl.com/yas32s5r
But Franken’s ouster has resurrected the image of Democrats as scolds and moralizers who, like the Puritans of old, burn their witches at the stake.
14
New? Where was Mr. Bruni during the Clinton administration?
Lots of "Democrats are as bad as Republicans" trolls out today, totally and deliberately misrepresenting Bruni's arguments. I assume they'd like to see the Republicans continuing to win all government offices in perpetuity and have a medieval Robber Baron aristocracy enacted in the USA that the rest of the civilized world has long since evolved out of. You do remember that Bill Clinton ran his campaign on enacting universal health care and that Hillary was the creator of CHIP, now in danger of being ended by the Republicans, do you? Thanks, destroyers of the Good enough because it isn't Perfect, thanks Bannon trolls & Russian trolls! The rich will get richer and the poor will be poorer, and no, there won't be a Revolution of the 99% that you want so badly - we already had that Revolution and it's called Trumpism.
4
Both parties have sold out the vast majority of Americans for all of my adult lifetime. (I'm 50) The Reagan GOP re-mixed the late-nineteenth century Kool-Aid (“horse and sparrow theory” – feed the horse enough oats, and enough will pass through ‘undigested’ for the sparrows) as Supply-Side “economics” – what GHW Bush correctly referred to as “voodoo economics“. Bush Senior then quietly acquiesced. Then Dollar Bill Clinton served up more of the same – the trashing of any sort of sensible regulation of the Wall Street casino. Then Bush Junior... trillions in unfunded, unnecessary wars, and the Crash of (oops! We broke the economy!) 2008. Which the Obama administration responded to by printing up trillions more to reward the 1% gamblers. And now Trump...
We're not a Democracy. We're not a Republic. We're not a Democratic Republic. We're an oligarchy/plutocracy... sliding evermore towards kakistocracy.
“The Great American Century” 1950-1980. R.I.P.
: ) L
3
Your observations are right on, but I have to ask, "Is there any hope?" If you were 90 years old and soon to depart, I could understand a willingness to throw in the towel. But you're only 50! What should somebody do, somebody who wants a decent life for the near term and a decent world for future generations? Again, while I acknowledge your insights, I have to say, you pretty nearly ruined my day.
1
As a registered indie I don't trust either party but in truth have never voted for a rupub but have voted for a communist in California against LBJ and his relentless war in Nam. The Dems have no fight in them and indeed are now backing down on DACA re the budget vote to keep the government running. The democrats always seen to be running scared behind the repubs and that is why they are not in power and Trump and the huns are running this country into the sewer or to use Trump's word 'the swamp' making it bigger and certainly undrained.
With any hope they will hold firm after the New Year on the latter.
Does it do any good to vote
Democrats are IMPOTENT. A new leadership is needed. The political fossils will not drive a meaningful change.
8
It's the economy stupid. The DFL has never had the guts to put forward a real progressive agenda. I always considered the tactics the GOP does with the flag waving, using religion as a shield, fake family values and repeating false truths like how they are fiscally responsible as very insulting. If the DFL does what you suggest they will sound the same. Did Bannon coach you on what the democrats need to do?
The most direct way of getting rid of President Embarrassment Trump today is thru his sex life but it is not being handled correctly at all. It has to be all day every day not have an interview with 3 women one day and then nothing for months. Who is running this show and have they all been paid to shut up. SEX & harassment is the topic of the day in the USA for all sorts of people but not the PRESIDENT. outrageous
2
There is absolutely no reason for democrats to embrace propaganda lines abused and, now, discredited by republicans. Its a language increasingly associated with flagrant, serial liars.
Wrapping ourselves ever tighter in the flag (to the point of smothering) and putting ourselves on the cross (till we are drained of blood) is one of the fastest ways to discredit ourselves with an increasingly wary, duped public.
Remember that horrible, recent dems Trumpy slogan - A Better Deal... Stupid.
Just tell the truth: income equality, jobs, fairness, justice, infrastructure repair and stability, citizens and country over corporations...
5
Family values has always meant "people who share our prejudices, belief systems and fears." The concept is inherently divisive.
Similarly, fiscally responsible only means "people who want to spend money on the same things we do."
Democrats need a poet/philosopher to reframe a vision of fundamental equality; not warmed over 70s doublespeak.
3
Since calling or e-mailing you representatives apparently does no good as exemplified in the tax bill, perhaps its time for more drastic action. What would happen if say some 15 million people refused to pay there taxes? If they will not represent the majority and will of the people why should we pay them? There would be safety and strength in numbers and it could force the government to take the masses seriously. It could be our strongest weapon. Someone please start the: #tax revolt now!
7
How’s this sound:
Don’t pay federal tax in April. As an act of protest, put the money in a separate account instead and hold it hostage until at least December.
The late penalty fee is actually very low, but the political effect of millions of taxpayers withholding revenue in 2018 will be enormous. It’s a taxpayer strike.
And the IRS is so understaffed, demoralized, and overwhelmed with the awful new law, they don’t have the bandwidth to police a taxpayer strike.
You do that and the IRS will take out a huge chunk of any transaction hitting your bank accounts. Just ask any American expat terrified of the Treasury's power for not filing your FINBAR or other disclosures of your non-American accounts.
Fact is, the deck is stacked against the individual and for the corporation -- we just can't pay enough "campaign contributionds" to make a difference. Don't believe me? Why do corporations only pay U.S. taxes on repatriated profits but individuals overseas have to pay or file contemporanously on foreign earnings? The millions of Americans overseas simply aren't enough of a consituency to swing an election anywhere and, as I mentioned, can't make enough "campaign contributions" to make a difference.
As they starve the beast by looting the national treasury, they obviously plan to turn on the beast that is no longer solvent and proclaim their historic role as defenders of grandchildren everywhere saying we'll be robbing them of their futures. They will solve this sad situation they created by robbing grandparents and the sick of benefits.
Really it all makes sense if your intent is destroy the federal government of all but police military adventures.
3
The old fairness doctrine for broadcast media, which biased discussion of issues in favor of conventional parties (i.e., they never broadcast socialists), is, by today's standards, looking pretty good. The old newspaper monopoly system of one or two major newspapers per city is, by today's standards, looking pretty good. The CBS-NBC-ABC tri-opoly broadcast system for news that set the political agenda for the nation is, by today's standards, looking pretty good. Corrosion of the media is one of the factors that has made the rabid Republican party possible.
1
Both parties are alike in wanting a large entitlement state but not wishing to pay for it.
jasper
2
Which means that the next president, whether a Democrat, a moderate Republican, or a progressive third-party candidate, will have his/her hands full undoing the unholy mess which Trump, and his band of devils, has created.
7
Good grief, Mr Brunni, conservatives say the darnedest things. The Republican Party has always been the authoritarian anti-democratic party and has always represented people who are authoritarian and anti-democratic, which might be about 30%of us and 100% white evangelical "Christian". There is nothing new in their greed and cruelty, it has just become so conspicuous that it is impossible for even you to miss.
6
Passing a change in the tax structure DESIGNED to increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion. That's a first in our nation's history. Echoes of GW Bush Congress passing tax cuts at a time of two wars, another first in our nation's history. It is patently clear that the Republican Party, right down to the moderates, is willing to sacrifice the "little people" to satisfy their masters, the Big Donors. They should be hanging their heads in shame.
10
It's time for a revolution in this country.
Higher taxes on the rich is now a revolutionary act.
Paper ballots and fair elections is now a revolutionary act.
Care for the environment and for the poor is now a revolutionary act.
A revolution does not have to be violent but people have to stand together on a few simple issues and not let the forces of anarchy take over.
These Republicans are playing for keeps.
And it is well past time for a revolution in this country.
16
With this tax bill, the Republican Party gave alliance to the rich and powerful, proving they'll sacrifice anything and anyone for power and greed. Greedy Old Party.
They will wear this atrocity as if heavy metal on a sinking boat. Their vision offers nothing for the average person. Legislators themselves reap untold financial benefits.
And Mr. Trump often says what a great school Wharton was.
An analysis from Wharton shows his tax cuts lose over $1 trillion in revenue over the first decade, and do not pay for themselves in the short- or long-run.
It simply takes our money and transfers it to the very fabulously wealthy.
By the way, this very month Trump's Treasury Dept. said it's withdrawing
U.S. funding from a program to address food shortages in the world's poorest countries--- The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program.
8
Democracy is where the Demos, the 5% moneyed males rule over the 95% rest (women, plebs, slaves), stressing law, order, and coercive peace.
Socrates offered a more efficient alternative of Republic emphasizing justice and individual freedom, where public is led by the learned, later paraphrased by Lincoln as the "govt of the people, by the people, for the people".
The American Republic was founded against the English Democracy of Prime Minister Frederick Lord North of England and moneyed monarchy.
During 1920-32 the US Democrats and Republicans switched roles. Now for 100 years Democrats pushed for Republic, while Republicans for Democracy at home and abroad. The Demos is easier to buy than public at large.
Does Bruni suggest that the two are switching roles again? But this is playing musical chairs on the Titanic. The world is being modeled by Republics of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and Iran. Will America just stand aside and watch the show?
1
"Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility because they don’t pretend that they can afford grand government commitments..."
These are the words of a "New Democrat" - the centrist, Clintonite, "the era of big government is over", DNC Democrats. They, like the Republicans, want us to believe that we are a poor country that can't afford to take care of those in need; too poor for a manufacturing policy that saves jobs like the Germans, who have 20% of their population still working in good paying manufacturing jobs (the US is down to8.6% in manufacturing); too poor for significant increases to the minimum wage.
For 8 years the Dems and Obama caved to Republican austerity demands, even going so far as proposing cuts to Social Security twice. These are the sort of Democrats who we need to vote out, just as surely as we need to vote out the Republicans.
3
Isn't it obvious by now, and especially with this passing of the tax bill, and they're attempt at suffocating the ACA, that you can't trust ANYTHING a Republican proposes. Everything they do benefits their corporate donors, lobbyists and the wealthy and hurts the average American. They continually take money out of our pockets and give it to the rich. Don't trust them, don't vote for them.
9
Great article but missing one thing. Dems also want at least affordable if not free education. Repubs don't care and we've heard many want to eliminate the dept. of education.
7
Don't mistake campaign rhetoric for sincere intent. What did the Democrats do to make college more affordable in 2009, when they had a chance to be relevant?
The real Republican vote on the worthiness of the Tax Bill will take place in the next month and will be manifested in the course of the stock market. If, upon reflection, the tax bill will be good for American industry and business, the stock market will ascend to new heights. If not, then not.
Now, we can study ramifications of the bill. Something the legislature did not do, or allow.
I fear.
2
To me the real heroes are the protesters who demonstrated outside the offices of GOP lawmakers and made their voices heard. I intend to join their number this year. I signed up for my local indivisible chapter. I am not by nature a protester. In fact I've never attended a demonstration of any kind unless you count moratorium day in 1969 to protest the Vietnam war. But our democracy is at stake. The values I believe in--fairness, opportunity, equality- are being threatened by the short-sighted, judgmental ideology of people like Paul Ryan who believe that the makers deserve all the breaks--and the takers can pound sand. It's time to set him straight.
8
Bruni writes, "(W)hat a gorgeous opportunity they (Republicans) have given Democrats to steal that bogus rhetoric right out from under them."
There's a better opportunity than that. Bold policy initiatives and opening the Democratic Party by more transparency and greater participation via more open primaries, etc.
People don't need rhetoric, they need leradership.
Democrats do support "family values" by backing gay marriage, but this didn't help them last year when Trump won. So putting too much emphasis on gay marriage doesn't appear to be a winner next time, as Mr. Bruni seems to imply.
1
"Neither won the support of all Republicans, but both [Trump and Moore] won the backing or complicity of enough of them to confirm just how hollow and hypocritical the party’s attachment to conservative morality always was."
The republicans are much too regimented and cohesive too ever leave any question as to how, or if, they arrive at a destination. This is something the democrats, who continue to hold some hope for a rekindling of bi-partisanship and collegiality, fail to understand.
The republicans view every endeavor, every contest, every initiative, every election, not as a test of ideas or an invitation to debate or compromise, but an epic winner take all battle of civilizations.
When they are defeated, finally, whomever remains, democrat or independent, or both, will need to ensure that every initiative, appointment, or law tied to this administration is undone.
What the republicans, and Trump/Putin have done to our democracy, like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, must never be forgotten.
4
Typically I agree with Frank Bruni's views. However, I much prefer him as a columnist to a mere polemicist. I despise the modern character of the Republican party which is off the charts when it comes to blatant hypocrisy and mendacity. And yes the Republican phony deficit hawks are setting new Olympic records for chutzpah. But has the Democratic party typically showed much concern about increasing the national debt? Again and again they've advocated social programs that wind up costing far more than their initially presented estimates. When have they pushed hard for actually trimming military spending as opposed to just arguing for matching increases in non-military spending? And Democrat "put faith in prosecutors, agents and the system"? Shouldn't Democrats be trying to reform our prison industrial complex and the pervasive racial bias of policing? And what about it's justified critiques of how James Comey and those anti-Hillary agents in the N.Y. bureau helped throw the presidency to Trump? Do we really want columns that are mirror reverses of Fox News screeds?
1
How many of you have a Republican relative who huffs about government profligacy while living a lifestyle fueled by credit card debt, leased vehicles, no retirement savings, and home equity loans, if they own a home at all?
Republican hypocrisy often extends to more than government.
5
Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness means to the GOP the following:
Rich people have a right to their property and no one has a right to employ taxation to redistribute their income to the poor.
Rich people have a right to own ten homes, ten cars, ten mistresses, and no one has a right to criticize them.
The GOP are helping us to perceive the selfish and immoral roots of the AmeRoman Revolution.
Thank G+D for that.
A good Christmas present is the Truth that hurts so we might get the remedy that heals.
1
"Democrats are the law-and-order party."
Someone really ought to inform the sanctuary cities about that.
There is no statute of limitations on being an illegal alien. When state and local governments do things like issuing driver's licenses to people who have no right to be in the country, they undermine their own claim of being the party that supposedly supports the rule of law.
2
The GOP never stood for any of the things in this article. The GOP's stance on law and order was always just disguised racism. The GOP never cared about balanced budgets it was just a way to try to stop the welfare state. The list goes on and on but you get the point.
4
One more time: WHAT ARE WE GETTING FOR OUR TRILLION DOLLAR DEBT?
Better roads and bridges? Better health care? Better educated citizens? Better, safer environment? Just what are we buying?
Oh yeah, "we" are getting new real estate investments (perhaps in Panama for money laundering?); new islands & yachts; and of course new heights in total worth for the 1%.
What a Christmas present! Enjoy!
12
Ebb...meet Flow
The only constants in our fading democracy are the electorate knows less, works harder, has less, fears tomorrow and wants more. If this doesn't work....try that.
29
The stupidity of enacting a tax cut for the wealthy during an economic expansion is staggering. You do a stimulus during a recession such as 2007 instead of now when you may actually be priming the bubble for the next recession, in which there will be no money for a needed stimulus. The party of Trump now represents the amoral, billionaire class of let them eat cake. Phony fiscal stewards who stand now as one of the most corrupt group of lawmakers in the countries history.
11
Sorry, Mr. Bruni, but bringing the disgraceful treatment of Al Franken into this was a bad idea. The "Franken was guilty of sexual misconduct" story is stinking like a pile of week old cod; the fact of the matter is he couldn't have been more obviously ACORNed if one of his accusers had been James O'Keefe in drag. And the Democrats still have no idea how badly they were played.
9
Steve Simels, so true! What the democrats did-- when they should have been homing in on all the points Frank made here-- was crucify a decent man, instead of insisting he have the right to a senate hearing, and then moving on to the important items of our time. Instead they jumped at the shiny object of the day, the women thinking they were setting themselves up for a presidential run, the men too afraid of their own shadows to speak up. Ashamed as a democrat to say this, but the dems exposed themselves for the disunited group they are, as unable of finding unity in meaningful messages and goals as a herd of unruly cats.
Funny, but the exact same column could have been written for the Goerge W. Bush administration.
3
The Lyin' Kings enjoy their "WONderful Life"
in Potterville.
R.I.P. George Bailey
1
The terms Mr. Bruni has identified were developed by Republican propaganda specialists. “Fake news” was a rare exception, first used by Macedonian high school kids who got rich making fools of gullible Americans supporting Trump during his campaign, and then quickly usurped by the GOP’s propagandists, who for decades have even leftist media using “pro-life” instead of anti-abortion, “gun control” instead of “gun safety” regulations, “death tax” instead of tax on silver spooners, “right to carry” that omits the word weapon or handgun, “welfare state” for the social contract between the middle class and the wealthy whose assets must be protected by the sons and daughters of the middle class who join the military, “states rights” to mean only those rights Republicans want to deny the federal government, “strict construction” that manages to find that under the Constitution corporations are people, money is free speech, and the words “well-regulated militia” is a typo and can be deleted, and so on ad infinitum. Until such time as these phrases are regarded by the reality-based media (not “mainstream media”) for the propaganda they are, and are identified as such in quotation or other indicia of their intent to mislead, the national discourse will continue to be mentally polluted by these terms just as if the Republicans has been able to personally inject in every American a continuing overdose of Xanax. We have all become Zombies.
4
You have raised a truly important point. Republican strategists have purposefully and successfully used socially engineered wordcraft as a propaganda weapon since Newt Gingrich's "Contract on America"...er with America...heh. Their success is in large measure because they have gotten all media to use their terms of choice, their lexicon of euphemisms and dog whistles to aid and abet their ulterior motives. This irritates me to no end when I have to listen to these custom crafted misnomers, used without any irony or indication of their dis-ingenuousness, across media that is not generally associated with it's right wingnut progenitors.
1
We need a major hard left turn and fast! We need a move toward what the vast majority of free thinking adults desire.... air to breath, food and water that can be ingested without causing cancer, expansion of diversity in our schools and businesses that enhances our collective intellect, healthcare and retirement stipends that obviate the need to live our lives in fear till death, removal of weapons of war from our streets, a planet that is fit for humans... Vote2018!!
5
The Republican party needs to change its name to: the LTEC--let them eat cake.
2
Well this is silly. Democrats, like Republicans, are the party of endless illegal wars too. Not a bully? Obama was the assassin-in-chief.
Of course trump is a buffoon and the sooner he departs, the better for all of us. But let's not pretend anything will actually change when that happens. The democratic party is the owned by the same class of predators that owns the trump and the republicans... the ones who run the media, Wall St. and the US military (and apparently Hollywood too!).
3
Well put Mr. Bruni it is time to go back to the future.
1
Democrats are the new Banana Republicans. They no longer believe in the rule of law. That leads to anarchy, followed by totalitarianism.
2
Trump should get a medal for having exposed how wantonly immoral the Republican party is. He should get it right after he's locked up for sexual assault, treason, tax evasion, and running a criminal enterprise.
17
The Democratic party can easily accommodate followers of passed and living conservatives along the lines of cultured icon William F Buckley a man who was a proficient writer, played the harpsichord and sailed solo across the Atlantic talking about GPS decades before it came into popular use. Who could argue about making room for a thoughtful conservative like Russell Kirk or Reagan Democrat anti-Soviet warrior Jeanne Kirkpatrick. What could be wrong with George Will who wrote a seminal book on baseball the national pastime joining us or Peggy Noonan whose idealism and Catholicism would forbid her from turning her back on someone in need. There is also historian Richard Brookhiser, what could be wrong about a guy who is fond of John, John Quincy and Henry Adams as well as George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. And finally the Times' own David Brooks who is also a PBS guy. Yes I would sit at the Democratic table with these reasoned and tempered conservatives any day.
4
What excuse do these principled conservatives have for being Republican in 2017?
1
Blue is the new red candidate: Sen Kristen Gillibrand. Looking even better a POTUS contender now that another POTUS hopeful Sen. Franken, announced he has resigned, for things he didn’t really do, with the effective resignation date as “sometime”. [1]
Gillibrand was a Blue Dog Democrat (conservative) when it would get her elected, and more liberal and progressive when she needed to lean that way to get elected in the Senate
BTW, has anyone asked Sen Gillibrand about the inappropriate male and female adult sexual contact with underage girls, that occurred at her alma mater, The Emma Willard School (an all-girls school, grades 8-12), while she attended, 1980-1984? Here’s the official report, see pp. 47-52 for Sen. Gellibrand’s era: https://issuu.com/emmawillard/docs/report
______________________________________________________________
[1] Not so coincidentally, Sen. Gillibrand led the call for Franken to resign.
2
For this NYC woman, Senator Gillibrand does not resemble in any way a POTUS contender, especially since she ousted Senator Franken. He retains all the substantive value, she the empty shell of ambition.
7
You sound like a blue democrat. Sen. Gillibrand is looking for the red is the new blue democrat. Once she is elected by the red is the new blue wave, and becomes POTUS, who knows how she will evolve (44 evolved on lots of stuff)?
Who knows what men she will reckon with?
...And their leadership is just as bad. Time for fresh blood and new ideas.
5
"Denounce abortion. Congratulations: You’re upholding family values!" I wonder how many of these holier-than-thou, self-righteous "pro-life" poseurs have taken into their homes an unwanted or severely handicapped child? Raise your hands please. Hmm. I thought so.
15
Democrats: Snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.
I always vote Dem, but my expectations are... posted above.
2
Schumer, Gillibrand, and the Clintons are the New Republicans. They would be happy with a benevolent oligarchy. I would prefer that the Democrats return to the party of FDR and the New Deal.
11
And another misnomer... Right to Life. Shouldn't that be more appropriately labeled Right to Birth? They don't give a darn about a child's life after birth. Cuts to CHIP are blatant evidence of that!
12
The Republican Party is the party of sycophants, drunk at the teat of wealth fight all to get to it. Roberts opened the floodgates with “Citizens” United. Many of them and their supporters, as well, aim to protect white supremacy, the powerful to keep their power and their flock to feel they’re better than others. As long as the flock fights women and minorities, they won’t fight against those keeping them down, their god-sent golden idols.
3
The Democrats are sure to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Always do.
Sorry but it is time for Schumer and Pelosi to exit the stage.
6
Oh please, they’ve earned their positions through time and are tasked more with the inner workings of the chambers. Should we take back the Legislature and presidency in 2020 I’m going to want someone that knows how to move legislation, and not some amateur that falls on their face.
2
Wonderful column, all true!!
3
Excellent article. Makes me proud to be a progressive Democrat. I'd be happier if progressive Democrats didn't bring knives to gunfights, however.
When I worked as a Lobbyist for green businesses, there used to be a saying that both Democrat and Republicans knew how to sink a political shive into each other's backs. Republicans, however, knew how to twist it with relish.
2018 will determine the fate of our country, environment, national security, health care, democratic experiment, judicial system, Bill of Rights and rights of citizens. No one - and I mean no one - can afford to stand on the sidelines or squander their vote on some feel-good loser. We must win every election from dog catcher and drain commissioner to the U.S. Senate in 2018 and retake the House, Senate and Presidency in 2020!
8
Well said, Mark Clevey. But I would disagree with your comment about "only Republicans able to twist the shiv with relish". We do it pretty well too, when shoving it into our own. I hope Senator Franken's back heals soon.
Nice reframing of why I remain a democrat and always will. Trump and his group are radicals and elitist. Those with money are "better" than everyone else.
Watching the democratic national convention, I told my spouse that the Democratic party was going to be the conservative party of our country. Just like in more social democracies in Europe. I have always said Bill Clinton was the best Republican president in my lifetime. Next would be Barack Obama. Middle of the road, slow incremental change, revamping welfare and enacting Republican health care plans and carbon control (at least trying).
4
I wanted to organize small groups, equally divided between Dems, Repubs and Independents, to discuss their political beliefs and the reasons why so that we'd all have a better understanding of each other. Forget it. The Republicans have shown they are venal, greedy people who are mostly interested in satisfying their rich donors' wishes and retain power, regardless of their legislative consequences to their constituents and the country.
2
i.e. a parliament..... works for most countries but not the US. My way or the highway, and the worst is the pretentious coupling of their scuzzy cynical religiosity - completely bogus - with politics. Nobody can think straight when they think they can alter Christianity's rules of conduct (think The Good Samaritan for a model) to suit their own self-serving greed. Shumer was right; it is a disgrace. In the race for the bucks the weak will be kicked aside.
well said!
let's add: The Democrats are the party of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness when they call for health insurance access so the sick may live, for reproductive rights so women have freedom, and civil rights so that everyone can pursue a personal dream. The Democrats are the party of equality when they call for public services to be provided to all, regardless of a business owner's personal religion or philosophy. The Democrats are the party of the American Dream when they call for humane treatment of the 'tired, the poor, the huddled masses" from afar, and when they call for educational opportunity so all those born here or who moved here can climb the ladder of success.
4
This tax act will cost us in so many ways: there will be a lot more money pressure on states, especially richer blue states, to pay for all sorts of help that the federal government now cannot pay for. The infrastructure, like trains, will not be taken care of. States will have to get more money from local sources if the federal government cannot pay for all sorts of help. They are after our Medicare and social security, make no mistake about it. "Let them eat cake" will be what we hear.Corporations are people? No they are not. We must look at this, stop denying and put the blame on the people who did this to us.
4
The Clintons turned the Democrats into Republicans. That left Republicans now where to go except farther right into extremism. One of the parties needs to become the party that defends the working class once again.
9
Ronny has it exactly reversed. The formerly conservative GOP took a rabid right wing turn during the presidency of Reagan, and it was reinforced by the out of control right wing propaganda machine of Fox, Limbaugh, etc.-- no longer regulated by the fairness doctrine which the GOP overturned under Reagan. The dems in response had to walk towards the middle. Straying too far to the left (IE George McGovern) was and would be political suicide. I do agree that dems NOW need to move to the left of today's john-birch-society version of the GOP. In truth, given the economic meltdown of 2008, Obama should have pivoted to the left when the opportunity was ripe. He chose not to. So the economy improved, yes, albeit leaving many behind. Foreign policy entanglements lessened, somewhat. But the fundamental problems remained intact: far too expensive health care; unequal income and wealth distribution; a tattered social safety network; and a continual boom-bust economy-- to name just four items. They are now the seemingly insoluble problems of the day. Those matters, as you correctly state, are working class problems. It's just that the working class is no longer blue collar, HS educated, male, middle income. It is MOST of us-- who are in a struggle for survival against the oligarchy and a right wing government that does not serve We the People.
