Shows us the power of propaganda.
32
Was in complete agreement and enjoying the article, then reached the asinine "DNA of Civil War traitors" comment and stopped reading.
14
They’d also gag at today’s Democrats and their guilt ridden identity politics.
20
Timothy Egan is one of the more liberal and open-minded writer the Times has left in its roster of pundits.
Still, the endemic problem remains with him as well:
We are not a democracy, never were and if we do not change our constitution we will never will.
The country, like most countries began with atrocities committed, people displace, maimed, massacred. Slaves were imported to make it work profitably. Not unlike Spanish and Portuguese imperialists ruining Latin America for good, our founding fathers created a capitalist state which quickly turned imperialist when the time was ripe.
Nations are built on myths. Ours is called the American Rhetoric which includes the American Dream and the Manifest Destiny. We are the nation that God blessed and will keep blessing independent of us napalming children in Indochina, decimating a whole country created by the British on the false assumptions that they possessed weapons of mass destruction (ironically we are the only nation to have used such weapons killing hundreds of thousands by dropping two atomic bombs even if we had already won the war).
So Mr. Egan, let's cut to the chase; there is a lot to atone for. Kids in cages or slaves in cages on the lower decks of transatlantic boats. Nothing changed really.
Acknowledging the pain we caused is step one towards redemption. Listing names of slave-owning founding fathers and bragging about a constitution which is so flawed that it is almost a joke, is not it.
24
Reagan himself would gag at today's Republicans.
47
If the south wants to secede still/again, let’s all agree to let them.
88
Thank, you, Timothy. You have made this issue quite clean. It is very unfortunate that those who need to understand it will be the last to do so.
People see to be more engaged by hatred and division than ever. This is antithetical to our Democracy and the health/existence of our nation. This is no the united America that followed WW II or even Korea - we see to have lost our compass and we are much the worst for it. Trump, as horrible as he is, is merely the poster moron for the likes of Barr, McConnell and the rest of the Republican traitors.
34
Trump needs to GO!
25
#Tony. Yeah, and I saw your hero’s base marching, carrying torches and chanting “you will not replace us” in Charlottesville back in August of 2017.
20
I am not sure the Founding Fathers would be pleased with forgiving people for their debts (college), no borders, identity politics, and calling everyone that doesn't agree with you a rube, uneducated, and a bigot.
22
You don't have to be a Founder to gag.
36
When you buy a house, the three principles are Location X3.
When you become a voter, the three abiding principles are EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION. Is the GOP even opposed to universal education, even to the extent that rich white kids with a D-Average can just waltz into Harvard, Princeton, and Yale because of an endowment from Dad? Maybe- I wouldn't be surprised anymore by just about anything, including flying elephants. Of course "getting it" doesn't alway mean being good in school. Common sense is in increasingly short supply. Hey middle-class people, how does it feel to be treated like Black folks more and more every day? Do you feel like going to "just get drunk" and try to forget about your Civil Rights and Liberties? Do you think "they" won't make you wait in line all day jlong just to go vote? I saw a documentary about "Reconstruction" the other day on PBS. Imagine waiting for your freedom since 1619 and even then being denied? Hitler was an extremely bad person (!), but there's unfortunately more- many more- where that came from. Can't you see it on the "fake news" every day? Trump is just from a rich family- he's no different from so many "Americans" who are mainly just glad they're not a Jew or an African American, etc. Don't even think about not sitting down with your history books and start reading. Then watch Africa by BBC-EARTH so you can see what's happening to some of the most remote places on earth as it gets warmer, and warmer, and warmerrrr....
15
Who cares what would gag the FF? The FF make ME gag! They were slave-holding, slavery-loving, racists, sexist homophobes. Gag city!
Thanks to Doc in Atlanta for reminding me of our wonderful President Jimmy Carter! He's a totally decent, generous, kind, loving human being, a great Christian whose life demonstrates his faith. He's a very smart and decent man. In his 90's and recovering from brain cancer (treated with the new wonder drug Keytruda), he said in an interview that he believes trump would not have been elected without Russian interference. President Carte noted the very narrow margin of victory in just a few states, the fact that Hillary got nearly 3 Million more votes and the various ways the Russians interfered, and how very extensive their interference was. All very logical and I believe he's right. When then asked if that means trump is an illegitimate "president", President Carter did not back away, and said since he could not retract his statement about Russian interference in the 2016 election that the adjective "illegitimate" was appropriate. He was logical without being mean -- President Carter, in stark contrast to our current Divider in Chief, could never be mean spirited. He is a great man and he was a great president as well. I don't care what anybody else says, he WAS a great president for the US and I sincerely hope our future presidents are much more like President Carter than the bully now illegitimately in the Oval Office.
39
“Anti-American” is up there with “enemies of the people” — both phrases should be beyond the pale for civil discourse. This column uses the former twice.
5
It is so convenient to claim that founding fathers support your opinions when they are not around to rebuke the use of their names.
13
It is time for us to fly our flag upside down "as a signal