1
I want Democrats to LISTEN to Stephanie Kelton. Please do not make the party go backwards. We can do better! Learn from MMT.
Nobody actually cares about “fiscal responsibility;” it’s just a cudgel used to deny or cut social spending. How about Democrats advocate things a majority of people actually want, like single-payer, instead of telling people it’s a pony? Centrism and Democrat collaboration has brought us to this point. Maybe they should try to advocate for working people again, instead of constantly moving right.
3
The Democrats and liberals are terribly upset that Robert Mueller has not been able to find any collusion between the Trump family and the Russians with regard to our presidential election in 2016. How frustrating it must be for them to come away empty handed. This is what you would call the collusion delusion. President Trump's critics and enemies are grasping at straws and are failing by all accounts. They are furious and acting like little children. It is so good to finally have the grown ups running our government. They have been successful in their leading our country on the right path. Finally. What a wonderful Christmas gift to Americans.
2
Four people closely associated with trump already indicted and Flynn and Papadopoulos turning states evidence against trump. The investigation will continue well into 2018, before the hammer is brought down. Regardless of Fox and Alex Jones trying to besmirch the impeccable reputation of Mueller, voters will put the Dems back in control in 2018, in Congress, so that trump can be removed from office. Stay tuned.
3
I would disagree. They have found plenty, let's just start with Flynn, and they are still investigating. There is no time limit.
1
I'm trying to figure out how this comment relates to Mr. Bruni's editorial.
OK, this is a start! For as long as I can remember, Democrats have campaigned by appealing to voters' rational self interest. Republicans have always known that rational self interest is way over the heads of most voters. Democrats need to find their equivalents for God, gays, guns, abortion, and the idea that government is bad. Republicans, as Mr. Bruni is pointing out, are giving them lots of opportunities. Surely the new tax "reform" gives new evidence for charges of pandering to the rich. (That is actually rational.) Democrats need to be talking about attacks on SS and Medicare right now, not waiting for Republicans to go after those programs after the next election. Evangelical so-called Christians backing the teenie molester from Alabama and the grabber in the White House surely allows Democrats to claim the God issue. If you believe the Bible, you must take care of poor people, and you can't be mean to immigrants. The Democratic Party needs to dump its leadership and find people who will play the same game that has been played against them. Again, here we a glimpse of what that might look like.
3
En plein dans le mille Frank! Great column again. What has the GOP become? A party very committed to prevent US people to gain access to or take from them health insurance when they finally get some. I don't talk here about random poor country in Africa, I talk about the richest country on earth, that spends twice as much as a medium EU country on health pc / py. Shame.
A party who lost the florida elections in 2000…. And managed to gain power through a USSC decision that "inapplicable elsewhere". A party that managed to win 2016 using support of a foreign country. A party that allows Trump to diminish its country intl standing, a “President” who has no clue about politics and which only goal is personal gain. A multiple-bankrupcies sexual predator, who did not pay his subcontractors, avoided Vietnam, failed with many businesses water steaks airlines or Universities… and who is now ready to compromise further his country integrity by damaging the FBI, one of the many damages to the country, after Pruitts hurts air & water quality, and Zinke gives back lands to mining profits. All that in a 70.000 coal workers economy that will soon be so much more expensive than renewable that it will disappear if taxpayers do not pay subsidies (fiscal responsibility) Today red states already buy and develop the cheapest energy…. renewable. This dark portrait could show a party that may soon slip into oblivion, after having lost his so-called principles as described in your smart article.
1
Frank: You forgot the censorship of language by the president to the CDC. Can't use "fetus", can't use "transgender", can't use "diversity" and several other words that have to do with scientific evidence in their reports.
The United States under the "leadership" of trump has totally lost any sense of anything. Way to go people.
3
Can't wait to see what SNL does with this! It's so funny really , if it were not so unbelievably dumb and astonishingly pathetic. It's beyond belief, I think I am "through the looking-glass". Next that Trump thing will try to be the boss of what we can even think!!!! How can this even be satirized, it's - incredible.
We are the laughing stock of the world already! People are cancelling netflix, to watch American politics in action - completely hilarious if they aren't the ones who have to live it. unbelievable.
1
Please don't tarnish Democrats with the Republican label, now forever stained for supporting sexual predators like Trump and Moore, abandoning all fiscal conservatism and robbing the poor to enrich the rich. Republicans have embraced a dangerous antigovernment nihilism which will destroy our country if they are allowed to remain in office. So it's time to kick them out -- forever.
2
The mask of respectability has been ripped away from the Republican party - that was Trump's achievement. And what a hideous face is revealed.
We are witnessing what Republicans are all about when they finally have all the reigns of power: robbing the national treasury with shameless greed, and exacting sadistic revenge against the helpless.
4
Democrats have a mostly unused bully pulpit. Wasting their time ousting a progressive senator--without investigation--to show, what, that they're not like the republicans? Twisted and disgusting.
As long as democrats only fight is to be seen as righteous, ignoring the real-world battles their constituents face, they will be seen as useless. The country is in every way transitioning into fascism; democrats don't seem up for the fight.
4
Democrats better start being the Party of Winning, or else everyone in America loses.
3
That's right Democrats, don't just ignore the elephant in the room, take off your donkey suits and be the elephant in the room! You are already an endangered species (Politica Asinus Asinorum), and nobody gets what donkeys stand for anyway...oh wait...stubborn resistance! Now it true that elephants are slow moving but they do travel in "packs" and eventually they will pass a tax bill or two. Donkeys... well, they don't seem to do anything (that can't be good). And given how successful Trump was by becoming an elephant, I sure you will all find great success being just like Trump!
2
Another reminder that the word "Revolution" has two meanings. What goes around......
“Who are we as a country? Time to decide” : Sally Yates. USA Today op ed.
And, “Trump Will Make US an Autocracy Unless Americans Speak Out” -- Sally Yates suggests in stinging op ed'---Newsweek.
Trump fired her for blocking his immigration policy.
And could ask, what is the Democratic Party? Time to decide. Centrist Republican Light from the Gop past generations vs their radical rw today?
2
For Republicans, every day is Election Day (and now Putin’s birthday).
For Democrats, every day is the 4th of July!
1
Pretty weak arguments. They will only resonate among your followers. Some of them, if played out a bit differently, may have some legs. But not as Mr. Bruni has laid out his suggested arguments.
Some of our readers, alas, didn't read the column.
Claiming that the Democrats are the same as the Republicans is insane. It's a lie.
The Republicans have just done something incredibly ugly and irresponsible and the Democrats are resisting strenuously yet here we have a number of people attempting to blame Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer for the sheer evil of the GOP.
I am so tired of this. It's just wrong. We saw the same kind of sniping throughout the election from people posing as progressives.
The only people this helps are fascists. And they're taking over the government.
5
Thank you for saying all this. It's true. All these inane claims that Dems are the same as Republicans - or "Republican light."
What Republicans support gay marriage, want more stringent gun control, support turning undocumented immigrants into citizens, want stronger controls on Wall Street, support public education - and on and on it goes.
Claiming the two parties are the same is a fatuous lie, used by extremists to shove their own agenda down our throats.
1
The Republican party still stands for a few nice things. Here is their new de facto platform:
Restore white male supremacy.
More gun deaths.
Destroy public education.
More for the rich, and less for everybody else.
Reduce the rights of minorities and women.
Undermine American democracy.
Wreck the environment.
Decimate the prospects for our children.
Protect Putin's puppet.
Protect Putin's puppet.
Protect Putin's puppet.
8
Democrats certainly put a lot of faith in FBI agents willing to defy the president, who described candidate Trump in disparaging terms, and who evidently concocted an 'insurance policy' on the horrific chance that the electorate might actually choose the new president, rather than crown the candidate who bought the Democratic nomination with the approval of the sitting president. Imagine if George Bush's appointees organized to sabotage incoming Barack Obama with the same way. The worst Mr. Bruni imagines of Trump actually happened with the Democrats. The Access Hollywood tape, recorded when Trump was still a Democrat, accurately captures the world of Democratic celebrities such as Harvey Weinstein and his ilk. Hillary Clinton was disappointed the golden showers didn't get more press prior to the election, as she should be. Her campaign paid for the dossier. The consolation prize was the Democratic party loyalists in government ensured the dossier became part of the new president's security briefing pushing it right onto the front pages. We're now waiting to find out if the Clinton campaign material was used by Democratic appointees in government to obtain FISA warrants on US citizens that would allow hostile prosecutors to pursue Trump transition team members like Flynn. The last 8 years have been spent spraying air freshner over a reeking cesspool and the true stink of normal government corruption is now starting to emerge. The FBI de-legitimized itself, like the NYT.
The family values canard is a distraction used by both the right and the left to attempt to draw some minimal distinctions between the parties outside of their common ground in serving the donor class.
At this point, the Democrats' primary hope, the year long investigation to nowhere, based on a known fake Russian sourced dossier paid for by Clinton and the DNC, is only succeeding in showing ever more Democrat corruption and no Trump collusion.
Pinning all of your hopes on a fake investigation, even if it was believed that the FBI and other deep state actors would play along, was stupid politics.
In the end you must be for something and not just against everyone and everything you declare offensive.
5
I do not think you need to be a Liberal, a Moderate or a Conservative to understand that our country is in grave danger. The reality is the Electoral College elected a dictator for a President. couple that with one of the worst Congress and Senates in history and you have neither the family values or traditions of our Country, that used to matter. A country that used to believe in helping those who cannot help themselves, due to lack of opportunity, disability, a good education, racism, bigotry, and lack of acceptance of those different than ourselves. This has happened in both parties.
The high road will not be able to be claimed by the Democrats until they get their act together.
Until they stop picking scape goats for their failures.
They need to stop rewarding candidates based on loyalty to their party, think Clinton, instead of a candidate who can appeal to the better angels in our voters.
It is not that I think Clinton was the worse candidate in the General Election. She wasn't. But the Democrats and Clinton made some serious mis-steps and did nothing to address them forcibly.
The Democrats by far have the right agenda. They just have very bad marketing. Unless they an get their message across forcefully, they will never come out from the Republican Party's shadow.
Keep it Simple Stupid might help. They need a superb strategist to get back their claim of being the "Party of the People, ALL the People". Maybe they ought to try that for a slogan.
6
Bruni has presented the outlines of a New Nixonian Democratic party.
I want no part of it if it includes renewed hostility against the former Soviet Union.
Yes, Trump colluded with Russia and that was lamentable. However, people have made a whole bunch of assumptions about that collusion that are just plain wrong.
They assume that Russia is evil because of the collusion. No, Russia did what one would expect (The US has interfered in many elections). Russia is not evil; it's just that Trump was either gullible or the Russians have compromising data on him ala the Steele dossier.
They forget that US foreign policy has been provocative and dangerous to Russian interests. Poland and some of the Baltic states are part of Nato, an organization that was set up to battle Russia. Very simply, the border between the East and the West has moved many hundreds of miles to the East, from the border between East and West Germany to almost Kalingrad.
Also the press inanely says that Russia has been hostile by seizing Crimea, blithely oblivious to the fact that the population of Crimea is mostly Russian, voted to be part of Russia and was under Russian rule since the 18th Century. In addition the West claims Russia has been hostile to the Ukraine, oblivious to the neo Nazi ties among anti Russian Ukrainians and the ties between Eastern Urkraine to Russia as both follow a derivation of Greek Orthodoxy
2
I wish more people would make these points. The 'mainstream" press generally assumes the standard Democratic line: "There's a commie under every bed" (remember the John Birch Society?). Democrats and the press seldom mention that the U.S. long ago lost its innocence, doing more than its share of hacking into other countries' computers -- as Mr. Gottfried points out -- or, in general, acting as one of the more aggressive disrupters of the sovereignty of other countries.
1
Someone with the nerve to say it; my compliments.
1
Mr Bruni, as the late Senator Edward Kennedy said so well, USA does not need two Republican parties.
2
I heartily agree! Please, fellow Democrats and liberals, let's take back and embrace the mantle of moral decency, fiscal responsibility, and patriotism. We've earned it the hard way, with consistent, thoughtful and prudent action. Americans for Truth and Decency!
1
Too bad we can't get Democrats who stand up for truth and what's right the way Republicans stand up for their lies and terror. That's the biggest difference. Republicans may have no integrity, but they have a spine that stands rigid even in the gale force winds that put their lies and hypocrisy on full display. Democrats really need to stop worrying about alienating people and start standing up to this and fighting like a pack of wolves for what is right and what they believe in. Doing so will retain their base and the willingness to stand up and fight will attract more than it alienates. Stop looking for ways to work with Republicans because clearly there aren't any.
1
Democrats have for a good while now gravitated right, I suspect, to gain market share. They are mostly a stranger to Social Democracy, my creed.
It's a real shame.
The culture must change. Don't forget that 63 million cretins voted for Trump, and they represent that aspect of the culture that must change the most. It begins with education.
Good luck with that. So long as education remains a state's rights issue, torn and distorted by local politics and funded so stupidly as it is now (it should be 100% generously and federally funded, the same per capita), you will get nowhere.
1
Liberal fantasy at its worst.
A party that encourages the bureaucracy to interfere and possibly overthrow a democratically elected President cares nothing about patriotism.
A party that threatens impeachment over simple political differences cares nothing cares national security or patriotism.
A party that cynically advocates unchecked immigration for the sake of votes cares nothing about national security, law and order, fiscal responsibility, or patriotism.
A party that advocates abortion for the sake of convenience cares nothing about decency or modesty.
What a childish article.
Gop ---right wing, Darwinian. Dems---centrist and more humanitarian.
As Frank just said on Msnbc….we grew up when the US saw Russia as the great global menace. Politicians vied to show firmness against them in the Cold War. Now, see Tom Friedman’s headline---
“Merry Christmas, Vladimir — Your Friend, Donald.”
The Gop tax bill and attacks on health care mean our 3 branches and most states are distorted by a radical right wing party that’s passed into the Twilight Zone. Not even just exaggeration and cherry picking, now it’s lies and fantasy.
Let's figure out---what in our politics has given the GOP the freedom and latitude to get away with these insults to the body politic? Boil it down to 2 things, the lack of strong fight from Democrats. And the legal tethering of our lawmakers to big corporate megadonors for their careers. The big money calls the shots for their gain and our loss. That should be the daily headline.
Thus our resources and political influence on our lawmakers is weakening more and more, along with our financial security. The Gop are de legitimizing the US govt itself--- they have to work for their donors. We can't afford to compete as ‘investors’ in our politics.
Strange how with Gop/Trump, the US gets more Soviet--like.
Like Russia, the GOP has purged the party of any moderates who might give the rw radicals some lip. And they use their state run media monopoly, Fox News, to propagandize the GOP Party Line.
Compare and contrast.
1
Yes, our Democratic leaders don't advance their financial interests "as brazenly." What a fine compliment. And I roll my eyes when I hear either party talk about "family values." Do Democrats really have less tolerance for lechery among rich and powerful men? They didn't seem to mind it during the Clinton administration. Anyway, to suggest that the Democrats now appropriate all the lies the Republican Party has been telling for the last 30, so that they can become the new Republican Party, is not a solution to our problems. Huge military budget, crummy health care, income inequality, Citizen's United... What we need is a New Democratic Party.
3
"Under Trump’s thumb and spell, the Republican Party is watching the pillars of its brand crumble. "
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
It is the Republican party itself as to get sustained ($$) by its donors. And this is not the demise that started yesterday, that thread runs a long, long time. 'The Southern strategy, government is the problem, contract with America, we make our own reality'. Cornerstones of degeneration.
One path straight into the abyss.
I just hope they do not pull us all. For my take, they could vanish from this planet. Forever.
2
I just want to remind everyone here that Hillary Clinton gave a speech to Goldman Sachs once, so both sides do it.
1
Yes, but there is abortion. I suspect many a R might vote for a D except for that issue.
1
Frank, I was ready to take the razor to your jugular and slash and slash again as I read the title, 'Democrats are the New Republicans'. Boy, I wuz wrong!
If only the Dems could make their message as clear, concise as your column. Listening to the Tax Garbage Bill pollute and contaminate the airways, you provided a primer for voters.Shame is Americans have voted against their interests for twenty years and more. They bought Reagan's words on government is the enemy- funny, we are the government as in WE the People declaration, and vote Republican on every level. If people read your column with comprehension , they'd vote Democratic.
1
Don’t forget about protecting the “integrity of the vote.” For Democrats, this means (1) encouraging citizen participation in our democracy through expanded access and convenience of voting, (2) eliminating gerrymandering and (3) getting big corporate money out of politics. For Republicans it means (1) reducing the voting population for partisan gain while making bogus claim of voter fraud (the few instances of which have been committed by Republicans), (2) gerrymandering their permanent hold on power despite receiving a minority of the overall vote and (3) $$$$$. Like with family values and fiscal responsibility, Trump’s shamelessness and transparency along with the complicity of his sycophants in Congress will help put the lie to this canard once and for all.
1
Conservative adj 1) : PRESERVATIVE 2: Disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions (Websters). The adjective no longer fits the GOP.
Frank-dems still have a lot to do though resolving their own inner conflicts/hypocrisy/contradictions/tribalism.To wit
-how can you be champion of jobs for the middle and lower middle class without supporting an immigration policy that controls our borders and emphasizes E-verify etc? Or economic policies that encourage private, not public investment ?
-how can you be unequivocally committed to equal rights/protection under the law and still support affirmative action for affluent minorities ?
How do you end racial discrimination by discriminating based on race ?
-How do you avoid costly stupid pointless overseas wars without supporting conscription/draft that applies to ALL citizens, regardless of gender or class ?
-How do you encourage solidarity amidst profound ethnic/religious diversity we don't require everyone to even speak the same language -literally (10-18% per cent of Americans are not remotely fluent in English)
-How do you convince people you are champions of education and children when you dont support standardized,internationally respected and validated testing, benchmarks,serious expectations of teachers,and isolating repetitively disruptive students?
-How do you stand for public ethics and rectitude when you reflect on mendacity and meretriciousness of 2 of your last 5 presidential nominees ?
-How does advocating legalized marijuana, a gateway drug for those with addictive personalities/biologies, help resolve the opioid addiction crisis ?
JUST ASKIN'.......
You know it's a nice little essay with some nice little points. Sure the Dems didn't run a child molester in Alabama. And they are all moaning about the tax bill. But the truth of the matter is in most cases they are nothing but Republican lite. And that's why they lose. And that's why many can't identify with the Democrats at all. Did you hear any outcry when Trump signed the 700 billion defense authorization bill a couple days ago, I didn't. The Dems were all aboard. How many are really for Medicare for all? How many want to legalize pot? Do you hear any speaking up about pension problem in almost every state? They had Harry Reid before who could barely get anything done, even when he had the majority. And now Schumer. Whose not only incredibly irritating but just so weak, useless... Iran, apply more sanctions every time they shoot a missile off, same as the Reps... N Korea, anyone speaking up for a new approach? How about a little resistance to taking tax money going to public schools now going to go to private hands. They let the Republicans steal a Supreme Ct seat. And barely a peep about all the ultra right judges getting placed. They act like getting the debt ceiling extended is some big victory. If the Reps were the minority you could bet they would pull something to get the tax vote delayed till their new Senator was sworn in. There's basically one party in this country, & the extreme right wing of that party is running the show, with an ever expanding coup d'etat.
5
We can pull a few moderates, but the guns/abortion crowd will never come over.
I read a comment yesterday in the Times that should scare the heck out of every Republican. A Republican voter - always - is now making it his life's work to get every Republican in his family, in his circle of friends, at his church, at his work to vote Democratic in 2018. And he says these long-time Republican voters are, for the first time, going to support Democrats going forward. On everything.
A wave is coming. A very big wave 'like the world has never seen before', Mr. Trump. I can't wait.
2
The Republican farce that they own family values, Christianity, patriotism, started when they nominated an actor to play the president. He was a B-movie actor capable of saying his lines - lies that Republican ideology would benefit of The People - while he lacked any understanding or empathy for the people hurt. It was the beginning of the erosion of the middle class, the beginning of the income and wealth gaps.
Reagan's debut as president coincided with the contract between evangelicals and satan. The evangelicals sold their souls to become a religious prop for the Actor in Chief. They followed the Republican script, not the bible.
We have had a long slide downward to arrive at Trumpville. The edge of the abyss is before us. The Republican vision of our future is a wasteland:
- abortion will be punished with execution - by a firing squad - if not by Christian vigilantes
- the working class is auctioned off to serve corporations - bought, sold, traded, like any other object of production; this will be Christianized just as the South found justification for slavery in the bible
- everyone will carry guns - assault weapons - and mass murders will be mundane daily events
- women will be officially made 2nd class citizens by a constitutional amendment
- evangelicals will succeed in making women/girls sex toys; evangelicals won't just find justification in the bible, they will find Jesus' blessing on women/girls who willingly submit/serve
Is this the America we want?
1
Except that voters don't choose candidates based on who has the moral high ground. Clinton played the schoolmarm to Trump's schoolyard bully, and he won. You can build coalitions or you can look down on people. But if you're branding entire classes of voters "despicables," don't expect them to vote for you.
And Al Franken deserved to have his day in court. You pretend you're building a team, but you just participated in an auto da fé, set on by your enemies.
1
Thanks for your Christmas gift explaining how the Republicans have ashcanned our American society, Frank. And your new year's message, too, that Trump has crumpled our culture to a fare-thee-well. We Americans - not Trump loyalists - are now just praying for the repeal and replacement of the hands-down most ignorant and worst president in American history. Are you taking wagers on that happening, Frank? Meanwhile, greetings of the season to you and yours and to all of us needing cheer and happy news now.
1
This is the problem with the Democrats and this newspaper. Frank Bruni and most of the Times writers are not real Democrats at all. They're Rockefeller Republicans. They're John Lindsay Republicans. Their party has abandoned them, and they've coaxed the Democrats into abandoning the working-class, their old base, and trade the party of Roosevelt, Truman and Johnson for Nixon and Bush Sr.
This is not the way out of the country's mess. So long as the working class is divided by race, and the Democrats move farther away from RFK's blue-black coalition, economic inequality will rise and the country's real problems will increase. I see my party try to consolidate its hold on privileged whites and I see my own disorientation. Their interests are not my interests, and the more of them, the less the party and the country will move in the direction I seek, toward income equality and greater economic opportunity. These worthless Democrats make a fuss over the tax bill but can do nothing to stop it. Meanwhile, a handful of Democrats, led by Tim Kaine, are more quietly working with Republicans to roll back Dodd-Frank and assist their true friends, the banks.
24
and your articulate response will never make it to the a New York Times pick. As one newly engaged in reading newspapers as my primary source of information, the biggest shock for me is that the very liberal New York Times is not as liberal as I had always believed. Rockefeller Republicans indeed! Hillary picking Tim Kaine as her running mate was a slap to every hope that progressive Democrats and the Neo-liberal corporate cronies could ever become a viable coalition. The Democrats need to return to the working class, but the banking class pays so much better. The title of this article is spot on, but the question is what will Democrats become now that their party is essentially Republican?
Republicans know the power of slogans and sound bytes, while Dems alternate between silence and lectures. Stand up and speak clearly.
5
As Barry Goldwater once said "in the future what is now considered policies of the right will be considered policies of the left". Russia, deficits, family values. honesty in government. I think Barry was on to something.
2
Amen, Frank Bruni!
Republicans have shown a shocking lack of patriotism by pretending Trump and Co. haven't had a disturbing affinity for Putin and Co. (even without whatever Mueller's investigation reveals).
And then there's that pesky deficit: they actually ran a ticker during the 2012 Republican convention, in order to alarm the public about our spiraling debt. This was after a couple trillion spent on aimless wars in the Middle East. Now they're fine with adding at least another 1.4 trillion.
And, seriously, why have they not asked Trump to show his tax returns? It would answer sooooo many questions . . .
I leave you with this awesomely dumb song:
https://youtu.be/_wd0-CM2UL0
3
I have a monopoly in charge of my electricity, my natural gas, my phone, my internet, regulated by stooges from the monopolies. Gas for my car rises and falls with respect only to an abstract market only a few people understand. I'm constantly beset by sales people trying to extract more money from me. Developers build Eco nasty, traffic spawning monstrosities, and my government representatives fawn over them. My retirement account flops and no criminal speculator goes to jail. My boss violates norms, laws, basic justice. I don't have time to read the news because I'm raising kids and trying to earn money. My landlord picks my state senator. I'm being scammed right and left. I know that government can make it easier for me and address real problems with real solutions. But neither Dems nor Republicans ever seem to get around to it. We have interests in the Mideast, not the Midwest. The FDR wing knew that helping the little guy and gal helped everyone. Republican lite policies of Dems aren't working. The Schumers are too busy schmoozing and dialing for dollars to get what I'm up against. The change away from oligarchy will have to controversial and nasty. But letting things slide toward the end of democracy is worse.
4
Good column, Frank. I feel just peachy about being a Democrat. Now let's get started!
4
How did we get here? Money and hypocrisy - the only tenets of Republican ideology. Blame it on the Supreme Court - Citizens United: the opening of the floodgates of funding for corporate and personal interest; the legalization of bribery and the motivation for Republican paybacks. Forget about values, mores, fairness, sensibility, honor...they don't bring in the money nor can they "trickle down".
2
The thing Democrats need to pledge to do on day 1 if/when they regain house and senate majorities, is to introduce a constitutional amendment that invalidates Citizens United and imposes limits on political donations.
Corporations are NOT people my friends, and money is only associated with freedom of speech to the extent that the voices of the poor and middle class are not drowned out by the 5 Trillion Megawatt amplifiers of the Oligarchs constantly spewing right wing "other people" blaming propaganda at the masses.
Mr. Bruni, you write Op-Eds of great insight into human nature, compassion, and beauty. But I am afraid I cannot agree with you on this one.
To me the Republicans stand for everything evil: racism, white supremacy, even slavery; vicious misogyny; hatred for the poor; hatred of learning, science, and knowledge; criminal disregard for the environment; hatred of the Lincolnian ideal of a government of, by, and for the people; belligerent warmongering; callous apathy toward the children killed by gun violence; affection for mega thieves and plunderers. I cannot think of a single redeeming thing about the Republicans, and if they were all to perish from this earth, I would not shed a tear.
In short, Democrats should shun anything even remotely smacking of Republicanism with the same passion that medieval Christians were exhorted to shun the Devil.
2
"That’s what making the work force more hospitable to women..."
Both sides have this problem. However, Democrats seem over represented.
"Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility because they don’t pretend that they can afford grand government commitments — whether distant wars or domestic programs — without collecting the revenue for them."
This can be disputed, when compared to the years BHO was in office.
"Democrats are the party of patriotism, because they’re doing something infinitely more urgent and substantive than berating football players who kneel during the national anthem."
I would postulate, standing for the national anthem is easy and easy to observe. If you can't do the little things, the big things are out of the question.
"They’re pressing for a full accounting of that."
Are you referring to Bengazi?
"an internet to which access isn’t tiered,"
You mean the one AlGore invented? Because it worked pretty well, before BHO got involved.
A 'New Republican' wishes to thank Mr. Bruni for writing it right. I like his honesty and his family values which first came to this reader's attention when he addressed the memory of his father, and his affection for his brother. Mark, I believe is his name.
I am never going to vote for an 'Old Republican' again. The essay this year 'The Abortion Party' by a Mr. Groom, stating that Democrats were life-killers was my Waterloo. In fact this American is going to learn to forgive herself for not forgiving these ill-measured, unenlightened, irresponsible politicians.
'MidWest' ventured that we should emulate Christ during this Season of Giving and Receiving, and I have just sent word to my elderly sibling that if he wishes to sail this way, as a gift, his great-great uncle's yacht, it would be kinder if he found a larger-size tuxedo for the cat which Amazon does not have in stock.
For those who are able, a donation to the American Red Cross, Save The Children, CARE, The International Rescue Committee, The U.S. Fund for UNICEF, Catholic Relief Services, agencies for our children and elderly. The Choice is yours.
Thanking some of the Commentators: Larry Eisenberg, Concerned Citizen, BlackMamba, Richard Luettgen, Phyllis Dalmatian, and many others for keeping this citizen awake. Walter Rhett, let us not forget.
To Mr. Bruni, Mr. Blow, Mr. Brooks, Ms. Collins, Mr. Cohen, Ms. Goldberg, to 'All of You at The Times', thank you for holding strong during The Error of Trump.
Frank, our Democratic party had been eschewing family values for a very long time.
The Republicans on the other hand pretends to know it all by promoting marriages between only straight couples while trying to pick men for a homosexual activities in the airport rest rooms like their Senator from Idaho Larry Craig did on June 11,2007 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for which he was arrested.
The irony is although some of the Republicans in the congress asked him to resign but their pressure on him was so mild that he refused to resign from the Senate and stayed there till the end of 2008.
Even though he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct on August 8 of the same year, his Republican colleagues just did a lip service and allowed him to continue till the end of his 6 year term.
So if this is what the Republican party is all about :just ho-hum, then we can expect more mayhem in this country from our Republican Senators and Congress members who're going to send their latest tax bill to their illegitimate president Trump to sign today which the Congressional Budget committee has predicted will add another $1.5 trillion to our deficit.
But on the other hand our Democratic members of congress are showing lot of fiscal responsibilities than Republican slackers in the congress who're giving their president Trump and other billionaires like Senators Bob Corker, Marco Rubio, Jeff flake and Susan Collins Christmas presents worth millions of dollars.
Easy there killer. Not everyone was born in the 1960s. Yes, I think we're witnessing the collapse of traditional Republican-ism as we know it. However, you have another thing coming if you think now is the moment of a defunct liberal-ist ascendancy. Prepare to be disappointed, again.
Great column. The Dems are really raising to the occasion while Reps are falling through the cracks of their hypocrisy. However, I also think that, mostly, Dems gravitate toward all these actions around family, patriotism and financial responsibility because each candidate has been able to adapt to their place of governing (either state or city) and the national conversation. They have been able to noticed how society is moving to more tolerance (although I don’t like this word) and diversity, while the GOP is looking to the past and a “great America “ that does not exist anymore. After 8 years of pres. Obama ( with imperfections and all) a new US was defined and leveled with all countries in the world: good, but not better; a model of governance in many instances, but still learning from others. The GOP nostalgia does not agree with how the world is moving, and that is why the Dems have a better opportunity to portray a better US.
1
Any Rand has taken ugly, greedy hold of the Republicans, revealing how poor they are at critical thinking. But I fear that the Democrats will play the same game of not listening to others if they ever get control. It seems that Democracy is hard to maintain.
No doubt that current Republicans have no morals or values, and that is very sad.
2
The Republican Party has evolved into a lobbyist for their fat cat supporters. There is a total lack of character on their part as they want to squeeze as much greed out of tax code as they can. They tell tales of fiction to try to convince the populace they are fighting for them. Accumulating power is their fix. Bruni gets it right - they are a hellish lot that is a scourge on our country.
3
Let's not sugarcoat it. Republican politicians brazenly lie in the service of enriching themselves and their uber-rich donors. Those donors demanded that their obedient congressional employees genuflect before them and threatened them to be cast out of their sinecures if they didn't pass this despicable reverse robinhood larceny act on their behalf. Those toady legislators complied fully knowing they are selling the vast majority of working Americans down the river. After all, what could they do? Their owners demanded it.
1
This isn't about Democrats vs Republicans any more, it's about We the People (aka the 99%) vs The Fascist Oligarchy Party.
True Republicans no longer recognize their 'leaders', some of who were only elected by artificial 'democracy' which includes:
- Blatant lying about what they are doing - supported by their bought and paid for 'media' (aka propaganda) outlets e.g. Faux News
- Rigged electronic voting machines - there's strong evidence in exit polls that suggests that the reported 'results' are statistically impossible
- Voter registration - a euphemism for suppression of poor voters
This country was founded by people who rebelled against an arrogant monarchy who enforced unjustifiable taxes such as stamp duty and then used the money to suppress, by force, those who rebelled; seems we're getting awful close to the dreadful state of affairs that existed pre-1776, it truly wouldn't surprise me if Trump declared himself King and the 'republicans' supported him.
So no, I'm not asking true Republicans to vote Democratic, I'm asking people to vote for what this country needs to survive. Yes we can:
- Reduce our outrageous military spending without making ourselves weak
- Provide healthcare & education for everyone as a basic right of citizenship
- Allow true freedom of religion while also combating terrorism
- Create a fair taxation system that allows businesses to flourish while also giving their workers basic protections and a wage that they can survive on
2
Mr Bruni, you need to cool your endorsement of the Gillibrand putsch against Franken. If this becomes a pattern--and all indications are it will--it will be just another needless vulnerability for the Democratic party. Is it smart to claim you are holier than thou, even if you are? The possible backlash to the principle of throwing one of your own under the bus for picadillos (yes, that's exactly what Franken's behavior add up to: picadillos) is bound to cause a backlash. This is the first indication to me that the Democrats will stay stick to their habit of shooting themselves in the foot on their climb for the higher ground.
2
You might add that Democrats are now the party that respects the right to privacy by allowing each individual the right to manage his or her own family
Well thought out piece. A solid contribution.
The hit to the national debt will be AT LEAST 1.5 trill.
"What pretty lies Republicans tell, most of all about themselves." Yes, indeed. So now is the time for the 1% to rise up and put that tax break they will get ... into good use for the sake of mankind. Will they? I hope so.
Don't hold your breath
At this point, Republicans have done away with what it means to be American, let alone the party of Lincoln.
2
Biden for President 2020 is the Democrat's only true hope of stopping this madness. Come on Joe - we need you to do this for our country.
There is nothing wrong with wealth. It's how you use it. Greed is not good, in spite of people who believe in that Gordon Gecko philosophy that the Republicans and their donors like the Koch Cartel seem to embrace. I would like to ask these rich Republicans, "How much money does it finally take to make you happy?" And the answer most probably will always be: "There's never enough!"
2
Thank you, Mr. Bruni, You summed all of it up so neatly and succinctly. I hope this abomination of a tax cut for the rich finally sinks this greedy, craven, soulless political party to the dustbin of history. Here come the Blue Wave of 2018. This New Year's Eve will be a much happier one than the past one.
GOP stands for Graft Oligarch Populist. It’s been like that for years; the difference now is that the GOP is not even trying to hide.
2
All true except for one crucial detail: the Dems are not a a party (have never been): it is a lose group of liberal elitists. Some of them are fro the working class and are snobbish as they have moved up. Others are blue-bloods, and thus feel they can tell us, the average folks, what to think, how to be treated by our men, and what to eat (to be "healthy", that is). Yet others are in it for themselves to feel good (read the Gates and the Bloombergs). The bottom line is: both parties are sinister and disregarding of the average Jane, but only the Dems pretend to be holier than thou; an thus they lose and will continue to do so.
I've been meaning to address the use of the word "civility", used in the stated comment guidelines, as I sincerely believe the essence of the word is missing, in a great many articles written, and published by the Times; the definition should not, and cannot be limited to the use of vulgarity and disparaging vocabulary in comment discourse; it must include, as the following excerpt shows, an absence of intent to obfuscate and manipulate perception.
"Civility is about more than just politeness, although politeness is a necessary first step. It is about disagreeing without disrespect, seeking common ground as a starting point for dialogue about differences, listening past one’s preconceptions, and teaching others to do the same. Civility is the hard work of staying present even with those with whom we have deep-rooted and fierce disagreements. It is political in the sense that it is a necessary prerequisite for civic action. But it is political, too, in the sense that it is about negotiating interpersonal power such that everyone’s voice is heard, and nobody’s is ignored.
And civility begins with us, ", including the writings of the Editorial Board, and all Times columnists.
To clarify in one sentence, Presumptuousness has no place in civil discourse.
2
Yeah right. If Dems are the party of family values then why are Sarah Palin and her family Republicans?
Aren't they supposed to be the model Americans family?
1
when the best the leadership can come up with is: "a better deal", its obvious to all there is no vision. "The New Republicans"? -terrible.
It would be nice if PBS was given enough financial support that it could broadcast its radio and tv news powerfully everywhere like FOX and Rush Limbaugh types do for Republican propaganda. Often in rural areas those liars are the only radio stations that come in. It's no wonder rural people believe republican lies and vote for them. Why haven't Democrats done that to promote their truthful and good policies?
2
the party of the people has been hijacked by a right leaning force, billary's cozy wall street connection with its own side door.
the party lost the '16 election, because it continued its abandonment of working men and women, rather preying on their differences (racial, ethnic, gender, etc.) than bringing them together through their common interest, their daily struggle to make a living with their labor.
the party lost the election because it continued to abandon jobless men and women who want work, rather exacerbating social and economic disadvantages, pandering for votes, than meeting common need as, for example, FDR did with the WPA/CCC.
the party lost the election because it lost the trust of too many voters who took its casual attitude toward north korea, mid-east hot spots, and, at home, the integrity of american citizenship, as dereliction of duty toward "the common defense."
the party lost the election because it censored internal debate, silencing progressive voices and cynically, adding conciliatory bits of bernie's agenda to its stumping...this, maybe more than anything else was the tipping point for voters who sensed inauthenticity from the start, "stonger together" took on a hollow ring while the self-centered "i'm with her," became the dominant.
all the rest, family values, patriotism, etc., are part and parcel of, not separate from, "the general Welfare" promised in the preamble...and by abandoning that, the party became truly republican.
Democrats aren't the new Republicans. To suggest that is to suggest the values of family, fairness and responsibility were ever Republican values. They're not, and never were.
This sums up why I have been a Democrat all my life as well as anything I can remember. Thank you Frank!
Actually Democrats need to go back to being Democrats - the party that represented the working class - white, black, hispanic, asian working class. Bill Clinton and the neoliberals sold out to the plutocrats to win elections, but abandoning Main Street for Wall Street. Excusing and covering up - includes Hillary Clinton - Bill Clinton’s sexual predatory behavior - including rape - over decades helped Republicans claim a higher moral ground (always deeply hypocritical). Democrats should go back to being Social Democrats - that’s pro-free market, pro-small business, pro-start up, pro-entrepreneur, pro-investing in lower and middle income citizens without creating permanent dependency on government , pro-universal healthcare, pro-public health, pro-universal education, pro-public media/News, pro-women’s rights, pro-human rights for all citizens, pro-world class infrastructure, pro-fiscal responsibility - that’s NOT democratic socialism (textbook definition of socialism is government controlling the means of production - we definitely don’t want that). The Republicans have become the party of Trump and Roy Moore family values and the Ryan/McConnell/Trump tax cuts for big corporations and plutocrats fiscal irresponsibility.
And this the same party that objected to stimulus package to bail a collapsed economy in 2008 to help working Americans. At that time they were worried about more debt, but now debt does not seem to bother them.
1
Excellent and hopeful perspective.
One tweak? Why is gay marriage the first example? Prioritization of important, but fringe social issues branded Dems as "out of touch" in 2016.
Let's promote health insurance for everyone, jobs, etc. prominently and sweep to victory in 2020.
I have maintained for some time that Bill Clinton was the best Republican president since Eisenhower.
Mr. Bruni, we had the Democratic president with the once-honorable quintessential "Republican" values between 2009-2017. And, in replacing Barack Obama with Donald Trump, America, as you wrote in your late-night column on November 8, 2016, "repudiated the black president."
So, America turned away from decency and honor and a man whose family values were in a fishbowl for eight years--and kicked him out of office to embrace a man for whom family values is anathema and foreign to any and all goodness and meritocracy.
President Obama governed from the center. Donald Trump is wading into deep waters from the right and without direction. He has disfigured what was once an honorable office. He has shone the lurid light on the hypocrisy of the Republican Party that stretches back almost 50 years. This is a party which wrenched away a president's prerogative in choosing a Supreme Court vacancy--and his party went along with it; looked the other way without the smallest blush of embarrassment.
Republicans do one thing well: tie the race card on the tail of America so it can chase it, distracted, while they loot the treasury and gerrymander districts so that the representation, if one chooses to call it that, is distorted beyond any semblance of what the Founding Fathers envisioned a quarter-millennium ago.
Republicans have sold their souls for money, summoning their god as witness as they steal away with what was once a grand experiment.
It's not too late to take it back. Is it?
1
I've asked the Democratic National Committee to nominate Al Franken for president. He's apologized for his past sexual misconduct, the one blot on a fine progressive record.
LINCOLN Stood for humane values. He would surely reject out of hand the monstrosity that the GOP has become. And welcome the fairness and humanity of the Democrats. Trump's record of business failures and financial wreckage is notorious. Now he has erected a fleet of Gambling Casinos at taxpayer expense, to gleam in the distance. They will become a ghost town, just as his abandoned casinos have in, say, Atlantic City. Trump, the psychopath, is only interested in what he can rip off from others. His attitude is powerfully reflected in the actions of the GOP. I believe Nancy Pelosi's assailing the tax bill as robbery of the people of the US. And Chuck Schumer's characterization of the tax bill as a lead weight that they GOPpers are purposely tying around their feet to pull them down to the bottom when it comes to getting re-elected, or elected in the first place. I see the Democrats as being clear about the difference between rational control and power, or the abuse thereof. No matter your politics, get ready for a tempest of lies that will batter all of our institutions until the outcome of the 2018 election. The GOPpers may change mainland USA into the next Puerto Rico. Remember folks, you read it here first!
IF the Democrats take the majority in the Congress the first order of business should be legislation to correct the disastrous Citizens United campaign finance ruling.
As long as money trumps votes our government will be for sale.
In other words, the Democrats should be the party of the center right while the Republicans are the party of the far right.
Thank you. I agree totally. This is the opposite side of defeat: opportunity. The Democrats must act, because the future of the country depends on it.
Don't overlook the impact of climate change on fiscal responsibility and national security. Trump recently eliminated climate change from his administration’s list of threats to national security. There is nothing more fiscally irresponsible than ignoring the impact climate change will have.
Agreed. Being fiscally conservative and socially liberal, there is simply no place for me in the Republican Party.
The parting on the left is now the parting on the right.
Mr. Bruni is right. I have never understood the hostility here in Utah to Democrats. Their values are much closer to the things Mormons care about -- family, education, hard work, individual responsibility. But do the Democrats ever capitalize on the Republicans' missteps? Not hardly. Why not? Because they are timid to tell the truth about what they believe. Because they give up on places they don't respect (hello, Alabama!). Because they stick with their coastal leaders who are out of date and out of touch.
1
All good points. The Democrats should use a list much like this and then call it "Our Compact With America"
When will the rank and file Democrats get it through their thick skulls that their party is as besotted by their rich donors as the Republican Party?
Democrats have been outsmarted and outmaneuvered by the Republicans for 40 years. You've lost the majority of the middle class, former union members, the middle of America, the south, the young, and the old. You're numbers are dwindling and there are far more independents than Democrats. Independents are fed up having to choose the lesser of two bad choices.
Sadly but tellingly, remaining Democratic voters are now conditioned to believe that half a loaf is better than none. When you settle for half each time you are left scrounging for crumbs. Maybe this will become clearer this coming summer when the Republicans unilaterally dismantle Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
Anyway, congratulations Democrats in a great job obstructing the Republicans this year. I'm sure you were doing your best though honestly I have no idea what it was that you were doing. On the bright side, I'm sure your Christmas bonuses will be forthcoming from your wealthy donors.
Good luck in 2018 Democrats! But consider this, for the millions of Americans who support a progressive vision of society, a.k.a. Denmark (yes Hillary, we all remember you reminding us we can't be Denmark), we recognize that with friends like you, who needs enemies?
2
In truth, the Clinton Democrats were "the new Republicans" back in the 90s, and their whole "Third Way" was about that -- Republican Lite, basically. Clinton Democrats are like 80s Republicans, so it's already been done. Hillary Clinton ran as an 80s Republican, but it didn't win over the Electoral College, which rewarded the increasingly fascist GOP.
The Democrats alienated working class voters by be Republican Lite from the 90s and onward, and paved the way for the GOP reactionary majority in government. Rather than continuing to lurch around as Republican Lite, Democrats need to energize the voters they've alienated when they abandoned the poor and the working and middle classes -- they need to go where the GOP can't and won't go, not following in the footsteps of the Clinton Democrats.
"... they (Republicans) constitute a language that Democrats can more credibly speak."
"Can" more credibly speak, but rarely do, and as shown in the outdone Scrooge like gift to the poor and the middle-class, the Democrats choose to not speak, as the tax heist benefits every Democrat in Congress and those Democrats who, in terms of wealth, outnumber the wealthiest Republicans.
Yes indeed, we have the perfect storm, beginning the latest phase of the decades long destruction of the meager wealth of the poor and the middle-class, a confluence of deadly enemies of the poor and the middle-class, such being our corporate owned government, corporations, and the wealthiest Republicans and Democrats.
What astounds me is how nearly every writer, in every mainstream media, ignores the damming silence of Democrats in Congress, continuing the long in place effort to hide their complicity from the American people.
Does anyone believe for a moment that if the Democratic party along with the media had blitzed the airwaves with a cohesive detailed campaign, this tax heist would have made it; it would not, and it would have shamed the Republicans into passing a kind of tax law which would have been significantly less egregious.
So talk all you wish about moral values, but please, please, stop with the obfuscation.
Incidentally, contrary to the presumptuousness exhibited by the Democratic party, most Americans are aware of the collusion between both parties.
Merry Christmas !!
1
The Democrats do not receive anything like the press coverage afforded to the far right. Anytime a couple dozen tea party members get together and wave some signs, it's a big news event. Bernie Sanders attracts crowds of thousands? Barely covered.
1
Yes, I agree, with respect to to media coverage, but there is no doubt that the nearly complete silence from the Democratic party, is telling, and if they had organized and shouted from the rooftops, the media would have had to give equal time; in fact a fly on a wall suggests Schumer and Pelosi had several discussions concerning fallout from their collusion.
Sanders, or a clone, is the only solution come 2020.
So, the Democrats are the "law and order" family values party of Richard Nixon? A lot of people are saying that, Frank!
The fire and ire in Mr Bruni's column is exquisite. I just wish he had written speeches for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
At one time I was Right leaning. Today I am a screaming Lefty. Guess what? I actually haven't changed very much. I stood still while the Right went so far Right that I can't even see them in the distance. Everything that wasn't crazy shifted over to the Left. So now I am one of those Liberals, a registered Democrat. And I'm not the only one out there.
2
Outrage over $1.5T in ten years? Where were your objections to $10 T in only 8? A lot of the new deficit will be interest on Democrat debt.
1
Re Paul Ryan: he is not a "wonk"; nor has he ever read Ayn Rand, as he claimed, or, he missed the point of her writing! Whatever happened to the idea of the "best and brightest."
Morality, decency, empathy, fiscal responsibility etc etc etc are nothing more than words of political convenience to be used as needed by the right. Conviction, principles, integrity and trust are nothing more than words that can be compromised as needed.
They represent the masses in appearance only. Deception rules the day because it is what gets them what they and their ruling class elites want. They have officially moved into and taken permanent residence in the Trump swamp. True swamp rot each and everyone of them.
1
Mr. Bruni, for all his brilliance, misses the point. This issue, that issue -- family values, fiscal probity, blah, blah, blah. It's not the logic of any given issue that impels people to vote for Trump and the GOP. It's the underlying unreason that does: the fear, hatred and bigotry. For example, does -- logically -- "family values" mean supporting gay marriage because doing so creates more families? Yes, absolutely. Can Democrats use this logic to their advantage? Absolutely not. Because when Republicans say they support "family values" what they really mean is that they hate and fear homosexuals. This is the real problem -- the dark unreason the GOP has long exploited to corral mass support in order to advance the interests of a tiny minority. It is why America is now ruled by a minority. It's a scary problem -- this ability of the GOP to get people to vote against their own interests -- because it suggests the potential in this country for fascism.
If Obama would've thrown one banker, just one Wall Street executive found guilty of the many securities fraud and sarbanes -oxley violations, in jail then we wouldn't be in this mess. Alas, he wouldn't even let DOJ prosecute, blankfein, Fuld, any of the countrywide crooks or anyone else guilty of serious fraud. Think how the midterms in 2010 would've been different, with the paid protesters of the tea party crying about deficit reduction as somehow a populist concern.
The Democrats were once the party of the working class. But as the party embraced Free Trade and Globalism, they lost the working class vote. Thus we have Trump.
Making the lives of Working Class people better is the key to winning elections. With the Republican control of congress, we can finally see what a conservative government will do for the working class and middle class. It may take until 2020 or beyond to finally see the consequences of Republican rule. However, if the Republican policies fail, well nothing will stop a Democrat landslide.
1
While the Democratic party has a messaging issue because of the last election's results, there is yet no one voice who can speak for it. But this should not be a cause for concern. A new message is being formulated and tweaked at the grass roots by new candidates running for local office and whose agenda are directed to solving concrete problems that matter to people. These new leaders will emerge in time for 2018 and certainly 2020. I'd rather these be the ones to develop the party's platform and positions than policy wonks whose only experience has been theoretical or shaped entirely by their time on congressional staffs with the input of various lobbyists.
3
Are Democrats up for the challenge? I'm not convinced they are. It is easier to divide than unite and the Republicans are experts at this. Time is critical in pulling the Democratic party together, but there seems to be no collective voice that resonates with Democrats like the messages put together by Republicans when they were not in power.
2
Let's hope that Democrats don't embrace the true values which have been keeping Republicans in office, which include racism, homophobia and xenophobia. It is not likely that Democrats will actually convince those who have been voting Republican that they will represent their true values, which often are not directly related to what Bruni is talking about.
Where Democrats can get an advantage is in representing the economic interests of the great majority. It appears that many who have been voting Republican are finally starting to become aware of how they have been deceived - Trump made perfunctory "populistic" promises and crushed the big-money establishment candidates. Democrats should stop trying to chase the big money for campaigns (and themselves?) and offer candidates and policies that will reduce the still-growing inequality.
3
Bernie Sanders answers that description.
All well and good Frank. You take the words out of my mouth. But it is not enough - not nearly enough. Voters need to hear exactly what they are going to get if they vote for the person at the podium. Balanced budgets are great but what goes into my pocket?
I fear that the next tool that the Roypublicans will hand us will be an attack on Medicare and Medicaid - those old folks and disabled are really quite lazy and need to just pull themselves up by their boot straps, right?
As has been said so many times, the Dems need to develop a simply understood playbook - a platform that does more than demonize Roypublicans. The average citizen glazes over when you talk about trillions and deficits. But you might get his attention when you tell him that his healthcare will cost much more and that his parents on Social Security might need money due to cut backs in the "safety net".
And if you really want to impact that group of voters who are independent or disillusioned, find a messianic voice. We need a Kennedy, an FDR. Flawed as they were, they were who we needed at the time. I didn't "like" either one as men. But I wish one was here now. They actually loved people. Mostly.
5
Since I was a child the Republicans have been the holier than thou party of morality. In fact, they even called themselves "The Moral Majority." This is why it is so astounding to see what they have become. If anyone had done one tenth of what has already been proven Trump did with the Russians, he would have been labelled a traitor. But not now. They were the ones who were so quick to judge Bill Clinton for his adultery, but they now look the other way at physical sexual attacks and even child molestation. Mr. Bruni is right. What the Republicans now represent is immoral by any standard that we previously thought as American. The Democratic party is strangely silent on all of this. WE are the party that is actually trying to live up to the ideals that this country is supposed to represent. We need to make that clear to to all. The Republican party is destroying this country and destroying our sense of justice. Democrats need to make it clear that it is we who are trying to make America great again.
7
Democrats are the party of freedom - freedom of personal choice, even if that choice is objectionable to some or considered immoral by others.
Freedom means i can make my own choices, especially when you consider them mistaken.
Freedom means i respect your right to object when you feel i"m mistaken.
Freedom dies when your choices, your objections or you opinions of morality you seek to legislate on me.
Freedom means you must respect my rights, like i respect yours.
4
Amen brother, amen!
Now, let us voters get out there and support the the truth and get rid of these Republicans at every level of government! We need a Democratic or Independent leader who will put together a real economic package for America that lifts everyone, not just the wealthy and business, but everyone!
Everyone, please get out there and sing the gospel of TRUTH, the Republicans must go!
6
Democracy is dying.
We are Russia, and it makes little sense to applaud the opposition party when it, at its core, is owned by many of the same billionaire cutthroat capitalistic mobsters who own everything and most elected officials.
One person, one vote has become one dollar, one vote, just like in Argentina or other banana republics.
I am a now socialist, and now see that laws need to be set in concrete to make sure the poor get jobs, food, housing, medical care, public education, and political power. The Democrats cannot do that.
Go Bernie.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
4
The prettiest lie seems to be the one Republican voters fall for all the time. They're special. No one works harder, no one prays harder, no one suffers more and no one deserves more. If I hear one more White, Male, American complain about his birthright being underappreciated, I will remind him he was born with three aces and, if he couldn't win with that, don't blame the cards.
5
Open your eyes, Frank. The Democratic Party is not where we need it to be. It is stil elitist and out of touch, and too into special interests.
4
Republicans new motto for government debt: do as we use to say, not as we just did.
2
I think Mr. Bruni is being somewhat tongue-and-cheek by pointing out that everything the Republicans claimed to have stood for was a complete sham, so much so that the Democrats come closer to embodying those precepts than they do.
The idiomatic expression is "tongue in cheek." While Bruni may be pointing out an irony, he is not being sarcastic (which is what "tongue in cheek implies.") It is fair to disagree with him, but not to mischaracterize his intent.
Let's be realistic. Neither party has the interests of the average American. Trump was right in saying that the system is rigged. It is rigged. To win a seat in Washington or in a state House you need money, big money. Unless you are wealthy, you need backers - read corporate America. In my state, our two Democratic Governors - outgoing and incoming - are both funded by Big Money (corporations). Are they going to vote for our best interests? Not on your life. This is not a GOP or a Democrat issue - this is how our system works now. We the people have no power and no voice.
6
While I understand and can appreciate the rhetorical framing Bruni has used here, as a Democrat I in no way want the party associated with any form of Republicanism, new or old. The positive beliefs and values Bruni aptly outlines are Democratic ones that Republicans have falsely laid claim to for far too long.
Instead what Bruni has highlighted (as have many before him) is that the reality of the Republican Party’s actions for decades has not in any way been aligned with its rhetoric. It is a party who talks one set of principles, but lives by another … a party of almost pure, unbridled hypocrisy.
1
Our need to be self-identified with a tribe has led many otherwise decent folks to follow the GOP off a cliff into the abyss of immorality. Over the course of many years - their professed values have been shaved away by the leaders who they routinely vote for simply because they are republicans. This fact needs to be highlighted because democrats often act the same way.
Where in the Constitution does it say we must have a two-party political system? And why are there only two major parties? Why are the rules in Congress subject to the two-party system where only the majority leader of the PARTY can bring bills to the floor for debate and votes? This is not what the founding fathers had in mind at all. And these folks swear an oath to uphold the Constitution!
No wonder we are a mess politically! We, the governed, don't have a chance to be really represented do we? How can we compete with our piddly campaign donation of $50 with the millions of dollars a few rich donors contribute to campaigns? We desperately need public campaign financing to get the big money out. And we need a Constitutional amendment stating that corporations are not people - an obvious truth to every living soul who is not a Supreme Court Justice. The will of the people is not being served at all by our pathetic political system and our pathetic yielding our own values to loyalty to party over country.
2
If Dems plan to use their assault on Al Franken as the standard of morality, they are doomed again. What’s so moral about acting without evidence and engaging in a witch hunt? This act hurt our Party in a big way and the fact that political grandstanding was allowed to take precedence over rational examination of evidence is a sign that Dems are shooting themselves in the foot - as usual.
2
Sir,
I prefer the dems over the republicans but both parties have been infected by a plague. A Coup d'état has already occurred. Corporations are pulling the strings of government. This is the most urgent issue we face and most of our Citizens are unconscious! Both parties have sold us down the river!
5
blah blah blah.
The Dems are hapless at messaging. They against bad stuff and for good stuff.
Peachy. Who can relate to that? Not me, and I am a liberal.
The GOP could always message. "Freedom" "Pro-business". "Responsibility"
It simply does not matter what they do. It has all played out in front of our eyes.
The Dems need to say what they are for. Short, simple words. Without the mumbling explanations that confuse the issue. "Pro Worker". "Security". "Shared Responsibilities built our country". SOMETHING.
No. It is just blah blah blah.
Great, great column and I couldn't agree more.
Thank you, Frank Bruni.
I’ve never been prouder to be a Democrat. We need to flaunt all these things - family values, fiscal responsibility, patriotism, the whole shebang.
Republicans have surrendered all values in the cause of undisguised greed and hatred.
2
The old saw about Democrats was to pin them as “tax and spend” liberals.
Republicans now seem to think that “no-tax but spend” is fiscally responsible. Hogwash.
This is no different than a friend who has lost their income, but keeps spending money by “putting it on the card”.
At some point the bill has to be paid. The GOP used to make that a viable issue, but the hypocrisy is now evident for all to see. Vote them out ASAP. Hurry up, 2018!
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ManhattanWilliam New York, NY Pending Approval
So-called Democrats might want to think twice next time they criticize someone like Hillary Clinton for "not being a progressive" even thought she supported paid family leave, overhauling the criminal justice system, universal health care, raising the federal minimum wage and being "too attached to Wall Street." Evil people like Susan Sarandon who said that "Trump might even be better than Clinton in the long run" are the ones I really hate for the current mess we're facing as a country and as individual decent people who don't like seeing whatever was left that was good about this land being destroyed in such a vulgar and unapologetic way. Well, now we see the results coming to fruition. WORD OF WARNING TO GOP: it's easier to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.
3
All of this is true enough but Democrats desperately need fresh leadership to make these points with energy and conviction. The Democrats should be worried that Bernie Sanders is still the most popular politician in America. While I would not diminish Bernie or his message, he is not the leader for 2020 and beyond.
A great opportunity has been presented to make the case for liberal policies. Due to the extreme measures of the Republican party, in both plutocratic policies and anti-democratic governance, normally inattentive voters seem to be alert to an extent not seen in a long time. The wild unpopularity of both the tax bill and the ACA repeal efforts, combined with Trump's historic unpopularity and manifest unfitness for office, create a truly unique opening for Democrats to seize the public imagination.
Yet, this is the Democrats we are talking about. I for one sigh whenever I see Chuck Schumer delivering some weak, uninspiring response to the latest Republican crime against decency and democracy. We can and must do better. Voters cannot be permitted to see tired and familiar Democratic faces as part of the problem, even if they aren't.
Bernie demonstrated that passion, charisma, and authenticity can generate more excitement and money than cautious corporate triangulation. The Democrats badly need a next generation that can respond to this perilous moment with the boldness it requires.
I think the Dems should look at combo old/young ticket for the next big election. Joe Biden would be my choice with a young, promising running mate who has been thoroughly vetted for all the attributes required by a individual to lead a modern democracy. Call it an apprenticeship under a mentor who is of proven mettle.
I would also look to the Dems to throw aside "tradition" and rigorously prosecute those who willingly worked to dismantle the country to their personal advantage. Let them work on their tan in Leavenworth.
For all the offenses and perfidy of the Republicans, it would wonderful if, for once, Clinton/Obama Democrats like Frank Bruni examined their own cant and ignorance -- the stuff they've take unthinkingly from the very same Republican party, since the days of Ronald Reagan, and now call their own.
"Fiscal responsibility"? Is Frank Bruni still unaware that cutting spending under conditions of inadequate demand will actually increase debt ratios and make things worse?
If Democrats are determined to become the party of Pete Peterson. Third Way and the Fiscal Scolds, their future is grim, as is the country's.
1
More than one GOP officeholder declared publicly that the "donors" demanded this tax bill, verifying what we all suspected anyway. Astonishing candor from habitual liars!
So we vote them all out in 2018, and devise a new tax bill that treats all citizens fairly.
1
I'm happy to think that the Democrats might be the party that Frank Bruni expects they could be. However, Democrats shouldn't expect to inherit these platforms by default. They must work actively to highlight the hypocrisy of Republicans (what happened to "not one penny..."?) and articulate their platforms and policies--one of which should be "clean elections". Family values, fiscal responsibility and patriotism are great platforms, but they don't move our system away from the legalized bribery that has corrupted our system and gotten us to where we are today.
It should be clear by now to any reasonable person that the word "hypocrite" means nothing to Republicans and its supporters, including all of its self-described evangelical/religious.zealots.
Thus, I would argue that discussing their lack of character and shame is a waste of time. Indeed, I would further argue time is better spent discussing the strategy and tactics needed to take back the House, Senate, and White House as soon as possible .
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I am ok with the comparison in terms of the issues to compare. But i am not truly ok to be called, the new Republican. There is no honor to that, no compliment. The reason i have been a democrat since i became a US citizen many many years ago (i wish everyone would have to actually give it a thought as we do during the naturalization process), it is because my most conservative values (i have them) or my most liberal ones have room under the room of the Democratic party. The spectrum is an asset not a liability. Also, and probably most important to me is that we, in the democratic side seem to learn about history, and correct mistakes. Like the Wallace case, and many others.
On the opposite side, the GOP’s disregard for history is so inadequate, they find themselves with candidates that support those values of slavery and everything fought during the Civil War and Lincoln as their all time GOP leader or the very notion why the US joined/entered WWII.
I reject the notion, i am the “new republican”. I am a proud democrat who embraces the center.
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Mr. Bruni,
You left out one of Trump's most egregious and obnoxious tendencies and that is his constant lying about anything and everything. The Republicans in Congress haven't and will never call him out on this issue. Even the Democrats need to emphasize this assault on truth more often.
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Now, how are those hypocritical Republicans going to keep this government working after they decide to borrow the money Trump stated in the election that he would never need? From where is the money, in excess of the current Republican government taxes, coming? Are they going to print it or borrow it and if they borrow it how are they going to not raise the national debt, that which Trump stated he was going to eliminate when he got elected? OK Democrats, now you can take back some control of this government and actually discard the tax cuts the Republicans have supposedly passed as they will need your support to do that which Trump said he never would do and that is require the American taxpayers to borrow more from their children.
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I'd go a step further and say that those who make up the establishment wing of the Democratic Party are the only true conservatives in the current party landscape, if by "conservative" we mean those who seek to preserve and maintain social and political institutions and the status quo. The Republicans, in contrast, are doing everything in their power to uproot or undermine these institutions, in particular the 20th-century institutions that were created to make the United States a more just, equal and secure nation. This makes them RADICALS, in an absolutely literal sense (fr. L. radix "root"), and we shouldn't be referring to them as anything else. They are NOT "conservatives." They are authoritarian, reactionary radicals. Call them what they are.
The Democrats are also the pro-life party because pro-choice is pro-life. Access to safe and legal abortion saves the lives and the health of women. They preserve her ability to have children in the future. Access to affordable contraception lessens the need for abortion.
The Democrats are the party of the Bible and all religious traditions that teach care for the least among us. The Democrats follow the teaching of Jesus when they insist on equal rights for people of color, women, and the LGBTQIA community. Jesus taught: In EVERYTHING do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The Democrats follow Hebrew Scriptures on the question of immigration. The scriptures teach we ought to welcome the stranger because we were once strangers in the land. Infrastructure spending is a biblical mandate to rebuild the waste cities.
The GOP and the so-called Christians who support them have revealed themselves to be hypocrites.
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In my opinion Bruni’s column lays the groundwork for corporatist Hillary clones such as Gillibrand to seize the moment. I fear that this tone-deaf party will continue to be blind to the level of loathing that voters hold for the sanctimonious, so-called zero tolerance and neoliberal wing of this party, those who have enriched themselves through engagement in morally and ethically questionable behavior, but know how to exploit a moment in history.
The independent vote is critical and we will not earn it by pushing Wall Street friendly candidates like Gillibrand. She found it profitable to defend Philip Morris tobacco company for nine years with no compunction.
Franken, for all the boorishness of his behavior, demonstrates much more decency and effective support of working people than the opportunistic Kirsten.
If we’re going to clone anyone, let it be Sanders and Warren. Party affiliation is going to become increasingly meaningless as time elapses.
A democratic socialist is what the these dangerous times are calling for, and the polls on values of our population reflect this, even if people misunderstand what that term means.
Let’s be fearless for a change. Sanders was and his popularity has soared.
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Frank, you are a patriot who embraces the Constitution and who fulfills your duty to the people by being a member of the free press; in other words, a Democrat. Thank you for this outstanding column showing that Republicans coopted and usurped ideals that Democrats truly live by. Their hypocrisy has been revealed in their loyalty to a tyrant without any regard for decency, the truth, or the rule of law. It is high time for them and Trump to exist left followed by a bear.
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You lost me with Al Franken. Progressives do not fight injustice with injustice. If Democrats are to do this correctly, it will be in a just way. Our Party should not use people to advance a cause. That sir, is an injustice. We should not stand for that ever, if we are to be better than that other Party.
Democrats thinking (or perhaps wishing) this widely disliked horrific legislation hugely cutting taxes for the super rich at the expense of everyone else and a 1.5 trillion hole in the deficit will drive them back to power in 2018.
Unfortunately they ignore the that Trump and the Republicans did win control of government by appealing to facts, logic, truth, or decency but rather by appealing to greed and hate. Those who voted based on greed just got what they wanted and the rest of them could care less about anything else but hate which Trump will surely keep giving them plenty of.
For an historic model just think of the majority who fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War - many of whom were nearly as economically oppressed by the plantation system as the Slaves – fighting to uphold slavery nearly to their dying breath. If there is anything we have learned over the last 150 years since then – with a powerful reminder in just the last few years – it is that for many of their followers the Civil War never ended. Today we are looking at a nation not so far removed from what it might be like if the South had won the war.
Democrats, and all people of principle should be deeply concerned that the forces that gave us our current government and this abomination of a tax bill will not end with the next election or any election coming soon. Let us also not forget the goal of the South was not just to uphold slavery but also to destroy the Union.
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Republicans colluded to pass this bill. They will pay with their political lives. The Union is at stake.
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In the midst of Washington's current madness its tempting to see the Democrats as our saviors. But alas, they are not.
"Democrats are the law-and-order party." Really, like the politics of mass incarceration?
"Democrats are the party of national security". Like spying on American citizen's the that NSA is doing and then lying about it before congress?
"Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility". Didn't this game of bank de-regulation and casino capitalism begin with Bill Clinton?
"Democrats are the party of patriotism." Well they certainly are where war is concerned. But while Republicans may have started these wars the Democrats voted for and supported every one of them.
Sorry, these are not the Democrats of FDR. They have drunk the campaign money Kool Aid, just as the GOP has and while they may have a different step, they dance to the same corporate tune that the GOP does.
What Trump and the GOP have done is to declare that the will and welfare of the voters mean nothing and that democracy is dead.
The corrupt Republican party will soon face the revenge of a furious populous and will go the way if the Whigs and Know Nothings.
What needs to happen is for the Democrats to move to where the majority of the people are and that is well left of center. We should be looking to western European democracies for a model.
In 2021 there will likely be a Democratic Congress and President and this travesty can be repealed; starting with an emergency tax on those who benefited the most and a repeal of the difference between earned and unearned income, If it is income and taxable the tax rate should be the same.
In the meanwhile the Democratic Congress can stop the automatic cuts to SS and Medicare. In the long run for the 21st century we need a mixed economy which is partially socialized, such as the energy sector and big pharma and healthcare. . Triple the funding for the IRS and authorize two new seats for Associate Justices of the Suo. Ct. and applint liberals.
We need a positive message, and we should quit being such snobs that we reject a message of positive platitudes. A democratic politician that believes in these values, and can expound on them as stated in this article, can reach the hearts & minds of normal Americans. Keep it up!
The modern Republicans are an abomination, an affront to our humanity. "Deplorable" is a perfectly accurate term for anyone who continues to support them. "Lost" is another, more forgiving description. If the GOP holds power much longer, I'm afraid the only word applicable to our country will be "finished."
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Through the years I usually voted Democratic, as their candidates seemed much more in tune with women's issues, reproductive rights, education initiatives and fairness in things like housing and healthcare which were important to me. I have voted Republican now and then when their candidate just seemed smarter, more creative, less corrupt, stronger on defense or foreign affairs, etc. I recall voting for Reagan in his first term, and (I cringe to recall) Rudy Giuliani for Mayor.
No matter the outcome of past elections, no matter which political party was in power, no matter if I had voted for the winner or the loser, I had no doubt that political norms, checks and balances, the judiciary, the free press and the informed will of American voters would keep us safe, like hurricane shutters on a beach house.
In my 7th decade it has come to this. Norms are sneered at. The free press is "The Enemy of the People." GOP cowards who know the truth about Trump have made a dirty, greedy bargain. Informed voters are now "elites" to be mocked. Ignorance is cool. Women's bodies are men's fidget spinners. 'Republican values' is an oxymoron.
The rights and freedoms I have enjoyed all my life must now be actively protected and fought for. Evangelical Christianity is in the way. So is Fox News. So is every politician beholden to billionaire donors. So is every sycophant willing to lie for Trump. No rest for the weary.
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The Republican Party has gone whipsawing off into lunacy. If Democrats are smart, they will seize the center.
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If the Democrats are speaking the language of human concern against the deliberately distracting babble of the GOP, good, but unless the words fall flat, the party must devise concrete solutions. It must walk the talk or be trampled by the storm trooper boots.
Trumpism is the New Republican Party. It embraces a twice-divorced president who jets around in Air Force planes to promote his real estate ventures. It rewards those who have paid their dues by bigly supporting Republican campaigns with massive tax cuts. It restricts immigration, which encourages entrepreneurs to set up businesses outside the US that can hire talented (if potentially "terrorist" or sexually ambiguous) employees who don't pass the Trump smell test to work and live here. Trumpism is the new model for a smaller, less populous, more homogenous America First. We are building Trump Walls that will surround our country -- perhaps a Trump Dome as well to contain the polluted air and water and despoiled lands that Trumpism is generating.
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I am so happy that my Democratic Party is now recognized as the Party of true human values. It always was, but now it is fully see. As such. I pray every day that we can fight our way back on every level to rid ourselves of the awful people who have taken over our government and country.
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Excellent Frank. Thank you from the bottom of the heart of a disgusted Democrat watching some of the most evil doings in Washington by the Republican cabal that I have ever experienced in my 60 years on Earth. Reason, rationality and compassion will eventually overcome this stain ... America is greater than today's moment.
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The eternal advice of the punditocracy to the Democrats to move right hasn't really worked out too well, has it? Other than making a few campaign consultants and their stenographers rich, of course.
Republicans do fret about that bloating the national debt. Except when it's engineered such that the lost money finds its way into the back accounts of them and their generous donors.
When the Democrats return they can worry about the poor, the infrastructure, and lousy American education.
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Trump has destroyed any GOP claim about just about everything that’s civil and normal.
Anything done by the Democrats in the future that is criticized by the GOP now has a hypocrisy marker thanks to their greed and blind following of this disaster president.
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Listening to senators from both parties debate the tax reform bill, it is unbelievable that the damaging facts repeated by virtually all Democrats fall on deaf ears of most Republicans in attendance. How long will this Republican charade go on? Now that they are on the verge of passing some really atrocious legislation, it should be easier for Democrats to prove that their ideas would have brought positive change to the country except they were totally ignored and blocked by the Republicans. Democrats have to go out and promote their values, lest they be defined by the opposition. They must compare and contrast their policies with this administration which is treating the country like a bull in a china shop. Push the old Democratics out of the picture (we know who they are), and play off the R lies. Next Nov. is ripe for the picking.
Conservatives lost their moral high ground long ago, if they ever had it. Just one example is the Catholic church, arguably one of the more conservative religious organizations, which for decades (or longer) protected hundreds of known rapists in its leadership.
If you want to say that Democrats have the moral high ground on nearly every issue, then fine -- that's been obvious for decades. But please don't insult them by calling them "the new Republicans".
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Appreciate this tactic, Mr. Bruni. Well done. Hope this piece gets very widely distributed.
I agree. However, this all seems to be about branding. Unfortunately, the Democrats have chosen to brand themselves as the party of victimhood. According to them any group that has been wronged can justify rage and demand reparations. I wish the Democratic party clearly stood for justice, opportunity, science, and ...Democracy. However, while the Republicans are pushing through their disgustingly evil agenda that eviscerates the judicial system and takes money away from children of tomorrow to enrich the wealthy of today, the Democrats with gusto cannibalize their own (e.g., Al Franken mentioned at the end of the article) without any due process or proportionality. No, that does not give them the higher moral ground. It is also a party of political opportunists who just happen to be really bad at branding. Be the party of fiscal responsibility, greater opportunity, justice and equal rights, and evidence-based governing!
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So many pants on fire with this bogus tax reform, it is amazing the Capitol
isn't a pile of ashes.
As for the Dems, they stand for the right things, but never win the war of words
against the GOP. Very frustrating.
Sorry, but the whole system is corrupt. The only 'God' is money, worshipped religiously by both parties. The U.S. needs a third party like never before. In Spain the new party, Ciudadanos, is making positive positives waves throughout the nation, including Catalonia, while in Germany you have the FDP.
The U.S. Duopoly guarantees exchanges of favours and maintenance of the status quo..
"Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility because they don’t pretend that they can afford grand government commitments — whether distant wars or domestic programs — without collecting the revenue for them."
I'll have what this guy is having!
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sure frank, only republicans "tell lies." keep telling yourself that, as democratic politicians use the poor/middle class for their votes and deliver essentially nothing, decade after decade.
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But, Frank, there is no fiscal irresponsibility here. You just aren't looking far enough into the crystal ball. The plan was always there: make the base happy with the tax cut and then once the deficit starts to rise you take away entitlements. It won't be the government that is causing their taxes to rise, it's the lazy, shiftless people who won't work and expect the government to support them. The base will be more than willing to take the support away. The only fly in the ointment will be if wages don't rise and there's no major job creation. Then the base will be cutting their own throats by eliminating government assistance. So the plan has been there all along: take away their food stamps, take away their health care, take away their ability to retire, take away their public education and they will be more than willing to go to work and get off the dole. But don't worry, there won't be anyone starving, or dying in the streets, or children suffering. Because Republicans are only interested in taking away the booze, the drugs, the cigarettes, and the movie tickets. Because that's all these people do with their government assistance.
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If the consequences are bad, and I don't see how they won't be (we've tried this again and again at both the federal and state levels and it does not create growth) it will be the fault of Obama and Clinton. Somehow, Trump's base thinks that Clinton has an administration the way Trump has. Don't ask me how they believe this, but they do.
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In short, Republican and republican voters are hypocrites.
Republicans are destabilizing the tax code, are delegitmizing the FBI, are destabilizing the healthcare system, and destabilizing the national debt, among other things. This is fundamentally an unAmerican Party.
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The Republicans are on the immoral side of every issue. The Evangelicals should be evangelizing the Christian values in the Democratic Party. Today's biggest sin of the Republican Party is the theft of our treasury. The tax plan should be called the great robbery. It will have taken1.5 Trillion dollars from the treasury that belongs to us all and our creditors.
In the next 7 years it will increase the taxes of all but the plutocrats in order to pay our debts. They say that future congress will keep that from happening, the collection agencies have a saying for promises like that, and its not the check is in the mail. All credit mgrs. know what it is .
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The reality is that the Democrats and the New York Times are both on the sidelines of history. Democrats need to quit throwing stones and work with Republicans on important legislation. They need to define what they stand for by what they do, not by the accusations they make.
The Republican's are rarely about what they talk about. They are about getting rid of Social Security, Medicare and making their pay masters rich. They are on their way to both. The Social Security and Medicare parts may have to wait, but over trillion dollar enrichment starts January.
Mean while the Democrats are becoming more Republican like. For years they have been shifting to the right and making the same pay masters the Republicans richer and not prosecuting the banks or drug companies for their past transgressions.
What we need are Democrats that stand up for the middle and lower class, not the upper class! Lets vote!
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and who might we vote for?
"Under Trump’s thumb and spell, the Republican Party is watching the pillars of its brand crumble."
If there is a silver lining to this President it is the crumbling of their brand, which for decades now, has been the biggest marketing scam in America. It is, however, frustrating to constantly read about Trump's effect on the GOP because he is not the creator of today's GOP but is actually the creation of the GOP. For decades they've attacked the very fabric of this country and in 2017 we are dealing with theit self-created Frankenstein. The media should stop protecting the GOP band of merry thieves as they are just as culpable as DJT.
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With the immanent passage of this 'tax bill' travesty that so redundantly further enriches the wealthiest while offering American workers and their families, at most, nothing more than token (and blatantly temporary) relief, GOP must now signify Greed Over People. Can't wait for the 'town halls' that result from the sorry consequences of these cynical manoeuvres and the inevitable tsunami that removes these 'conservative' opportunists from office forever.
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I'm a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, and would like nothing more than to see the main of the Democratic political agenda achieved -especially as I see it torn down piece by piece in these times.
But I'm discouraged by the Democrats' messaging fecklessness and political clumsiness. They "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity", to borrow another politician's phrase.
Say what you will about the Republicans, but when it really matters to them (such as in passing an execrable tax bill), they swallow their scruples and vote in unison. And that act will fly, because they've imbued their base with the conservative message; whether it's moral or immoral doesn't matter, because it resonates with the base. End of story (end of country).
With all the money floating around in the "branding" industry (I've benefited from some of it myself), it's inexcusable that liberal congresspeople can think to rest on their laurels because the righteousness of their message speaks for itself. That sort of smugness and sloth is what lost them the presidency; please let them not make the same mistake in 2018.
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The Dems need to start now to put ads on TV calling out the Repubs on all of their scams to enrich the already wealthy to the detriment of the vast majority of the American people. Don't wait until the last minute to do this: DO IT NOW!
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You presume that the outcomes achieved by the DFL politicians are due to their ineptitude. The democrats are conservatives and support the wealthy. They selectively choose a few identity politics issues to convince us otherwise, but they care about the money and how much they can get. Generally speaking that is. There are a few individuals who want to work for the people, but the party generally is just like the GOP.
That's exactly right and as I've said to others countless times, and in this newspaper, the Democratic party's main problem is not that they do not have values and ideas consistent with the majority of voters, the Democratic party outright refuses to communicate with voters. The ACA is a good example. All day, everyday, GOP legislators we're on national media outlets screaming how the bill was such a "failure," while Democratic legislators said virtually nothing. They continue to stay in smug silence, and the GOP wins a super majority in 2018, we're done as a democracy.
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Brilliantly put. I hope someone is listening...
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Frank Bruni is absolutely correct.
It's important to separate the Democratic party leadership from citizens on the "left." They are not the same. Since Ronald Reagan was elected, the party has shifted to the right and, frankly, has done little-to-nothing in supporting populist legislation. For example, the ACA was a flaccid compromise based on a Heritage Foundation (conservative) platform. Clinton agreeing to eliminate Glass-Steigall was a sin. Also, go back to JWB, when the Dems went along (almost unanimously) with the lies to involve us in the unnecessary military engagement in the ME. And in all manner of consumer protection (bailing out the banks, not properly investigating and punishing foreclosure fraud, restricting predatory lending, etc.) the Dems vote like milk-toast Republicans. Dem politicians might as well be Republicans for all the good they've done.
There's something else: I believe the U.S. has arrived at this unfortunate, oligarchic place, because most Americans have themselves moved to the right. Even with the gerrymandering and the other undemocratic mechanisms employed by the right, fundamental things such as publicly funded schools, spending on infrastructure and protection of the social safety net should be vigorously defended by liberals but they don't seem to inspire the outrage or public action by citizens as one might expect. Perhaps Americans want a more Darwinian country where it's every man/woman for himself.
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Democrats can take advantage of the GOP blunders by holding course and purging the forces of negativity in their own ranks.
2
No, I don’t want to be either an old or new Republican.
The Republicans renounced prayer, piety and patriotism for the power to do anything they want; whether it’s Trump’s agenda or the “establishment’s. But, Democrats haven’t been all “decent and modest” either.
There are a few good and a whole lot of bad people in both parties and it may be necessary to give up both old designations and find a new one.
These next few days, when some vital legislation has to be passed before the end of the year could be the testing ground of a “new center.”
Those members of the old parties, who can meet in the center and get some things done could be the start of something new
2
Frank Bruni should write the Democratic Party platform for the coming elections. He cuts to the meat of the fight and heart and soul of the what we stand for. Good job, Frank!
7
The Democrats will break up the way the Republicans have. Into a version of the Republicans (obviously, they already are) and a group that has no interest in being Republicans.
1
"President Trump is smashing the pillars of the G.O.P. brand. Democrats should grab them."
Frank - thanks for rejecting the pillars of the Democrats message for the last 50 years and encouraging a shift the traditional Republican values. I couldn't agree with you more.
1
No, Democrats are NOT the new Republicans!
In the words of America's cowboy philosopher Will Rogers: "I don't belong to any organized political party. I am a Democrat."
6
Democrats should immediately propose the following: The NATIONAL DEBT REDUCTION DEFENSE ACT. This can be a VAT tax on goods and services, with the specific purpose of reducing the national debt to protect the long term national security interests of the United States.
2
Only if the VAT is focused on luxury goods and home purchases over $1M.
The best way to reduce National Debt (actually the annual deficit must be addressed first), is to give the workers a raise.
With a living wage people can buy their own food and healthcare (reduces Food Stamps and Medicaid for 40 hour a week workers) and pay some taxes.
"Who among us doesn’t care about family values, defined justly and embraced honestly?"
Look at the facts: Republicans! "Family values" are nothing but a slogan and shibboleth to the majority of Republicans. They voted for Trump. Case closed.
"Who doesn’t see the good in patriotism, tradition and decency?"
The large majority of Republicans: same evidence.
Republicans sure TALK about "values" ... but what they do is now actually considerably worse than what people who don't talk this up all the time do.
7
Where is the voice for the Democrats? That one person who can effectively communicate the warning that the congressional Republicans are set to go after Medicare and Social Security (shamefully calling this crusade reform) and will do so now that the've tasted the blood from tax legislation. It's good that most of the current leaders have values that honor America, but there is no one voice who can or will warn of the peril that lurks in 2018 when the agents of greed and division reconvene. The essence of solid opposition is the ability to rally the public. The Democratic voices are either passive or tired. Find that Galahad who combines intellect with a thirst for combat who has the talent and energy to eloquently persuade the public that even Susan Collins will put party ahead of country and this cannot be tolerated in a great nation like America.
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If there is no one at the top, and there really is not, then the message should be sent down to the grass roots and every one of those Dems running for local offices should shout the same positive message which should center on the workers.
But that would require organization.... and from the Dems.....
"The Democratic voices are either passive or tired" - Agree. The outrage over Sens Susan Collins and Bob Corker bought off so easily by GOP leadership shows the Dems are either sleeping or are "tired" - the Dems seemed content that it was a one-day story...In any event, it's past time to remove the Clintons' grip on the Dem party and give young leaders a chance to emerge, or accept the fact the Dem party will remain in second place for years to come.
You should read up on the most popular politician in the country for a whole year now: Senator Bernie Sanders. He’s barnstorming the country speaking to these issues, and the ideas from his presidential campaign are highly popular among voters. The NY Times is against him, however, so if you only read this newspaper, you’re not going to know that.
2
The real tragedy here is not that "Republicans are watching the pillars of their brand crumble underneath them," but that they are taking a battering ram to the pillars of democracy with every single enactment of their policies.
7
How about stealing this line from the GOP: “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.”
Green jobs.
Jobs creating new infrastructure.
Jobs repairing our existing infrastructure.
Jobs for educators.
Jobs in NEW technology.
NOT more wars and clinging to fossil fuels and trying to make us a country of hedge fund managers and Uber drivers.
Try this message Democrats: We want to build this country in ways that will help us all for generations to come. They want to squeeze every last dollar out of us and the earth before they die, leaving nothing left.
4
The Republican Party is the party of business.
With that said you can see the disconnect between who they say they are, what they stand for, and who they really are. As my father used to say, "they're just a business, only a business!"
4
It is very hard for the Democratic Party to function as a party for those who are poor, weaker, less affluent and less educated and to also present the sanity and centrality that we saw in Hillary. I think the Democratic Party's true calling is the party of FDR which is why the right is trying to dismantle it and expropriate everything else. This country lacks a sane second party.
I'm a Christian. I've believed for a long time -- well before today -- that the current GOP, which actively seeks to shred the safety net, deprive health care to even children and the handicapped, and seem WAY too giddy about seeing as much money be retained by corporations as possible -- lost all claim to being true Christians long ago. As do the so-called "evangelicals" who rabidly support them, led by ministers who openly deliver political sermons from the pulpit.
These "evangelicals" are, to me, heretics to the words of Jesus.
12
Wait for it . . . 'Fiscal responsibility' will come in the form of cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and full privatization of Social Security.
November 2018 can't come soon enough
3
We have a winner in Donald Trump as our president and it upsets the liberals immensely. They did not expect President Trump to succeed and secretly was hoping he would fail. He has not and they are dumbfounded and very unhappy. The Democrats are in such despair and they do not know what to do. So they write negative pieces about the Republicans' deficiencies and shortcomings which are quite insignificant. They have no real criticisms to report since the country is on the road to recovery after 8 long years of failure in the Obama administration. This is what the people voted for and received.
The country has been progressing in positive ways that we have not seen since the Obama administration. The economy is growing and people are gainfully employed once again. The stock market is soaring and 401Ks are gaining In strength. Illegal immigration is down and there has been a temporary stop on people arriving from a few countries so they can be properly vetted.
The new tax plan will be a boost for most Americans contrary to what the progressives are saying. Many will see an increase in salary which can be either invested or used for college tuitions. People will no longer be working hard and have nothing to show for it. The middle class will especially benefit who were hit hard with taxes and paying for those who contributed nothing but got a free ride. Now we some some equity in our country for all Americans and not just a select few.
15
The Trump/GOP tax plan is a sugar high; when it wears off the pain begins. I'll give the Trump this, he knows how to play people - promise them a "wall", improvement to the nation's infrastructure, even travel to the moon and beyond WHILE giving corps a PERMANENT tax cut, and avg Americans a sugar high with a TEMPORARY tax cut.
12
Remarkable isn't it? that current affairs began anew in January 2017 -an immaculate conception that denies all that preceded it.
We may live in the same city, wmk, but we certainly don't share the same planet. Let's start with a parsing of the word "win".
11
I have heard that people consider DJT a success. No one ever gives specifics for that or for anything else that they credit the GOP with. Or else they provide the Bizarro land explanations. If you ever read the old Superman comics, you'd know what that is. But in case you didn't, that's the land where everything is the opposite of what it is in reality. Your comment fits on both accounts: vague and Bizarro land.
9
Well done! The challenge is taking this message to the nation.
Thank you.
1
The Democrats need to rediscover the values of the New Deal and reimagine them for the 21st century.
First of all, cut the "defense" budget, and quit sacrificing our youth for corporate wars. We neither should nor can control the world.
Use the savings to create jobs that don't kill people: refurbishing our existing infrastructure, building affordable housing, building mass transit systems, and intercity rail.
Gradually lower the age of eligibility of Medicare---that's health care reform that everyone can understand--and shore up its finances by bringing in younger, healthier people.
Control illegal immigration with demand side measures. Levy confiscatory fines on businesses that HIRE illegal immigrants, not the slaps on the wrist they receive now, so that no business would dare hire anyone but legal residents.
Create a national school curriculum rich in literature, science, math, history, geography, writing, the arts, and foreign languages, but leave the details up to each school and each teacher.
Fund research into alternatives to all the uses of petroleum products instead of raping the land in search of fossil fuels.
Use the purchasing power of the federal government to favor goods that are made in the U.S.
There is plenty of work to be done and plenty of money to do it with as long as we stop wasting it on war and corporate welfare.
We need "that vision thing."
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Need the "message thing" more than the "vision thing".
I really wish more people would realize our defense spending is our biggest and most out of control budget item.
Red states do not want a national curriculum. Look at the mess they made of Common Core. I say leave them to their rotten schools. We will keep educating our kids.
1
The last time the Democrats appropriated Republican agenda was when Bill Clinton took over the Democratic Party in 1992. He championed welfare reform, law and order, had his Sister Souljah moment, and embraced neoliberalism. The party became Republican-lite, forgot about defending worker's rights, abortion rights, 4th Amendment rights, and left the Republicans only one issue to tout as their own - their anti-government, anti-tax agenda.
And in so doing, Clinton and the Democrats all but ran from liberalism, leaving the the Republican Party nowhere to go but to the far right. They doomed themselves to a dwindling base and near-irrelevance, because no one wants to vote for a pale copy of the party that was once the real thing.
It would be disastrous for the Democratic Party to double down on its mistake by trying to be more Republican than the Republican Party now. No one needs a derivative Democratic Party. It left the field and the narrative to the Republican Party already years ago, and now we live in the United States of Trump.
Been there, done that. It's time to proclaim the Democratic Party as the Democratic Party of the future, not a reanimated Republican Party of the past.
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Thank you! The Dem agenda is bound to the short term. The future:
1. An aging population and a birth rate @1.8, not sustainable. Same problem for W Europe and Russia; in 20 years there will be competition for immigrants. Merkel is smart - the 1 M will be assimilated and German birth rate has increased from 1.4 to 1.45 already. Expand immigration bigly!
2. Renewables/climate change. So obvious. Byproduct sustainable jobs/industries.
3. Massive push on education! Free post-secondary education. We can't grow and compete w/o a sustainably educated population.
4. Trade - focus on relationships, interdependence is here to stay, be a good partner. TPP, NAFTA, and more.
5. Rebuild our identity as a humanitarian country. Assistance beats the militant/military option gig short and long term; e.g. the Marshall Plan rescued Europe and benefitted us. And take care of our own people in need.
6. Universal single payer.
7. Sensible regulations that protect people without stifling business.
8. Build an inclusive society, by laws where necessary. Address gerrymandering, voter suppression, campaign contributions, discrimination, etc.
9. Build infrastructure to support growth funded by progressive taxes. Unlike trickle down, the jobs created will actually stimulate the economy.
10. Support the arts, our life blood.
Each of these things (and more) can be explained to and understood by voters.
The Dems are now what the Repubs used to be, are stuck in the '80's. Not much progressive since LBJ.
As best I can tell from your post, the appropriate agenda for the Democratic Party is "defending worker's rights, abortion rights, 4th Amendment rights". It is not clear whether you intended this to be comprehensive or suggestive, but in either case, I do not think it provides a program for political success. Perhaps the Democratic Party can rebuild itself as a worker's party, but I am not sure abortion rights and 4th Amendment issues are the key to success.
I have been thinking about the problems of the Democratic Party since the presidential election, and perhaps before then. I think the basic thrust of the Party has to be a recognition that big government provides more solutions than problems [though it is not immune from problems], that a capitalist economy has to be appropriately regulated in order to serve the entire body politic well [and not just the wealthy, corporations, and shareholders], and that government at its best is us, the people, not some faceless other.
I thoroughly agree that the Democratic Party has to be the party of the future, and that it has to stake out a positive message of what it stands for, rather than against.
1
It was the Republican Congress (and agenda) that championed welfare reform, law and order, etc. as part of the Republican "contract with America". Clinton went along (after seeing Democrats get destroyed in elections). He didn't champion it, he accepted it.
1
A better title: Democrats are the real conservatives, as opposed to the new Republicans. The Republican party has been the party of the rich ever since Lincoln died. The Republican game plan has always been to assemble majorities now and then be appealing to fear of outsiders, whether foreign or domestic and by waiting for scandals in the other party (or inventing scandals). The Republican party provides the definitive proof that clever, very expensive advertising can persuade people to make decisions against their own interest and the national interest. This editorial is an excellent review of how the modern Democratic party holds to conservative values, not Republican wink-wink plutocracy.
6
The national security issue [also raised today by your colleagues, Mr. Friedman and Mr. Cohen], is perhaps the most puzzling of all. How can Republican office holders, supposedly way ahead of Democrats when it comes to national security concerns, stand by and let American interests be sacrificed to the Trumpian doctrine of incoherent foreign policy and making nice with authoritarians as exemplified by Putin? This makes very little sense.
5
Al Franken and Roy Moore in the same sentence? Please.
To your larger point, the republicans and their followers don't care about the niceties of family values and patriotism and who is actually upholding them. They just appropriate them and twist them to suit their purpose. Facts just don't trump beliefs these days. Maybe they never did. Until we get decent people leading the republican party we can expect more of this warfare for years to come.
3
The one thing the Republicans seem to always do better at than Democrats is constructing and delivering a message. On any given day there are better, more articulate and clear depictions of progressive ideals and values of democracy in the NYT Comments Sections than coming out of the DNC. It looked to this reader that the Democrats just rolled over and played dead on this disaster of a tax bill and decided the only way to get press coverage was to throw Al Franken under a bus.
Just being "not Trump" will not be enough in 2018 or 2020. A clear, understandable message of what the Democrats stand for would be a start.
Dems need to further wake up and recognize and talk about how the Republicans are playing the long game. By the time the impact of this tax bill is felt, it won't matter which party is in control of Congress or the White House, drastic cuts will be the only solution. The GoP is playing chess, the Dems are playing tic-tac-toe.
5
Fox news, Rush, and others learned long ago to pick one point and pound it into their listeners brains. During Obama's first Christmas vacation to Hawaii I remember listening to Rush on a desolate stretch of highway. He started his show blasting the President for not wearing a shirt while on the beach. An hour later I turned back to Rush and he was still harping on the same thing. They know their listener. Their strategy works.
1
The tax bill should also be given the same treatment that the ACA received -- except this time it will be warranted.
The tax bill should be called 'TrumpTax' and should never be mentioned without the words 'disastrous,' 'unpopular' and 'failed' or some similar appellation tied to it; that it was rammed down our throats by the out-of-touch Swamp Party, without a single vote from the Democrats.
At every opportunity there should be motions that it be repealed -- at least 60 times, if not more.
And so on.
The Republicans indefatigably pursued this strategy against the ACA, despite the fact that it is increasingly popular. In fact, the Republicans have come up with a bill far more unpopular than the ACA ever was, right from the get-go.
So make it stick. Never let people forget that this is a disaster, Democrats, and the facts are on your side (unlike the Republican opposition to the ACA). It's the Republican way -- except that we don't have to lie and dissemble in our opposition to it.
8
Why is it that people in the mainstream media are determined to bury the fact that Democrats under Clinton actually balanced the budget and had a robust economy with a significant surplus that was rapidly paying down our debt? This happened in large part because of the tax increases enacted by Democrats over the strenuous objections of Republicans who kept screaming that tax increases would destroy our economy. The exact opposite happened, something that the mainstream media and Democrats rarely acknowledge.
Gore explicitly ran on using the surplus to keep paying down our debt so that the temporary Social Security shortfall from retiring baby boomers would be easy to meet. Bush explicitly campaigned on squandering the surplus on tax cuts. The media did not defend Gore's proposals, apparently because they found Bush more fun to have a beer with.
Bush got elected, cut taxes, especially on the wealthy, and our debt started climbing even before his unpaid wars kicked in. The media that had been so obsessed with the dangers of our national debt stayed mostly silent allowing Republicans to continue portraying themselves as fiscally responsible. Worse, the media got a man crush on Paul Ryan and declared him a budget wonk despite the fact that no budget he has ever proposed came close to balancing.
Democrats sat back and allowed this to happen. No wonder the public has been so badly misinformed about these crucial issues.
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Theodora I agree with your assessment, however Clinton had the Dot Com Bubble to thank for such a robust economy and the fact that we weren’t blowing the budget on Middle East Wars for our allies was I would think a significant savings towards a balanced budget and yes of course the tax hike helped, it’s a shame everyone forgets that this nation at its peak and during its period of the greatest equality was the post W.W.II era thru the fifties when the top marginal tax rate was 91% and our nation was the better for it, we were still enjoying the fruits of the W.P.A. Program as well with splendid infrastructure and a manufacturing base that lifted all boats. One by one the things that made this nation great have been outsourced(jobs), allowed to crumble (our infrastructure), fleeced(our Treasury, to fight wars for special interests and reduced taxes for the wealthy) or privatized(The latest being our wilderness and parks to extraction industries). Our nation recently celebrated a three hundredth anniversary, if we continue the current path of destruction of our natural resources, dismantling of a government intended to serve all Americans now serving only special interests and allowing the continued privatization of infrastructure insuring the cheapest job and maximum profit for the well connected its highly unlikely we will be around to celebrate a four hundredth anniversary, we will be another footnote in the history books as China and more disciplined nations buries us.
2
Amen sister. What do you call rule by those you want to have a beer with? Alcoholcracy?
Just for the record, SCOTUS stopped the FL recount and awarded the election to Bushvia the electoral college. Rather than let representative democracy play out as intended, the loss of Gore's presidency has led our country down a path of increasing divisions among all of our citizens, exacerabated by the rise of the alternate facts of the right-wing media.
There are NO alternate facts - there are alternate opinions.
1
This has been a bad year for Republicans and it culminates with them getting what they "asked for," a tax bill which they have euphemistically dubbed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Bill of 2017. With this "win" and with effort on the part of the Democratic Party, it should be possible to wake up the working class to the fact that "hey, these guys really don't care about us." But, wait a minute, does the Democratic Party care about us? Have they got back around to caring about jobs for the young and upward mobility for the poor, or are they still merely a loose confederation of advocates for separate but "kind of similar" social platforms who are so enthralled by the importance of their own mandates that working together has been and is a problem? The idee fixe that the Republicans are on the wrong path is not enough for the Democrats to win control of the political US. We have this accidental president and this Congress for the rich because Democrats have for decades lagged behind in at least talking about providing for the needs of the working class. Now that there is proof that Republicans don't mean what they have said, will the Democrats finally speak and "mean" for the majority of voters?
3
Democrats, like Republicans, are Americans. The vast majority accept the national pieties, the totems and taboos that helped to maintain America through the good, shared times. Those times have passed. In all the debates on new jobs, not once did I hear the reality that most new jobs will be done by robots. I heard more debate about that issue among government ministers in Ireland in 1970 than I've heard here among party leaders. Mitt Romney equated the captains of industry, as we used to call them, with "makers." The rest of us were unworthy "takers." Rana Foroohar turned that on its head and labelled labor as makers and the wealthy as the "takers." However, the roles of "makers" have largely been conferred on machines or on impoverished Chinese or other workers, What is any sane, caring society to do with the excess population? And where in all that changing mix are we to find new hordes of people to be productive consumers with enough money to "grow" the economy? All hail the GDP!
4
I want my money back.
I disagree with the Republican tax bill and believe it is scewed in favor of the wealthy giving very little to everyone else.
I am required to pay all my income taxes as an expatriate to the United States. This amounts to 14 years of revenue that has given me nothing in return.
I am being taxed without representation. I am excluded from participating in Medical because I live outside America.
Paul Ryan claims he is returning taxpayers money with his tax bill. Good.
Now, I want my money back!
3
Thanks to you, Mr. Bruni, there is now a debate here on what is an acceptable Democrat. It's agreed than no one wants Republican lite, but if you think about it, that's not what we are.
You can count on Democrats to do little things, like pass the Dream Act, or reactivate CHIP so children have healthcare. You can count on us to be there for Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as Houston and California. And you can take to the bank that we would not saddle these people with loss of deductions for their losses.
No Mr. Bruni, we are imperfect humans with a need to be good neighbors whether here or abroad. We need to care for our planet and our people. These are the differences between Democrats and Republicans...they are not engineered to do what we do, you see, they simply don't care.
6
How about life, liberty and pursuit of happiness ? What happened to those ?
Life ~ The basic question being what quality and at what cost ? Is there a common society that progresses forward as we all pitch in and help one another ( especially those that cannot help themselves ) or are we all on our own with our bootstraps. I think we know which party espouses which .
Liberty ~ That singular word includes freedom from a whole host of things, primarily against tyranny. What happens when your government is against you in your freedom to love, to marry and to live ? What happens when your government taxes you to pay for the playthings of the rich ? What happens when your government has ongoing wars that enrich profiteers and taxes away the wealth of our communities in so many ways ? I think we know which party stands on either side of this issue as well.
Pursuit of happiness ~ How can we pursue anything if we become indentured to a select few across all of facets of our society ? This refers back to the first objective, and whether we go along this road together or as individuals.
The choice is clear.
Even Alabama figured it out.
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Actually, despite all the celebration, only about 50.5% of Alabama figured it out.
The difference between the Republican and Democrats was a question for the election of 2016. After a year of Trump and one-party rule, the contrast now pivots on authoritarian theocracy/kleptocracy versus free and open democracy.
What we urgently need is a new popular front, in which policy debates are put aside to form a coalition dedicated to the single goal of defeating fascism. What we don't need is self-defeating, endless navel-gazing about how Democrats can accommodate both neoliberalism and progressivism. It's time to be pragmatic. Our resources are limited and there's too much at stake. It may already be too late.
7
Our standards keep lowering, and we're grateful for even mediocrity.
What bills passed by elected lawmakers in our history have ever had less support of the majority of Americans? What was the political climate?
In what sense can we claim we're a democracy? Just that we stand in line to fill out a ballot form?
1
The winning party of the future will adopt the best ideas of both, and newer ideas from neither. Capitalism can be made to be mostly fair and just, without totally destroying all of its benefits. That is what America is supposed to be, just and prosperous. Those conditions are not required to be mutually exclusive, the opposite of what most supporting today's GOP seem to believe.
2
The GOP is the party of Trump, and is the party of Twitter and T.V. Trump
dominates the media and the Democrats have no current strategy to derail
him. Even now, Trump is predicting he will be President for another
7 years. His professional experiences for the past 50 years leaves
him prone to make future errors. No pundit predicted Trump would
win in 2016, and no pundit can predict if the GOP and Trump will
win in 2018. The names change, the political game remains.
A nice thesis, but jettisoning Al Franken was trumpian in the extreme. Senate Dems should be ashamed of themselves for embracing Gillibrand's evidence-free tactics simply because it seemed politically convenient in the immediate moment. Isn't that exactly what DT and the Republicans do all the time?
One would like to see Democrats stand for fairness and justice. Railroading Al Franken out of the Senate on basis of trivial, highly questionable allegations, was the exact opposite of that.
1
The contrast goes even deeper: Republicans are now the party of fantasy, while Democrats attempt to preserve a grip on reality.
The prime support for this argument is President Trump himself; perhaps the most extreme masquerade of facade and pretense ever inflicted on mankind.
4
Deficit spending doesn't mean the same thing to Republicans and Democrats. When Democrats pass budgets with deficit spending, it is usually because Democrats are spending more money on, for example, infrastructure and social programs, both aimed to help the general public. Deficit spending by Republicans is aimed at eventually decreasing spending and shrinking government, and the large deficits incurred are used as an excuse to cut spending on programs they consider wasteful and inappropriate (Social Security and Medicare ring a bell?). That will be the next step for Trump and the Republican congress. How do we prevent that? Elect Democrats!
217
When Democrats push spending bills, the Republicans invoke the dangers of increasing the national debt and the deficits.
When Republicans push tax cut bills, the Democrats invoke the dangers of increasing the national debt and the deficits.
Could both Parties be considered hypocrites? Yes. Could both Parties be considered principled? Yes.
What we are seeing here, is the difference between how both Parties see the role of government, and there is no malice on either side.
I've known plenty of families and individuals who exemplified respectable moral values, but I don't recall having heard the rhetoric of values from those people. It's nearly the same with frugality. People who talk about it may actually be practicing it, but they tend to be comfortable people for whom one-upping others is the real payoff.
Such a disconnect has been typical of the Republican Party for quite a while, now. Donald Trump has taken it to a new level, but he's just doing aggressively what other Republican leaders have done slyly: detaching meanings from words and using the bare words as a means of pushing buttons in people's minds.
Family values -- fiscal responsibility -- middle-class pocketbooks -- national security -- love of country: the label is the message, and the message is all you're going to get.
2
Since Reagan, if not before, Republicans (by whom I mean donors, power-brokers and office-holders -- not necessarily all Republican voters) have proven themselves the party of NO values.
With the passage of this tax bill, the Democrats have been handed the opportunity of a lifetime. In order to capitalize on it, they need to define themselves on their own terms, not by appropriating GOP vocabulary. Maybe because political messaging often isn't much more than an empty tagline, and Democrats need to be about action and results, they're not as good at selling messaging as the Republicans (who, post-9/11, gave us the memorable but meaningless "Freedom Fries" -- as if phps. we were at war with France -- and their twisted definition of "patriotism").
I've thought that based on the GOP wish to turn back progress on everything, Democrats might want to sell themselves as the party of the Future. But after the partisan passage of this tax bill, maybe they just need to describe themselves more simply as the party of Good.
5
The Republicans never cared about the debt. They made noise about it because they wanted it to be their debt, so they could use it. If Democrats built up a big debt the Republicans would have a harder time doing what they are now doing. They can now build up their own massive debt giving tax favors to rich people and companies, and then they will use the threat of the debt to kill Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. It was always a one-two punch, and they needed the debt room to make it happen.
2
This is ridiculous. Bruni, by saying that Dems should pick up what the GOP has dropped, is defending the status quo which has mired this country down for three generations. This continual exchange of power and influence between the lone two parties shows that they are two sides of the same coin. This merry-go-round of Republican vs Democrat is getting us nowhere. We need an alternative political system that will truly address pressing problems and advance our society forward, not just the same old two parties that constantly vie for being king of the hill while the hill keeps getting smaller.
Jettisoning Al Franken was a sign of the bad judgement Democrats continue to exercise. (Al was jettisoned because Schumer didn't want the competition and Schumer's big donors wanted Al gone") Dems because the republicans long ago when the Democratic Leaders decided that they preferred money from bankers, corprorations, sovereign funds and billionaires to working for the working and middle class, protecting investors from fraud and generally, defending the American way of life. The positive spin that Frank wants to put on it is misplaced or it's magical thinking. Nothing good will come of the real transformation.
Bruni is right. The Democrats have caught the political wind and now follow the Republicans. They have in fact become Republicans leaving their supporters disillusioned, distraught, and feeling betrayed. And you know what? They will make good Republicans. What an utter travesty!
The bottom line here us that our so-called democracy is a failure. Donald Trump is President even though neither party wanted him to be. We have a huge tax cut for him even though the vast majority oppose the plan. Let’s go ahead and change the pledge - I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Oligarchy for which it stands.
Democrats for fiscal responsibility! Sounds like the plan for 2018 and 2020. How far upwards would we have to adjust the new top tax bracket to balance the budget and pay for infrastructure? And I'd go with bumping up the next-to-highest bracket (which I am part of) to bail out healthcare. Maybe that could morph this mess into real tax reform.
Yes, very good points. Democrats should use many of these. And, they should be loud and clear about contraception access, education and abortion laws, as well as gun laws and freedoms. Speak about these two issues plainly and with intent. They won't go away; so deal with them.
One issue we rarely speak of is equality. What is it and what good is it? Do we believe in it? And, do we believe there can be billionaires and such, without also a great poverty? Doesn't corporate profit necessitate low-wage jobs and a overabundance of people in great struggle to take such jobs?
Where is equality's place in 'the more perfect Union'? How can great concentrations of wealth, property and power not undermine the idea of a democratic state full of equal citizens? And, maybe most importantly, how to we create the best society, out of these ashes of greed and fake patriotism?
Absolutely Mr Bruni.....if only we could distill these observations and sentiments into something the majority of Americans would understand and embrace. Too many no longer engage at all or if they do, do so with limited understanding and vote against their own interests time and again. I know it won’t all fit on a bumper sticker or a hat, but unfortunately that is what worked for Trump and may be required to rid ourselves of him.
I'm sure I sound immature, but I'm wondering, if any other readers besides me have an impulsive response towards hating Republicans these days, and particularly hating Trump? I really have to work on monitoring my emotions and having a long-term point-of-view. It's hard not to feel despair.
1
Democrats not only are the new Republicans, but liberals are the new conservatives. It is long past time to bury the notion that Republicans stand for conservative values; they are, and for the past couple of decades have been, radicals intent on re-engineering and redistributing wealth from the middle and lower classes to the already ultrawealthy.
Whether the Democrats are prepared to exploit this opportunity remains to be seen. The party I have supported all of my voting life is best, it seems, at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, as Paul Krugman has put it. The Democrats should be advancing their own counterproposals to everything the GOP trots out, and arguing their merits. So far, though, crickets.
Democrats, listen up: Not being Donald Trump won't be enough to get you elected. There is too much at stake for your fecklessness.
358
my thoughts exactly.
1
Just so, and on that to-do list is to stop referring to "conservatism". They are right-wing, and should be called that.
And Democrats should refer to themselves as anti-right-wing.
1
>The Democrats should be advancing their own counterproposals to everything the GOP trots out, and arguing their merits. So far, though, crickets.
Yup. I see this a local Dem Party co-chair. All of the energy is at the grassroots level - and I'll wager than only a modest fraction of them are registered Democrats. Party leadership appears more concerned about offending people for having taken a stand than they are about committing to make tangible improvements in people's lives. FDR's "I welcome their hatred." is not in evidence. Our party needs new (liberal) blood.
A fine column, as usual, by Mr. Bruni. He might have added to his list that the Democrats historically qualified as the party of genuine investment in the economy. Major spending on infrastructure, even if it required a deficit, would directly improve the efficiency of the economy, thereby at least partially paying for itself.
The GOP approach of tax cuts, by contrast, relies on private investment to stimulate the economy sufficiently to provide the resources for infrastructure development. This indirect method works much more slowly, if at all, and fails to stimulate demand sufficiently to encourage the kind of business investment on which tax cuts depend for their success. The latter problem arises from the structure of the reform, heavily weighted toward cuts for the economic elite.
Trump's original infrastructure spending proposal, moreover, depended heavily on private businesses investing their own money in projects, in exchange for tax breaks and profits. This approach would empower the private sector to determine which projects received funding, based on the corporate bottom line rather than the country's needs.
The inefficiency and uncertainty of the Republican plan surely violates good business practices. From the perspective of a party that champions corporate interests over those of the public, however, tax cuts and privatization dovetail perfectly with their goals.
29
James, China would welcome you with open arms.
Think of it as a governing cycle. The GOP found its sea legs a generation ago with the Southern Strategy and cultivated it into minority baiting, us vs. them politics. We’re at the end of the cycle largely because they’ve extended their approach into irrationality. When markets get irrationally optimistic there’s a crash and we are witnessing the run up to the GOP crash. Call it their going out of business sale.
38
Couldn’t disagree more. Democrats remain fixated on increasing the reach of a more powerful, expensive and intrusive government to transform American life while real Republicans oppose that desire – pretty successfully, lately. Nothing has moderated in Democrats’ messages about taxes, spending and regulating – if anything, listening to Pelosi, Bernie, Senator Liz and Chuck Schumer, their liberal priorities have intensified and not sought middle ground; when their messages need to change dramatically to become far more broad-based, in order for them to become politically viable again.
And it’s vastly entertaining that Frank charges Republicans with abandoning traditional fiscal priorities when Democrats, for the first time in fifty years, all of a sudden have discovered the deficit and debt. Democrats remain committed to the kinds of centrally-controlled monster programs that have failed so dismally at eradicating poverty, better preparing our people to compete effectively on a global stage, incentivizing them to improve their own lives, and protected individual liberties while defending that founding principle that ours is a government of limited powers.
Frank’s litany of reverse-messages is not only a distraction from the fact that liberal extremes have taken over his party as surely as social conservatives have become too powerful among Republicans, but are patently absurd.
10
Democrats care little for “family values”. They preach a relativistic approach to relationships and lifestyles that contend that anything goes.
Democrats don’t give a fig for “families” so long as any real social contract is attached -- they want to guarantee a level of sufficiency for every American irrespective of effort, right choices or prudent living. This is a Kumbaya European aim, not an American one.
Democrats haven’t cared about “fiscal responsibility” for over eighty years. Their current fascination with debt is a tactic to distract from the reality that they are the party of societal leveling at any cost.
Democrats are not “the party of patriotism”: you don’t get to unilaterally define that quality and sentiment solely to align with your own convictions, although that’s been your claim since FDR reared his patrician head on a blasted America.
Democrats haven’t understood national security since I was a boy in the 1960s. Democrats are quite willing to sacrifice “law and order” so long as it recognizes that disproportionate crime and violence plagues our communities of color. Democrats are the party of “decency and modesty”(?!!! … !!) I guess Frank DIDN’T pen these inaccurate and immodest claims. And Democrats always have been destroyers of tradition, good and bad; and not its champion.
We need more expansive centers in BOTH parties, not easily-exploded and absurd claims about what each party is. And Democrats need FAR more broad-based messages and convictions.
7
Republicans remain fixated on an economic philosophy where greed is good and income inequality is at levels not seen since The Gilded Age.
The GOP will now attempt to "reform" Social Security and Medicare, two of those "centrally-controlled monster programs" that have successfully ensured that seniors live their remaining years with a degree of dignity.
The party of avarice claims that we cannot afford to provide healthcare to children yet we can give tax breaks to billionaires while adding to our debt.
Democrats believe that government spending, including national security, should be paid for with taxes and not with debt.
Democrats do not despise the majority of Americans not born into wealth and want everyone to have a chance to succeed in life.
What is patently absurd is your belief that the Democrats are too liberal and that ONLY social conservatives have taken over the Republican Party.
25
Richard--
Both you and Dennis are correct about the opposing parties, which is why I remain an independent. I'm not sure why either of you consider your parties to be interested in the public good, while the other party does not? Party positions views flip as soon as the other party is in power, as neither has any rock solid principals beyond winning elections.
The American public seems to realize this, almost always voting in the opposing party after two terms. It is the publics way of not allowing either of those camps to become to powerful. Neither party ever deserves it.
8
After reading the false equivalencies and whataboutisms in the comments section for this OpEd, I'm beginning to wonder if I read the same piece.
Basically, what Frank is saying is, Democrats aren't the outright hypocrites that Republicans are; Democrats believe in equality, and in the value of cherishing and growing families, and in the need to invest in our human capital - while Republicans are in it only to "win" it.
Sounds about right.
67
How about democrats, once again, becoming the guardians of the rights of working people and champions of economic justice? If we advocate them adopting the philosophy of republicans and they take that advise, then they have obviates their purpose as a separate party( as if they haven't done that already).
10
“How about Democrats....guardians of the rights of working people”
They are, if people would pay attention to more than headlines.
Eg
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/an-economy-that-works-for-everyone/
4
It's been said many times in many ways judge by what I do not what I say. Hillary will say whatever she thinks will get her elected
YEs, I judge her by what she did
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/about/
Not by what you said.
But if your point is that the Democrats should advocate for economic justice, that is what Clinton did and what Democrats do, so people should pay attention to their proposals and their votes
https://www.democrats.org/party-platform
1
True, for far too long the Democrats of Schumer and Hillary and their ilk have really been Republicans to the right of Eisenhower. The Republicans moved even further right.
However, this is a willful misunderstanding of "family values" and of "fiscal responsibility."
Family values was always a club used on abortion and gays and the presumed black single parents raising kids with help from welfare. It has nothing to do with abuse of the Hollywood casting couch, something that would have made any Mad Man chortle.
Fiscal responsibility always meant what the money was used for, not where it came from. It was "responsible" to spend tax receipts on the military, wars, and "helping" big business to "make jobs." It was always "irresponsible" to spend it on Democratic interest groups; if they somehow could become Republican interest groups they'd become responsible, like university research for the Defense Department.
For decades, there has been no majority of either party representing the interests urged by Warren and Sanders in yesterday's op-ed by them. They've been on the margins, popping up at best as campaign promises no sensible person would believe for a second.
54
Mark, your attitude towards Warren and Sanders is absurd. Virtually all of Europe functions (better than the U.S. functions) according to the values and systems proposed by these two senators. This is the failure of the Democratic party. People have bought into the right wing meme that Europe is a failure and a tax nightmare. Nothing could be further from the truth. What are nightmares are the American Insurance and pharmaceutical industries and the cost of higher education. There is no reason for these problems in the U.S. except people buying into the Republican/Fox view of the world.
The Senate just passed the tax bill. I live near a resort-town airport in Florida where lots of private aircraft deliver the wealthy to their residences. I suppose those who haven't yet, will ensure that their legal residences are here rather than up in a state with income tax.
62
Few of them pay more than token taxes anyway. The really rich have their money in shield corporations on those Caribbean islands and laugh at the suckers who actually pay what they owe.
David, that is hardly a new phenomena. My dad retired in 1985! and promptly sold the house and packed up to move to Florida....mostly for the warm weather, but a big incentive was THE LOW TAXES.
Dad's gone now, but I have saved a few of the letters he sent home in the years right after he moved to Florida -- oddly, he never mentions the sunshine, oranges or mild winters. But in every letter, he mentions A.the low taxes (compared to Ohio!) and the lower cost of living.
30 years ago, Ohio had a population of 14 million and Florida 11 million. Today, Florida has almost 19 million residents, and Ohio is down to 11 million. It's like you tipped our state over and poured most of our affluent retirees into YOUR state! And that's been bad for Ohio and made Florida an overcrowded, expensive mess.
1
I love the comments here. They're talking about ideas that are seldom discussed in the mainstream media, evoking the goodness of what used to be America, some seemingly from having lived through the post WWII years. It may be those post war years were unique in that we were economically and technologically dominant, but we are still the same humans and those good qualities are surely still within us.
I'm glad to have the readers' comments. They tell me I'm not off base wondering why Bruni wishes Republicans values onto the Dems. The corporate ideology of the DNC is already intolerable to me. If only the Dems could remember what they used to be: democratic.
48
In the post-war period, taxes were high and the wealthy paid for the freeways, new airports, excellent hospitals, government research creating new technology, etc. America was the dream of the world. All that has changed, of course, and now we live with dilapidated structure with third-world wealth distribution. We are the chief reason why the ideals of democracy and free enterprise are in serious danger around the world. Both political parties created this new reality.
82
Insofar as "the dems" were Americans operating according to the Constitution of the USA, they were never "democratic," however more so they may have been that the GOP. The undemocratic disparities are built into the Constitution--deliberately. The Electoral College is not democratic. And half of the US people live in nine states--giving them 18 senators. The other half can call on 82 senators.
3
You may not like the Democrats, but the alternative is intolerable.
1
I suggest that Democrats are the party of the preamble to the Constitution:
"to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity"
Claim it - own it - advance an active government role for each of these objectives and challenge the Republicans as to why they would not support the very purpose of our government.
124
No. I won't vote for a party that tries to sound like Republicans. That's why I didn't vote for either Clinton.
The truth is that /any/ political slogan, whether it be "family values" or "the great society," is an invitation not to think for oneself. And no matter how craven Democrats try to be, they'll never outdo the Republicans at cravenness.
A party of and for working people has to have a class analysis. That means not supporting Internet carriers over media companies, like the Republicans, and also not supporting media companies over Internet carriers, like the Democrats. Both kinds of monopoly are owned by the super-rich and exist to profit the super-rich.
I'm old enough to remember when network news programs were not expected to be profitable, but were supported by the networks as part of their duty to society. That lasted for decades, but not forever; capitalism sooner or later eats any good intentions rich people might have. What I'm trying to say is that a society, even a capitalist society, doesn't have to be an absolute cutthroat oligarchy like ours. The Scandinavian countries are obvious examples, but even a solidly capitalist society like Germany can manage to be a decent place for working people to live, with great health care and a strong safety net.
No, if you want my vote, don't talk about being the party of family values. Talk about getting money out of politics. Talk about reining in banks. Talk about being the party of workers.
374
"No, if you want my vote, don't talk about being the party of family values. Talk about getting money out of politics. Talk about reining in banks. Talk about being the party of workers."
Could not have said this better myself. What the Democrats should have done after Citizens United was to show that money does not equal speech by distributing copies of Norman Rockwell's depiction of the freedom of speech with the middle aged working man standing up and making an extemporaneous speech in a public meeting somewhere in America. They could contrast that with a cartoon of the Monopoly rich guy writing a check to a Republican Congressman for cutting Monopoly guy's taxes.
That sort of thinking enabled Trump to become president. Decisions have consequences. As a reminder, don't forget that Gorsuch will be there for decades as well as many of the other Trump appointments to the bench.
3
Good ideas and ideals all around -- but by not voting for either Clinton, you DID support the reactionary Republicans. We can never get everything we want all at once; let's take patient steps toward our ultimate goals.
4
Oh God, no.These sound like Hillary Clinton talking points. Get rid of all these old baby boomer memes. Let the young define the party not the moldering corpses of Clinton, Pelosi, Schumer, etc.
139
A party needs both the young and inspired and the experience elders.
But perhaps a third party. And that the government not outside moneyed interests not govern.
1
Hey, a bit of respect there for your elders my boy; you will be a “moldering corpse” before you know it. It is us “old boomers” that built your world and certainly we need unity, not generational warfar? If you were my grandson, it would be a lump of coal in your sock this year.
3
Yes the young are doing so much Peter. What is wrong with our country is voices like yours which helped elect a president unfit to govern while ignorantly enthralled by an independent do-nothing promising free everything. So don't preach to a 77 year old veteran about how the young are going to save our country. If the past shows anything it is that the young would rather party then drag themselves to a voting booth.
Mr. Bruni's column interestingly juxtaposes the "old Republicans" and the "new Democrats" in their reversal in roles so to speak. But I would posit that Democrats have not changed in themselves. What Mr. Bruni writes about is basically the same philosophy as always, only brought to the changing paradigm of the 21st Century. The times and the Democratic ideology have caught up with each other.
The change, however, is mostly seen in the GOP, which by all means has not become nor ever will be our party from FDR to Obama. Perhaps, the now party of Trump has over the last several decades lost its moral compass, its spiritual soul to speak. It professes to be Christian, but as one myself, I can assure you that its ways are an affront to the Christ whose essence was that of love, compassion, and justice. One does question whether evangelicals have even read the New Testament or if they realize that they are being exploited only for votes, money, and power.
Finally, let us not get smug or lose our way as a Party. As one commenter said, and if I may quote, "The opportunity exists" - but will the leadership succumb to the fate of their opponents across the aisle? As we are rightfully holding Trump and his Congressional buddies accountable, so too must we hold our leaders accountable to fulfill their agenda in helping us at every level, every shade of skin, and every religion.
30
The nihilistic reactionaries who call themselves "Republicans" today are anything but conservative.
1
Actually, the Democrats of the last 20 years were/are like the Republicans from the 1970's. A real Democrat is a Rooseveltian Democrat, not a Wall St sellout. The trouble now is that the mainstream Democrats are goosestepping to the idea that Wall St is the way to go to save this country. Such a falsehood is leading this country to ruin, not just the insanity of Trunp and the Republican party. Democracy with a socialist twist is and was a good thing. Don't be fooled by greed-only capitalistic principles. The current lot of pols from boths parties and voters have been fooled.
148
The freshness date of both parties expired decades ago. Time to break the mold, and start anew with ideals and a vision for the future. Oh, and the name: call it what you will, but not "Democratic" nor "Republican".
18
Absolutely spot on. Both parties are beholden to big money interests--just with a different take on unrealities. But don't blame the parties. Blame the deliberately self imposed ignorance on the electorate who voted for either party. In the age of the Internet, it is hard to understand how the electorate makes a conscious decision to keep itself ignorant of facts. In a country where the terms "alternative facts" and "fake news" can be used on a daily basis by the ruling party, you have an in your face stench of a move into fascism. In 2017 we are living in a Germany 1936 reality. Those who do not understand recent history are doomed to relive it. Both parties are more invested in power than in governing.
1
This country is so infantile you may need to change the party names to "Yes" and "No" to avoid overtaxing its intellect.
Who among us doesn't care about family values? Republicans, that's who, and they never did. The "Family Values" routine was constructed to provide cover for mean-spirited greed. You're very late to the parade, Frank. Family values are last year's swindle. The new rabble-rousing meme is scape-goating immigrants and elitists.
Republicans succeed because just when you think they've resorted to the lowest shameless scam, they come up with a new one. And they can always resort to the tax dodge; there's no pull date on trickle-down economic theory, and if you tell a struggling middle-class voter he might get a hundred bucks, he'll help you open the vault to the national treasury and wait patiently while you loot it. He might even forget about the hundred bucks if you entertain him with enough kneeling football players and "Pocahontas" routines.
73
I am not an elitist. I simply expect people to think rationally and express opinions cogently.
Oh, how great it would be if Democrats truly were the party who had the American people's best interests at heart! Unfortunately, we have seen time and time again that party leaders, especially, and sometimes practically the entire slate of democratic officeholders, take positions and votes that go against the real interests and true wishes of working Americans. The Democrats, if they ever were, are no longer the party of the (working) people. Let's be clear about it. Calling them "Establishment Democrats" gives them too much credit and cachet. (Kind of like calling them "Super Delegates," in a way.) They are not "Establishment Democrats"; they are "Corporate Democrats." By their fruit you will recognize them.
38
Thank you Chris for explaining that much of the present Democratic leadership is in thrall to the corporate world view. I except Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders specifically, but not exclusively.
I long for an eruption of new New Deal Democratic candidates swinging our policies away from corporate enabling, and toward support for policies which help the regular working classes of America.
37
"But not exclusively" Warren and Bernie is a vital point.
There are among Democrats a lot of real Democrats. They are among their voters, and among those voters who turned away in disgust to be Independents.
They are also among many of the lesser office holders. Those offices not high enough to be bought are often filled with real Democrats.
These two reservoirs of real Democrats is essential. It means potential candidates do exist, and voters who would turn out for them do exist. Bernie Sanders showed that in action.
It can be done. There is no excuse.
25
"...the real interests and true wishes of working Americans." Defined how? Do all workers have the same wishes? Why do you presume to tell me what my real interests are?
2
As a next-door friend, I am sadden to see what the USA has become in such a short time. From once the strong leader of the free world to now another wounded empire crumbling under its own contradictions. L’Histoire est en marche.
220
Nothing lasts forever
The author suggests that politicians of any stripe in fact mean what they say, and don't say these things just to get elected.
5
Hear, hear, Mr. Bruni. I don’t always agree with you, but I agree and appreciate every word in this column.
13
The problem is that many who voted for Trump and the Republicans don't care about their dishonesty and lies because what they're actually interested in is defeating the "other guys". Even if the "other guys" said exactly the same thing as "their guys", they wouldn't vote for them.
No, what the Dems must do is present a case for voting FOR them. This is what Hilary failed to do convincingly. Trump did make that case - even though most of us knew his case was built on lies - and won.
So far the DNC-led Dems continue to muddy their message, trying to be all things to all people, which even the most ignorant voter knows can't be done, so they rightly deduce that the Dems are just lying some more. When you're known as a liar, you won't get far calling the other guy one too.
Simply put, they should proudly return to their FDR roots and outline programs that will actually deliver good paying, dependable jobs, so that EVERY American can share in the prosperity, not just the 1%. This is the platform supported by Bernie and Liz, and would've won the election for the Dems if they had but adopted it. Maybe the DNC should listen to that classic from the Sixties - The Times They Are a'Changin.
40
"DNC-led Dems continue to muddy their message, trying to be all things to all people"
No, they are corporate-owned Republican-Lite trying to con voters who want Democrats. They lose because that con does not work.
12
Jobs are a byproduct of what the government needs to do. Infrastructure, health, education, welfare, clean air, water and energy, intelligent immigration laws. Immigrants create jobs, not government.
Democrats are the party of capitalism and imperialism as are the Republicans.
The last thing we need is two Republican parties.
16
We don't even need one. There is a wide range of opinion to consider and choose from without any of them. European politics displayed that for decades, until the right wing came roaring back there too.
7
As a political pundit who supports Democrats, it is entirely appropriate, I suppose, that Mr. Bruno wrote this article. However, like all propagandists, he finds the opposition to be evil hypocrites and his chosen party to be virtuous, if inexplicable, losers in need of his encouragement.
I find this approach hilarious--whether employed by Mr. Bruno or one of those evil Republicans he abhors. The truth is that both parties are seeking power to impose their will upon a populace that has only a marginal engagement with any of the issues considered vital by those political parties and hypocrisy is part of the deal.
Either party will do or say whatever it takes to gain power. Hence the hypocrisy of both parties. Does anyone believe that Al Franken's misdeeds are comparable with Bill Clinton's or Harvey Weinstein's? No, Senator Franken had to be sacrificed so that Democrats could claim to be virtuous in the current political climate. That said, would he have been pressured to resign if his state had a Republican governor who would appoint a Republican replacement? Heck no!
Republicans, although nominally more conservative and, thus, more appealing to me, are no better. My guess is that fully half of them would suddenly support abortion, however regretfully, if that's what it would take to win their next election.
It's a long time 'til November 2018. If the economy stays strong, don't count the Republicans out--hypocrisy or not.
13
"My guess is that fully half of them would suddenly support abortion, however regretfully, if that's what it would take to win their next election."
That is not a fair "bet" because it has already happened far too many times. That is like betting on a horserace run yesterday.
5
Alas, the economy will not stay strong
I am sitting here mourning the passage of the Oligarchs tax scam which will surely slow the consumer spending in California and other highly taxed states. Then it’s all over, folks. Called biting the hand that feeds you.
1
My apologies to Mr. Bruni for misspelling his name. The damnable horror that is AutoCorrect struck again and I failed to notice it before posting.
Ms. Suzalett, don't despair. In actuality, most taxpayers, even those in the People's Republic of California, will enjoy a tax reduction. Talk to an accountant and you are likely to find that you and your neighbors will benefit. As one example, if you haven't already, start an "S" Corporation or an LLC. You, too, can see a 20 percent reduction in taxable income run through that entity and it doesn't cost much to incorporate. I just checked the Secretary of State's website in California and first time incorporation is $125.00. LLC's can be created for $90.00.
Mr. Thomason, while it has happened before, it hasn't happened with our current crop of Republicans. I merely guessed that 50 percent are that craven in their stated positions. It could be more, it could be less, but I am glad that we can agree on something.
I imagined myself trying to recite these arguments to my Trump loving family. I then realized how futile that would be. You cannot reason with an essentially tribal mind. You are either in the tribe, or at least keep your mouth shut if you want to eat in peace, or you go ahead and try to reason, and watch the fever rise, fast.
I'm still debating whether the meal is worth it to begin with.
61
This Democrat doesn't want to move into the space recently vacated by the Republican Party, when its pose as the upholders of conservative virtues hadn't yet finally crumbled in public. Those virtues have always made my skin crawl. Those family values punished women and LGBT people. Those traditions excluded POC. That conservatism rested on militarism and support for oppressive regimes and impoverishment of third-world countries. Their wealth has been built on the destruction of the planet while they lied through their teeth about it. I don't want any of it. I want a revolution.
74
Seriously, the Democratic Party is pretty much what Teddy Roosevelt extolled.
As an independent voter, I vote for what I believe, not what a political party tells me to do. For decades, it felt like my vote in Massachusetts was “wasted”. Now it does not. But don’t take me for granted.
The Republican Party is NOT the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower, or even Reagan. It is now the party of oligarchs, fundamentalists, xenophobes, and racists. And perhaps even traitors.
160
No, Teddy Roosevelt was far more progressive than Schumer or Hillary or their teams. Both parties have disappeared into the distance off to the right of Teddy.
19
Lines like family values, law and order, and religious freedom are nothing more than empty slogans to garner support for a political party that is antithetical to those values...yes I am talking about the GOP.
17
Democratic party strategists - take note.
This article is a decent first attempt at defining attributes of a 2018 Democratic / Progressive "Tribe," without overly relying on demographic labels.
And this 60's white male resonates with those attributes...
15
I agree with the premise of Mr. Bruni's column but disagree on one point: It is not that Democrats are the new Republicans. It's that Republicans are the new Trump.
It is remarkable how the Grand Old Party has morphed itself before our eyes into the image of its titular leader. Use the tax bill as but one example:
The GOP has taken to lying brazenly and openly--an innate Trumpian trait--about what the tax bill actually does and who gets the lion's share of its benefits. Like Trump, the GOP does not care about the unrich.
The new bill will unquestionably add materially to the deficit. Much like Trump built his business empire on excessive levels of debt and promises he usually did not keep, the GOP has abandoned its traditional fiscal conservatism and justified this bill on false promises of explosive economic growth that have no basis in reality.
Trump cares more about being perceived a "winner" than what he actually accomplishes. Likewise, the GOP needed a "win" to please its uber- wealthy donors more than it wanted to do the right thing.
And like Trump's popularity hovers in the low to mid 30 percent range, so, too, does support for this tax bill among the electorate.
To paraphrase Graydon Carter's apt description of Donald Trump of many years ago, the GOP has become a small fingered vulgarian like its leader. Or perhaps it is better compared to Dorian Gray, whose soul rots away, little by little, with each cynical, selfish, Trumpian action it takes.
20
Per the latest Quinnipiac University Poll https://t.co/R3xfJbsnRQ
"American voters give both parties negative overall favorability ratings, 37 - 44 percent for the Democratic Party and 25 - 60 percent for the Republican Party.
Voters say 52 - 37 percent they want the Democrats to control of the House of Representatives, and say 53 - 37 percent they want Democrats to control the Senate."
You think that's good right? Nope. You need to win states, not people. In 2016, Democratic Senators tallied up 51M votes compared to 40M votes for Republican Senators. However, Republicans won 22 races compared to 12 for Democrats.
So its all fine that most of us think that the Democratic party is the more civil, humane party. There's just too many others in red states that don't. The message isn't reaching their hearts or minds.
20
Democrats need to win everywhere, not just win big in a few places. Running up the score is not extra points.
That is fair. It means not leaving behind whole places of Americans.
LBJ knew that, when he reached out to an Appalachia and to his own rural Texas, that had been heavily Republican. He won people over by helping them, including them. Of course that has all come undone, but that only shows it is necessary to try, not take any place for granted.
That means stuff like campaigning in the Rust Belt, instead of doing yet more fundraising in California and New York.
12
"The message isn't reaching their hearts or minds."
What they hear in red states coming from Democrats is too often condescension and insults (albeit distorted and amplified by the right-wing media). That only serves to harden hearts and minds.
The column could have been written about the Republicans' bogus claims to morality, patriotism, law & order, fiscal responsibility, national security, etc. under Ronald Reagan. Or under Geroge Bush, or or GW Bush, or any of their House or Senate leaders of the last 40 years. The con has always depended on their media power, the money behind them, & on their sheer willingness to say or do anything. The hypocrisy may get more outrageous as the years go on. But the things that make it all work--the power, the echo-chamber, the money & the contempt for democracy--are greater than ever.
18
I don't know about that. Democrats cannot be republicans, as it would require them to be more rigid ideologically, more disciplined in following orders however stupid or unjust, and intolerant when uncertainty is part of any issue. Luckily, democrats seem to know the difference between right and wrong, and act accordingly. Democrats are convinced that our words, and actions, have consequences, and must be based on facts; and these, anchored in verifiable reality, and the truth can only be one. Alternate facts and fiction have no room but in the mind of a Kellyanne Conway, republican representative to help spread Trump's lies and innuendos. And yet, if a new breed of republicans can show up and save their party by upholding the truth, with honesty and decency, welcome to politics as the art of the possible, tolerant and willing to compromise, to better represent the People they swore to serve. Peace in society, to subsist, demands it.
4
Values? Whatever. The only thing to do with the Republicans is to vote them out of office. The tax “reform” bill alone shows that they are deeply unworthy of the public trust.
18
Well said Frank. Exactly what I've been thinking. And how did the Republicans not learn the lesson about the last election. It's outrage about the us vs. them. The swamp, the fat cats on Wall Street and leaving regular people behind in the new economy. It's telling that when democrats had power they took an unpopular move to give more people health insurance and when Republicans have power they move to give tax breaks to the rich
9
Ha Ha Ha.
Bruni is out on a limb again. All he has demonstrated is that the Democrats are adjusting to life out of power. If all he said were true there wouldn't be a president Trump. But the hypocrisy remains. All that the Democrats are interested in is overturning an election. You had eight years of Obama that we had to endure. Now the shoe is on the other foot. The nation is experiencing an economic boom. More and more people are getting jobs everyday. If the Democrats were truly interested in doing good things for the nation they would abandon their failed strategy of class warfare. If they want to balance the budget they should offer reductions in the spending of the government. For Pelosi to claim that tax cuts were theft is tantamount to declaring that the wealth of the nations tax payers belongs not them but the government. That is backwards. We give our tax money to the government to operate. But is still our money not the governments. Until the Democrats realize that they work for the people and not their special interest donors they will spend more time in the political wilderness.
3
Mr. Jones,
Apparently you suffer from the same amnesia as most Republicans do, not remembering the deep recession that we were plunged into by the last Republican administration. It was President Obama who created the economy that continued to perform even after a clueless stooge for Putin took over.
Yes, the Democratic Party has its special interest donors, but they are nothing compared to the Republican Party's donors who just collected a huge bounty in tax cuts that they are unlikely to invest in our economy, create jobs or increase wages. Instead, they will increase executive compensation and benefits to shareholders.
You must feel rather lonely in California given your propensity to spout unfounded G.O.P. principles.
1
Dear Mr. Campos,
I hope you have your crow in the freezer. When the cuts take effect and the job growth and economy continue to increase, you can dine on it. As to my loneliness, I will be joined as more of my fellow Californians discover the lies that the Democrat party has spouted to increase our taxes while spending it on bloated pensions and lazy government workers who spend three hour lunches getting drunk. Their policies have driven business after business to other more friendly states leaving us with undocumented persons that take evermore revenue from the other necessary needs of the state such as repair of failing damns, pock-marked roads and evergrowing homeless encampments that breed hepatitis and other diseases and steal from the local inhabitants to feed their addictions. We will have our own revolution and return California to its conservative roots.
Frank, agreed on all points.
The Republican Party is an out-of-water fish flopping around on a boat just seconds after being caught. The world - and the nation - are progressive, and they’re progressing, and the GVVOP (Grand Very, Very Old Party) will inevitably be left behind at some future juncture.
Look around. Every aspect of life progresses naturally over time. The new replaces the old. Standards change. Human nature is immutable, and its destiny is to always move up, forward, ahead. And nothing can or will stop that progress.
The GVVOP, on the other hand, is a rear view mirror establishment, pining and whining for a past whose time has long since come and gone. Memo to GVVOP: it ain’t never, ever coming back.
Many of us may not be around when the country finally purges itself of the most backward-looking party in its history. Or we may. No one knows. But regardless of how long it may take, I rest my head on my pillow every single night knowing that my grandchildren (as yet unborn) will enjoy a progressive, fair, honest, just, respectful, inclusive, tolerant and kind country that we, Today, can only dream of...
VOTE.
8
What they cannot have, they will do their utmost to destroy.
1
One party means to build an inclusive body politic; the other tries ceaselessly to tear down any notion of a broad-based national community. The GOP has proven itself to be as fiscally responsible as it is patriotic, which is to say, not at all.
When the sole objective of any political movement is to insult the intelligence and sense of decency of the other side, citizens can expect nothing constructive from its government.
9
"When the sole objective of any political movement is to insult the intelligence and sense of decency of the other side," they look like both our parties today, utterly unlike what the Democrats were when better led (and consequently winning).
4
To be fully as effective as the GOP has been, Democrats would also have to pick up the banner of fear and loathing, too. For decades the GOP - like moles - has dug into our back yards of fear and hatred of "the other" in all forms.
Trump - not an intelligent man (a rather stupid one, actually), but cunning and shrewd - saw that network of mole tunnels and exploited it. Now we're waking up to a sinkhole where our grass and trees used to be.
There are many mantles and fallen standards to be picked up by Democrats, dropped and stepped on by the GOP. But let's leave behind this rotten deadwood of fear and loathing engendered by the GOP.
If FDR were alive to today, his urging that "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" might very well be the clarion call of a revived Democratic party. It's as appropriate now as it was then, in his and our fathers' days.
5
Democrats are the new Republicans indeed. They're now governing to the right of Nixon. And the Republicans have become demagogs.
8
The 1.5 trillion dollar dept prediction is based, I assume, on the notion that the US will not get involved in any new, expensive wars. Given the demonic figure in the executive throne, I think this is a terrible assumption. A war in Iran or Korea would be far more expensive than the Bushes' escapades, which were accompanied by ruinous tax cuts. Trump is more than likely to embark on the most expensive war since WWII as a coverup for his 2016 crimes, and then we can all commiserate about how foolish the 2017 tax rip-off was, while Republicans crow about how they're the Pro-War party.
6
True. Contrawise, winding up the current wars would save that much money; we know that is impossible, since the Democrats campaigned to keep doing them, and the Republican are doing more of them. But antiwar could actually fix this fiscal problem, even with this awful tax bill. There is more than one way to skin a cat, if anyone actually wants that. None of our posturing blowhards really does want that.
2
It's alway pointed out that the United States is the greatest country in the world to live in, although this is usually said by Americans themselves.
I would argue that a great country is one that has equitable income distribution, healthcare for all, strong regulatory control on business and corporation, strong climate controls, paid maternity leave, not for weeks but months, strong campaign finance controls and have donations by individuals and corporations capped at thousands of dollar, not 10's of millions, drug prices that are controlled by the government, gun controls.
Many countries in the western world have some or all have the above...these countries in my mind are great because they look after their citizens.
20
The best way to reach these goals is to mobilize patriotic Americans to vote. The tidal change begun in Virginia, New Jersey, and Alabama offers us all rays of hope.
And then there's that excessively wasteful military budget. These Republicans would much prefer to spend your tax dollars on arms before putting it into education, medicare, or social security.
6
Until Jimmy Carter, that sanctimonious hypocrite, turned his back on organized labor and became the first Democratic president to propose massive corporate tax cuts, Democrats were clearly the party of family values.
Then came Triangulation Bill Clinton, with his crime bill and his welfare reform, who was sexually preoccupied with someone young enough to be his daughter. Oh, and he also repealed Glass-Steagall. Democrats under Clinton were no longer the party of family values.
Along came Obama, Mr. Populist-while-running, and Mr. Corporate-Centrist-I-Love-Wall-Street while governing. Burnished his brand while letting the party get decimated and worse at the state and local level.
But what Mr. Bruni says is true. The GOP has so betrayed any and all values that they are there for the taking. Trouble is, the Democrats have to believe them to own them. Do they? We'll see.
5
Sorry, Mr. Bruni, but given the fact that the Republicans have by and large devolved into a party of self-serving capitalistic racists, I have a problem thinking anything even vaguely associated with them is worth saving. They've turned everything into a lie.
9
Please Republicans, think of the children. Your children.
Because if you think they won't be held to account for your actions, and their names tarnished because of you -- well, think again.
3
The Republican party has long since been nothing more than a shell to install a wealth aristocracy. Trump blew the cover off of the shell and exposed it for what it is. He is trying to install a wealth aristocracy. He is not hiding anything.
He sold his supporters on him doing just the opposite. They bought it. Swallowed it whole. Trump knows it's next to impossible for people that have been swindled to admit that they have been swindled. He's been doing that his entire life. That's how he got into the White House. They have been swindled and are being swindled more each day.
The suburban Republicans that actually watch and read real news are figuring it out. It took a while, but they are coming around. The rural folks are still eating it raw and standing by their man. He's OK. It's the Congress that wont work with him which is causing the problems.
Well folks, in a month, you will be able to enjoy about another $10 a week. Wow! That is a massive tax cut. Just make sure you keep your paycheck stubs so you can see when you get that $4000 raise from the corporate tax cut. Trump promised.
And don't forget to drive around regularly so you can catch the ground breaking for all those new plants that will be built. Jobs are pouring back in. It's just that no one can see them. Keep looking.
And that ballooning deficit that Obama made? Trump will make it much bigger. Remember, the $1.5 trillion increase is in addition to the existing deficit.
25
CEOs were recently asked by Mnuchin if they will be hiring additional employees after the tax bill is passed. All responded with a No.
Frank Bruni for head of the DNC! Democrats are the Moral Majority, always have been, and Frank is right to call it out and claim the mantle.
5
Oh, please. We're not watching the immaculate Democratic re-conception. We're watching Democrats in disarray.
5
And yet they always seem to win
4
It is a contest -- a competition of dysfunction. No, they are not "the same" but they are both run by sold-out blundering fools.
4
This article is nonsense
First of all the gop is built on racism and the rich: not any of the things you spin
Lastly democrats have a party foundation that they should actually uphold. Part of the current problem is that many democrats do not truly serve their constituents. They should not become pseudo republicans.
8
Trump is the result of and not the cause of the decay of the Republican Party. The Republicans created the atmosphere of hatred and racism toward our first black president, taking a blood oath to block fiercely every move he would make for eight years even before President Obama took office!! McConnell even violated the Constitution by depriving Obama of the right to nominate a Supreme Court Justice as mandated by law. Trump played that hate card to the hilt. Trump is a lifelong, practicing racist going back to his youth and he sounded just the right note of bigotry to an Obama-hating Republican base.
The Republican mantra of trickle-down economics and family values is a Big Lie propaganda scam that has attracted the lowest educated whites and most virulent Christian fundamentalists. Ignorance, lies, racism and religious intolerance. That is a fetid brew that the Republicans have been cooking for decades and Donald Trump stepped into the spotlight to serve it up to the GOP faithful.
Rummaging through the Republican trash heap looking for political gems to rescue is a complete waste of time, a fruitless task Uniting the Democratic Party around leaders like Warren and Sanders and getting out the vote is the only pathway to salvation for this nation that has lost its way as a democracy at the hands of the Republican immoralists.
17
Yes. Trump created nothing. He did a hostile takeover, and is now in precarious ownership.
2
Anyone who is proud of voting for the tax scam bill is a sociopath.
This smash and grab congress really is deplorable. I cannot wait for 2018
6
No, Frank. Democrats are the party for Normal, decent People. Republicans are still the party for predators, hypocrites, bullies, Liars
And Haters, of many varieties. The Trump Regime is their zenith. It's taken many years and billions of dollars to reach our current sorry state. But, this too shall pass, just like a humongous kidney stone. I'm fairly amazed that we've made it thru this year, fairly intact. Rest up, people, and Happy Holidays. 2018 draws near, finally. I'm READY. Bigly.
16
Trump is destroying the status quo to build a new American future on jobs, infrastructure, merit based immigration, and lower taxes.
The democrats are left holding the debris, and nothing much to sell except DACA, illegal immigration, sanctuary cities, bathroom bills, and dishonoring our national anthem.
Who do you think will win 2020? It’s a no-brainer, even for the deplorables.
5
Democrats need to embrace the people who vote for them and start making policies that make their lives better. Quit chasing the mythical white voters who support the likes of Roy Moore and start embracing the multicultural, minority constituents who are your base.
Above all else, it's the economy stupid. Regardless of our tribe we want good schools, a living wage, affordable healthcare, affordable housing, and infrastructure that won't kill us. Come up with a plan and give us a reason why we should vote for you. Republican-lite isn't a plan.
729
"Quit chasing the mythical white voters"
No, they abandoned and abused all too many white voters who were not Roy Moore types at all. They did that to whole regions, and got what comes from that.
8
Exactly. If Dems expect to prevail in the midterms, it is critical to come up with a plan to undo the damage brought about by this cynical and destructive gop tax bill. The electorate needs to see a cogent, compassionate, sensible blueprint for justice.
2
Ami, I couldn't agree more! The demographic trend is towards ever more diversity in this country. That is our future, and it is irreversible. Chasing the ever-diminishing numbers of white voters who still support Trump is chasing the past.
4
"Jettison Al Franken..." without due process was a dumb move just because shameless Gillibrand wanted some national exposure for her future Presidential aspiration. Republican's never eat their own, but Democrats do, and that is why we are losers.
25
Senator Gillibrand may have Presidential aspirations but that's about all she'll ever get. Her approach to Senator Franken will not be readily forgotten and a lot of people will be wary of someone who seemed to have decided what the verdict is and what the sentence would be before the inquiry began.
Now if only the Dems could get the word out!
Just what we need...more Republicans!
7
Far from it. Democrats are fiscally responsible patriotic freedom loving Americans. Republicans are Royalist traitors who care nothing of the United States and equality for all, all they care for is money and guns. War mongers who want to spread Christianity throughout the world while they crush the poor at home.
No, Democrats are not the new republicans. The republicans are the new alt right party and the Democrats are the level headed, caring, people they have always been.
4
Frank Pleeeeze address another Reason why the Democrats are
the new Republicans. Corporate Democrats! Which is horribly and sadly
is around 80 % of the Democratic party. Sure they may have a
more humane touch, though not always, but these corporate
Dems serve their donors not the voters. I would like to think that
the lingering Humane touch is because some of the Democratic
donors are a bit kinder have a little more heart and allow
their Democrat slaves to not lay the whip on us little people
so harshly, perhaps they are less greedy, though of course
I believe that often the Dems and the Repubs have the same
donors. Unless the progressive Democrats who are not on the take,
come through for us, then we will have two parties who support
the corporate world, not the workers and boy do we need someone
who will look out for the majority. I am so sick of people
looking for deliverance from the bought and sold Dems. And
could you put in your next column how outrageous it is for Tom
Perez to OK asking over and over again, through different
Democrats for money from the grass roots to end the tax bill
and save Net Neutrality or what ever it is that they
cannot seem to get a handle on. Not fair when they hardly make
a stand. Talk about stealing from the poor and giving to the
wealthy Democrats. Sob, our nickels and dimes, our nickels and
dimes. and it never does any good and neither do the bloody
petitions we sign that they use to rope us in.
8
Reads nice, Frank, but we blew the best chance to right the ship 17 years ago, when the outgoing ( adulterer ) president left an economy roaring and a budget surplus in excess of $200 billion a year and projected to run for the next ten years. The rich were very rich ( tho, apparently not rich enough they needed an even more upper, upper class, the 0.01% -- something the really rich donor class could aspire to ), the country was not perpetually at war and the middle class could afford health insurance.
What's different? The debt is three times what it was then, and projected to rise a full third ( to about $30 TRILLION ) in ten years, if not much more. We have become the war nation, perpetually. The military-industrial complex and homeland security suck $800 billion out of the trough each year, but now we hear even kids can't be protected from a meager Chips program ( Oh! Those moochers!! ) and the paid-for entitlement programs are next on the chopping block. And, best of all, it's okay for whack jobs to slaughter children in the classroom. No, wait, even better: the president we have now, gloats at being an adulterer a dozen times over, and 30% of the people, his do-called base, think he's great.
We are sick.
21
I agree with Frank's sentiments entirely.
But I am lost on how it is possible that we have so many fellow citizens positively bewitched by our huckster in chief.
How can the obvious lies being told be so convincing to our neighbors?
Why, in the face of facts and truth, does the republican party move in lockstep to a moron?
And why is the stock market, that barometer of financial health, keep making new highs?
When the people to whom the democracy is entrusted are no longer wise enough to keep it, the consequences are inevitable. We have chosen poorly and the failure of our press and elected representatives to fulfill their roles as our democracy is disassembled is a harbinger.
11
Keep flogging that horse, y'all. Dems are as sold out to the corps as the repubs, just not as blatantly. They haven't truly spoken for me—the working class/middle-class—in decades...
6
Democrats are the party that believes in the Constitution, the rule of law, and their oath of office.
Democrats are the party that believes in the FBI over Putin, victims over predators, and facts over Fox.
Democrats are the party that believes in the American people. ALL the American people.
6
Democratic Party should emphasize their competence in governing effectively. Win the upcoming wave election, then govern. Simple as that.
There is a difference in style but little in substance. We all get pretty much the same training. Obey and follow.
3
Here's the way the Tax scam works. First, an army of accountants advises senior managers to declare themselves "companies" or contractors. So what if the IRS eventually says No! Just put your riches in an investment and see what happens. Next, the IRS will draw up much clearer, more arbitrary, and restrictive definitions of "employee" and "self-employed." That will take some time. Third, the understaffed IRS hires an army to monitor the fakes and cheats, audit, and demand reimbursement. That takes years. By the time the loophole is fixed, the country is broke and Trump Inc. will have moved off-shore for good.
3
Republicans packaged up "values voters" quite nicely because so many people in rural and semi-rural, small town America are upset about the general collapse of marriage and the downhill slide, symbolized by widespread drug use, in their communities. The Republicans never intended to do much, if anything, about these problems, but talked about them endlessly or they talked about idealized, 1950s solutions, which brought more people into the tent. Score: GOP 10, Dems 0.
We pretty well have a sharp cultural/tribal split right now across the nation. The small towns and rural areas want "old timey" America to come back and be great again. The urbanized, college degreed and prosperous regions are looking to the present and the future and understand that the good ol'days, whatever they were, are gone.
Democrats can pretend to be the new Republicans all they want to, but in the eyes of the people between the coasts they are too heavily identified with gay marriage, bathroom rights, abortion on demand and great, propagandized fears of a govt. take over of all aspects of life. Unless there is some sort of sea change on the scale of Republicans sweeping the old south because of Dems' stand for civil rights, it won't work.
Trump, the disrupter, might be the force that finally shakes up the political parties and, perhaps, sinks the Republicans once and for all. The tax bill to save the rich is going to go down like a lump of coal in the throats of most. The blowback could be extreme.
9
Dear Mr. Bruni
Your article reinforces the most pernicious idea held by most Americans today, the idea that the finances of the US of A are in any way similar to one's personal or business finances.
You write, "Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility because they don’t pretend that they can afford grand government commitments ... without collecting the revenue for them." But history shows that "financial responsibility" has always been disastrous.
Let's compare the post WWII period with post WWI. After WWI we did, indeed, practice "financial responsibility." For 10 years we eliminated deficits & used the resulting surpluses to pay down the debt almost 40%. And then what happened?
This is not an isolated incident. ALL 6 times we practiced "fiscal responsibility" for a while & paid down the debt 10% or more, we fell into one of our 6 terrible depression.
On the other hand, in 1946 the public debt ratio was 109% of GDP, almost 50% larger than today. We had federal deficits for 21 of those 27 years thus increasing the debt by 75% by 1973. But during this period GDP growth averaged 3.8% & real median household income surged 74%
(If you want to raise the "Europe was Rubble Myth,". look at http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/capital21c/en/pdf/F1.1.pdf which shows that the output of Europe was about the same as the US in the Great Prosperity of 1946 - 1973).
"Fiscal responsibility" is a a good idea for one's personal finances, but a terrible idea for the government.
156
It was the Republicans who pushed the analogy between government finances and personal finances.
Mr. Bruni nowhere pushes that analogy. It is not unreasonable in fiscal policy to ask how a new and costly policy will be financed (apart from invoking unicorns); that is NOT the same as likening the situation to a family budget.
I am afraid that you are invoking a massively false equivalence. The Democrats have favored stimulus spending when needed -- such as Obama did, saving the economy, however much it fell short of what was needed for a faster recovery. To suggest that Mr. Bruni is taking a position contrary to this is nonsense.
3
Len, after raising the debt by $9 trillion during Obama's tenure, don't fret too much about democrats all of a sudden becoming fiscal conservatives.
Correlation is not causation. Re-think your premise.
Thank you, Mr Bruni. This should be required reading for the Democratic leadership and any Democrat running for office.
And it's such a pleasant change to see a positive program put forward to defeat Trump and the Republicans, instead of the hand-wringing about how "frightening" they are, which is the usual fare.
I would only take issue with your approval of what the Democrats did to Al Franken. They were just a little too quick to embrace the initial fervour of the #MeToo movement in a manner that smacked of McCarthyism and Robespierre.
Personally, I don't think it enhanced any aspirations Senator Gillibrand may have for the presidency.
12
When Republicans were the champions of all of those worthy topics, back in the 1960s and 1970s, they generally lost most elections. Then they learned that the American people didn't really want those things, they just wanted leaders who would pretend for them. Don't be so sure that you want to be that party.
4
No. The Democrats are more like the Washington Generals.
Your list is very comprehensive, and true. But it doesn't matter. The Globetrotters broke all the rules too, acted outrageous, but always won.
1
The Democrats need forceful and compelling leaders to represent the values of equality and opportunity for all Americans. Resorting to candidates drawn from the elitist East and West coasts (Pelosi, Hillary, etc) alienates a large percentage of the voting public. This has to be avoided in future elections. Joe Biden would have been an excellent candidate and beaten Trump like a rented mule in any election. We must learn from wrong choices, and seize the opportunity.
8
Joe Biden supported Clarence Thomas over Anita Hill. he refused to let three other women testify. No thanks. As a woman i will never support Joe Biden. I was dismayed when Obama chose him for VP. There were many better choices. Like Hillary Clinton.
2
All politics is local. The person and platform that will win in the south is different from the person and platform that will win in the northeast is different from what will win the west coast.
The next 6 years have to be about the tactics of winning. Get folks registered and to the polls in spite of efforts of Rep's to hinder and dis-enfranchise voters. Then once the current crew of Rep's are set aside, we can sort the policy.
4
This is going to shock you, Frank, but I don't think the Democrats should be the [insert random modifier here] Republicans. I think they should be Democrats. That is how they ran a 3-state sweep last month, and how Jones won in Alabama last week. We need to keep letting people know there is a clear difference, a difference that's better and worth voting for. But that can only happen if Democrats are better Democrats, not if they're better Republicans.
20
Democrats are now the party of the rich, the elites and of course family values. The same values Bill Clinton practiced in the nineties. Most of the current democrats supported him then. Remember the organization moveon.org? Well, at last democrats are ready to move on. At least they are willing to admit that they were wrong in the nineties in supporting Clinton. I comment the democrats. First time in my life, I am thinking about aligning with them. If you live long enough, you get to see a lot of thing.
2
Family Values in simple terms that the average person can relate to:
Democrats have in the past fought for "exemptions" in the tax code. With "exemptions" a family could reduce its taxable income by about $4,000.00 per family member, even after that family had taken its mortgage interest and state tax deductions.
For a family of 4 (2 parents and 2 children) where the parents worked a 40 hour job and where they considered their home as their sole asset, that family was able to reduce their taxable income by an additional $16,000.00 per year after taking its itemized deductions. If that family paid $12,000.00/yr on mortgage interest and $4,000.00/yr on state taxes, that family could reduce its taxable interest by $32,000.00.
The Republicans have repealed the "exemptions." Under the Republican plan that family of 4 could choose between taking a $12,000.00 standard deduction or a $16,000.00 itemized deduction. In either event, by repealing all "exemptions" the Republicans have increased that family's taxable income by at least $16,000.00!
By opposing the Republican plan, and fighting to retain exemptions, Democrats can say, we are for families so as their family grows, so does their tax relief.
4
Well, and I have taught the Gospels as literature many times,
and I admire the hippy Jesus, what we have to admit, both
parties, is that the State Religion is Capitalism. I'm no
Socialist, but I believe in socialism: firemen, police, ER's,
basic medical insurance, fine Public Education for all, the best Military for the present world situation, and public paid politicians who work out plans and bills for the common good.
I guess that too boring. Some seem to love the 1%, their
extravagances. And Fundamentalists who praise Profit (as
Calvin recommended) are on the $ band wagon. I wonder if
these Capitalists in their robes of power would accept the
Jesus of the Gospel if he returned. I read yesterday Douthat's
conversation with two pastors. The three of these religious
did the kind of hair-splitting over religious and social values that I swear Jesus could have overheard from the Pharisses and Sadduccees, who bowed to Tiberius, Caesar of the moment.
Sadduccees.
5
May I add that the use of personal exemptions to promote the creation of families has disappeared from the GOP tax "reform" bill?
However one may feel about either the need for younger generations to help support the old - a mainstay of the American ethos from our original agrarian roots - or ZPG (Zero Population Growth), personal exemptions for children are gone.
It took a bribe (to Marco Rubio, to get his vote) to even leave in the CTC. The GOP seems determined to cement its hold on the "old, white" vote. But it won't work. When they come after Medicare (and they will!), it will be "aux barriades" for 50 million elderly American voters, I among them.
5
Why should we incentivize childbearing, when the US (and the PLANET) are overpopulated? and there is climate change and global warming?
We should instead have a child "penalty" -- not an incentive!
And carry this through the welfare state -- stop rewarding unwed childbearing!
3
Agree absolutely, CC.
1
That's all true enough, Mr. Bruni. But you are building a case based on the notion that words and phrases actually mean something. We've all seen that we are in a very post-1984 world where labels and slogans no longer mean anything. The evidence of this is in how 48% of Alabama voters totally disregarded them, as you point out. Which was also the case nation-wide in November 2016. So, labels, titles, slogans, and words no longer mean a thing. Usurping those that have been abandoned by the GOP will do the Democrats not a bit of good. What we Democrats need are new leaders who will ACT, not just talk and whine as the current Democratic "leadership" now does. From the precinct level upward the Democrats need to ACT: resist, reform. enact.....do stuff. Forget the words, lead with energy and by actions.
7
Mr. Bruni - I took the title of your column literally - that Democrats are what Republicans used to be, in terms of policies, as they've moved over to the center - right. The party of FDR is gone. As for what kind of party the Republicans are, words fail me.
11
Most of all and by any measure, Democrats are the party of the American people and we know who we are; diverse, evolving and compassionate. The United States is the only powerful country on Earth whose edifice and sacrifice is ground in its Constitution, rule of law and separation of church and state.
We must preserve, protect and defend what the United States stands for against those who seek to bring that down.
4
"Democrats are the party of the American people"
No, they are not, which is why they couldn't even beat such really disgusting Republicans. What does it take to lose to a Trump?
7
"What does it take to lose to a Trump?" It takes picking your voters (gerrymandering), voter suppression, and a fractured Democratic party with Democrats who wouldn't vote to keep the "disgusting Republicans" out of office and enabled an illegitimate Supreme Court Justice who will affect our future for decades. Are we ready for 2018?
4
This moment is indeed a window of opportunity unlike any I can recall in decades.
The question in my mind is whether the entrenched power brokers within the DEM party will set aside their own personal ambitions for more power and work for the good of the entire party, and fundamentally, for all Americans.
Schumer and Gillibrand's recent treatment of Franken leaves me very discouraged. The party DOES need to "clean house", both to protect its integrity AND as a gesture to the American citizenry. But they also need to be exemplary in respect for the law. They should have engaged in an open process, a senate ethics committee review of the allegations against Franken rather than strong-arming him to resign.
My conclusion is that Schumer and Gililbrand were more interested in using the opportunity to cement their own hold on power within the party.
I am not hopeful. The opportunity exists, but not the leadership.
592
J Jencks:
You may be right about the Congressional Democratic leadership, but no one forced Al Franken to resign. It was his choice. If I thought I could survive an ethics investigation, I would not have given up. I still wonder why Franken resigned so quickly ...
3
We don't know if "no one forced Al Franken to resign." We don't know what kind of pressure was put on him.
2
I was very angry about Franken, too. And then a week later Roy Moore lost. Granted, it was a close one. But I feel that the sacrifice may have helped Alabama voters see the difference in the two candidates and make the right choice. If it had any effect, then it was worth it.
2
"Under Trump’s thumb and spell, the Republican Party is watching the pillars of its brand crumble. Democrats should grab hold of and appropriate them. "
Terrific column, Frank. A new poll came out today revealing that for the first time in what seems like forever Democrats were seen as more trustworthy custodians of the economy. Of course: Democrats pay for their programs, not stick them on the national credit card.
Of course, it didn't take an abominable tax bill to see that--all one needed to do was review the two major crises of the past 100 years to see who was responsible: Republicans, who pushed through programs that massively increased income inequality.
1929. 2008. Both preceded by horrific GOP legislation that so widened the gap between rich and poor that the center couldn't hold, resulting in economic collapse.
Will it happen again? Well, some economists are seeing an eerie similarity between 1926 and now, and we know how that turned out.
As for family values, I agree: the Democrats live their values, not just spout them. My boyfriend's gay brother and his husband both adopted kids nobody wanted long before they officially married when gay marriage became legal in RI.
Under Trump, it seems the GOP guardrails have all come loose, as the they brag about the real intent of this tax heist, punishing the "takers" while rewarding "makers".
Making out like bandits, is what they really mean.
49
"Democrats pay for their programs, not stick them on the national credit card."
The period 1946 - 1973 has been called the Great Prosperity. GDP growth averaged 3.8% and real median household income surged 74%. But we sure put a lot on the national credit card. We had deficits for 21 of those 27 years and INCREASED the national debt by 75%.
On the other hand, Republicans from 1919 - 1929 put nothing on the national credit card, spending less than they took in and paying the national debt down by almost 40%. And how did that work out?
Christine, it is about time you realized that the finances of a huge long lived country that can create as much money as it needs and which must supply the money we need to buy and sell goods and services is far, far different from your personal finances.
3
I think you are mistaking branding for reality. Partisan politics is not really about policies, its about brand identification. Republicans are the party of the white middle class. Democrats are the party of diversity.
White middle class people are fiscally conservative. They want to associate with people like themselves. They don't want to associate with losers and riffraff. They want rules that control how other people behave. They want to punish people who aren't like them who misbehave. If that doesn't make them behave they want to punish them more severely. They respect authority. They belong to a church because that is what respectable people like them do. A lot of them belong to Republican churches that brand themselves Christian but really have nothing to do with Christianity. It is all just part of the branding.
The Democrats are not going to steal that brand. But their own brand has increasingly become the party of Harvard and Yale. Walter Mondale was the last person to run as Democrat for president who had not attended Harvard or Yale. Thurgood Marshall was the last person a Democrat appointed to the Supreme Court who had not attended Harvard or Yale. They see themselves as the best and brightest who naturally should run the world. They don't really believe that other people are capable of self-government. They see their job as managing the riff-raf so they can make the "right" decisions. The right decisions are the ones that serve the finance industry.
17
From Hillary's fact sheet:
Impose a risk fee on the largest financial institutions. Big banks & financial companies would be required to pay a fee based on their size and their risk of contributing to another crisis.
When a large bank suffers major losses with sweeping consequences, senior managers should lose some or all of their bonus compensation.
Make sure no financial firm is ever too big or too risky to be managed effectively.
Hillary would also hold both corporations & individuals on Wall Street accountable by:
Prosecuting individuals when they break the law. Hillary would extend the statute of limitations for prosecuting major financial frauds, enhance whistleblower rewards, & provide the Department of Justice & the Securities and Exchange Commission with more resources to prosecute wrongdoing.
Holding executives accountable when they are responsible for their subordinates’ misconduct. Hillary believes that when corporations pay large fines to the government for violating the law, those fines should cut into the bonuses of the executives who were responsible for or should have caught the problem. And when egregious misconduct happens on an executive’s watch, that executive should lose his or her job.
Holding corporations accountable when they break the law. Hillary will make sure that corporations can’t treat penalties for breaking the law as merely a cost of doing business, so we can put an end to the patterns of corporate wrongdoing that we see too often today.
8
Hillary's platform is irrelevant. First, because she wouldn't actually have done most of those things once elected. Second, she lost.
But most of that list has nothing to do with the finance industry and some of it can be said to serve it. She was going to take away the bank President's bonus if a "large" bank failed. That's really cracking down on those money managers, make them live on their 7 figure salary.
6
Ross Williams -- Right. Hillary told those bankers to "cut it out" with a wink, while the Republicans just cheered what they'd done. Meanwhile, voters had nobody to vote for who would actually do what needed doing. That does not mean just Bernie, or just the race for President, the whole mess had nobody left working for voters -- so vast numbers just stayed home, not fooled.
4
"Who among us doesn’t care about family values, defined justly and embraced honestly? Who doesn’t see the good in patriotism, tradition and decency?"
Republicans can talk the talk but not walk the walk.
Democrats can walk the walk but not talk the talk.
Democrats have the best chance to improve, because they have the best policies -- policies that will actually help the country. If they could robustly learn the art of persuasion, like Trump has, they would embody the best of both worlds. I hope that, eventually, it might actually happen.
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I agree strongly with the thrust of Frank's excellent column.
Democrats need to become a lot more nuanced on both abortion rights and gun control. These two issues are the quote gifts that keep on giving unquote to Republicans in the South and Midwest.
As there are 300+ million firearms in this country (alas!) gun control is essentially a lost cause. Roe versus Wade litmus tests for judicial nominees can be politically costly in Senate races.
The Democrats should stand for defending and strengthening the social safety net (starting with Medicaid), discouraging any new military adventures in Muslim nations or with North Korea, repairing our nation's crumbling infrastructure, making the Federal tax code more progressive, and addressing such Middle American concerns as the costs of college and health insurance.
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Good. They get after Republicans for raising those “divisive social issues” it’s about time they went after Democrats about that.
Democrats need to be Democrats, not Republicans. The goalposts have been moved again and again, but that's not a good reason to abandon the ideal of an ethical society that works for everyone, with benefits for all and shared responsibility for a civil society.
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Democrats are what Republicans were during Jim Crow plus some other ideas, some of dubious merit. Republicans once stood for an ethical society that works for everyone, and Democrats have only recently stood for benefits for all and shared responsibility. It doesn't matter what they are called, all parties just blow in the wind looking for the next fashionable cause and moralizing talking point. Actual Democrats and Republicans, the ones who actually work in the machinery of it all are profiteers. Only us on the sidelines actually care about these ideas in any real way.
Harry Truman said that, a long time ago: "Give the people a choice between a Republican and a Republican, they'll pick the Republican every time".
Christopher, if you actually care, you'd get off the sidelines. The people in public service have done that, and it appears vast numbers have joined them. Once they have to work with other people and get stuff done, you'll be all set to drink your fine cognac of rage and condemn them too. The purity monster, the circular firing squad, the blame the victim stuff, it's not helping. You never bothered to learn anything about your villains except trolling condemnations, did you? Social media has a lot to answer for. Remember, Zuckerberg started Facebook to get even with a girlfriend and his zillions are not helping one bit, since he puts profits before ethics. Your insider groups congratulate each other and embrace conspiracy theories, and that's not helping us all grow into a caring community that works together to solve problems.
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And on deficits, let's not equate fiscal responsibility with "austerity" (which too often means abandoning programs which benefit most Americans and stimulate the economy too, e.g., infrastructure).
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We should equate fiscal responsibility for the federal government with utter stupidity. It has been disastrous EVERY time it was tried since 1776.
3
The Republican party has always been the party of the rich and big business. They're just being more obvious about it this month: their so-called tax reform further enriches the very wealthy and the big corporations, cutting corporate taxes from 35% to 21% while placating the rest of us with crumbs like the $250 tax deduction for teachers who buy supplies for their underfunded classes.
Don't fall for it.
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One might say that Democrats are practically the new Republicans already, having adopted the triangulated Clintonian strategy of Wall Street friendliness and big-money speeches for Goldman Sachs. More recently, Democrats have morphed into the party of Moral Outrage-Identity Politics and Zero Tolerance, previously the galvanizing forces behind "Moral Majority" and "Just Say No" Republicanism. Yes, it looks like the Dems are well on their way to becoming Copycat Republicans, but it's not a pretty sight. Instead of appropriating Republicanism, Democrats ought to return to the core values of fairness, community good, and a well-regulated society, and make an original New Deal for the modern era.
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Please just stop. Don't you know you're following a carefully seeded path set up by Republicans in the 1990s and enhanced by Russian trolls? Or are you a Republican yourself, encouraging us to fight with each other?
Blaming victims and indulging in circular firing squads enables your worst nightmares, if you believe in what is good for all of us. And if you're pretending to enhance the dissension, shame on you!
12
From Hillary's platform:
"Hillary has called for a national infrastructure bank that would leverage public and private funds to invest in projects across the country. She will call for reform that closes corporate tax loopholes and drives investment here, in the U.S. And she would increase funding for scientific research at agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Hillary will invest in infrastructure, clean energy, and scientific and medical research to create jobs and strengthen our economy. And she’ll provide tax relief to working families and small businesses. That’s how we’ll move toward a full employment economy that creates jobs, pushes businesses to compete over workers, and raises incomes.
End secret, unaccountable money in politics. Hillary will push for legislation to require outside groups to publicly disclose significant political spending. And until Congress acts, she'll sign an executive order requiring federal government contractors to do the same. Hillary will also promote an SEC rule requiring publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to shareholders.
Amplify the voices of everyday Americans. Hillary will establish a small-donor matching system for presidential and congressional elections to incentivize small donors to participate in elections, and encourage candidates to spend more time engaging a representative cross-section of voters."
There is a lot more. Read it.
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Bernie buster, get over it!
5
Nicely done. I'd like to see the Democrats in control of the national government, but I see two important decisions they must make approaching 2018 and 2020.
One is whether to go with the old guard, like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (who may already be running for the White House in 2020, given their joint op/ed the other day on these pages) or a new generation, like Corey Booker and Gavin Newsom.
The other is whether to embrace the working and middle class based appeal of Bernie Sanders or the race and gender identity politics that puts off so many voters. A NYT op/ed piece from a few months ago asked "what if Steve Bannon is right?" when he says that when the Democrats embrace those identity politics, the Republicans win. The results of recent elections in New Jersey, Virginia, and Alabama are encouraging, but the Dems must make some hard choices if they are to regain control of the national executive and legislative branches in order, e.g., to reverse this disastrous tax bill.
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Good points, John. But I'm wondering whether it's necessary to "choose between" working class appeal and gender identity.
We need to keep in mind that local races and presidential races are 2 different animals. I believe local races need to be focused around local culture/identity and local issues, rather than be linked to a national agenda. When DEMs gain more local strength the presidential races will be easier.
DEM politicians do not need all need to be cut out of the same, identical mold and fit within some narrow orthodoxy. In fact, they should not be. They should reflect and be responsive to their constituents.
4
How about Amy Klobuchar or Kamala Harris? Booker is as tied in to Wall Street as Hillary was. No thanks.
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When Kamala Harris piled onto Al Franken, copying Kristen Gillabrand, she lost my vote forever. Those 2 female senators have no sense of nuance.
1
Moving the Democratic Party further right and claiming the moral high ground won't win elections, The dubious virtue of austerity for Main Street helped lose them a thousand seats in the past decade - a decade that saw the largest transfer of household wealth to the top 1% in our country's history.
Sure, blame gerrymandering. But Trump and the GOP will never be defeated if all that Dems can offer is "Incrementalism We Can Believe In." Trillion-dollar wars and world supremacy don't make up for the lack of universal health care and stagnating wages at home.
Even before Trump came along with his reckless tweets, America's "standing" was on the wane. Corporation-friendly trade deals and the global economic crisis caused by finance capital gone wild have destroyed millions of lives and livelihoods besides ours.
A new report co-authored by Thomas Piketty shows that the US is now the most unequal of all Western nations. This deliberately manufactured wealth gap will only intensify, as social and natural and political catastrophes become the new normal.
Our incarceration nation now imprisons one-third of all black men at some point in their lives, and on average, one US citizen is killed by law enforcement every 24 hours. Do you really think glorifying the FBI and the CIA, and scarifying about Russia, will fire up millions of oppressed people to come out and vote Democrat?
The Democrats don't need to be more like Republicans. They need to be more like New Deal Democrats.
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Hear, hear. If I had a nickel for every column in this paper extolling the virtues of Democrats merely being the party of “not Trump” and sticking up for the status quo...
How else did we get into this mess but by major problems gone unaddressed by a corporate-owned party of 1% politicians who are so utterly out of touch with the average American?
NYT: Please hire a progressive columnist who believes in Medicare for all, free higher education, stopping our endless wars, publicly funded elections, legalized marijuana and so on — like most of the rest of us already believe.
33
Karen:
Agreed. This column should not be seen as a clever retooling of the terminology of certain liberal themes. It should be a warning that, as the DNC morphs slowly into a fuzzy reflection of what the GOP was, there soon becomes nothing remaining of a voice for what a liberal democracy should look like. And as society becomes more unequal and less participatory in its own self-governance, it becomes something other than what the Great Experiment was meant to be.
15
I don't read this column as asking Democrats to be more like Republicans, but to wrest the narrative from them. To remind or educate voters that Democrats have always been all of the things Republicans pretended to be but weren't.
But I do agree that Democrats need to become real Democrats again.
7
So well said Mr. Bruni !
Now where are the candidates to widely articulate your spot-on analysis - and provide compelling leadership toward an American government we can be proud of once again?
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Let's hope they're reading this, Geoffrey. Either that, or Mr. Bruni ought to run for Congress!
Frank, at least the rest of the country has gotten to see what absolute hypocrites GOP'ers are when it comes to 'the deficit the deficit the deficit, oh my' which caused countless GOP'ers in the past 8 years to head for their fainting couches and call for their smelling salts from an attack of the vapors.
What the country should also beware is that the rot which has passed for ethics in B-school courses around the country is also on full display with this crowd - Americans cannot let the hollowing out that has occurred for so many decades on Wall Street erode D.C. across the board.
We have to recognize these are the ethics that guide GOP'ers, which is why they cannot bring themselves to invest in infrastructure, in people, or anything else; they've forgotten how in their professions, and cannot stop themselves when it comes to gutting government and enriching themselves with the spoils.
They are vultures, they see nothing wrong with it, and they cannot stop themselves - to make sure they don't stop themselves, almost everyone is beholden to the anti-tax pledge they signed with Grover Norquist's group, which virtually guarantees the extinguishing of funding for government's functions.
GOP'ers have told us who they are, and they've shown us how dysfunctional they are countless times - it's high time we started to believe 'em, before they cause irreparable damage.
And we better hurry.
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Ethics in B-school courses? Does such a thing even exist? Several years ago I had to choose a management elective for my undergrad degree; I chose Business Ethics. We spent an entire semester learning about treating our suppliers ethically and learning how not to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. I did not hear one word -- not a single one! -- about how to treat our employees in an ethical manner. And that is the crux of our problem; the vast majority of our citizens are current, past, or future employees and in this nation we do not matter. We are debits on the balance sheet to be used up in the cheapest manner possible, then tossed out. If we don't teach our business students and business "elites" that being a vulture is both unacceptable and unsustainable (all of those employees are also consumers, you know), things will only get worse.
GOPers apply the same "ethical" framework to citizens. When you need them for votes, pander to them. Then toss them aside. This tax bill is a perfect example. Was the carried interest loophole closed as Trump promised his supporters? No? I didn't think so. Nor am I surprised.
Until we break the stranglehold business has on the nation we are doomed. And I don't think the current Democrats are the answer; they're almost as "business-friendly" as the GOP. This is illustrated by the fact that the politician who best exemplifies Democratic New Deal principles is, in fact, an Independent and not a Democrat.
5
pedigrees - In absolute solidarity with your first 2 paragraphs; there is no equivalence between Dems and GOP'ers, though.
The country has been ill-served by a cult of CEO worship which has bled over into politics. It's too often forgotten that C-suites in this country are proven to harbor 400% more psychopaths/sociopaths than a person would encounter standing on an average downtown street corner:
http://www.businessinsider.com/jon-ronson-psychopath-test-psychology-201...
To wit: it was known before the election that djt tests high on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, the standard tool used by professional criminologists since the 1980's:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/donald-trump-keith-olbermann-san...
5
If this were to be true, and the underlying policies reflected the solemnity of the rhetoric, I might become a Democrat.
23
Bruni's op-ed piece lists the policies and actions, of the Democrats as well as the Republicans, on which he bases his observation. What in the article are you finding to be untrue? Or is it inertia looking (struggling) for justified rejection of becoming a Democrat.
1
Decency isn’t about being a Republican or a Democrat. It’s about being a caring, empathetic human being. And if there’s any doubt who is living up to that standard, just look at the cabal of slathering Republicans rubbing their hands together and winking at each other as they cram through this tax bill. It’s smooth sailing for the rich and a serrated suppository for the poor and middle class.
The hypocrisy is astounding. No one should ever utter the words “compassionate conservatism” again without having their heads examined. Some Republicans may actually have qualms about what they’re doing to ordinary people, but not so much that they won’t fall in line when McConnell bares his teeth and flaps his jowls at them.
This tax bill has nothing to do with fiscal responsibility. Conservative robot Tim Mnuchin lied without blinking on Face the Nation this past Sunday as he stiffly smiled and explained how this was a boon for the little guy. Being unflappable while lying is apparently the only qualification for a cabinet post in this administration.
Democrats can make mistakes, but they can also show humility and compassion. And when they err, they err on the side of the ordinary people who depend on them. In this way they mirror how the last Democratic president faced the complexities and compromises that come with the office.
Republicans also follow their leader. And they’ll follow him into every cesspit and swamp without question, while dragging us behind them.
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Too bad they did not choose Joe Biden, and make him run, if there is any person who is the embodiment, of the OP-ED's contents, is Joe Biden.
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Is he the guy who helped Clarence Thomas get to the Supreme Court? Called Anita hill a liar...? That guy?
11
Bernie busters would have chewed a hole in Biden as well.
4
Well, he is better than call a good part of the population "deplorablse", or lie about Benghazi, or lie about an e-mail server, or lie about nailing Bernie Sanders with lies, which is what your goddess Hillary Clinton did.
5
Ever since the 1960s, the Republican agenda pretended to be about law and order, pretended to be about family values, pretended to be about fiscal responsibility--all the while actually being about white supremacy. Nixon with his Southern strategy, Reagan with his "welfare queens," Bush 41 with his Willie Horton, and Trump with his obvious racism and xenophobia. Unfortunately, there is no argument that will persuade a racist that it is in his best interest not to be one.
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So if it is in the best interest of a tribal member to stick with hir tribe, it would be best for Dems to broaden their tribal membership, back to white guys with blue collars.
Name, sounds like you like tribalism. Try living in Afghanistan then. But, that's not what MEM said. Read the statement again.
1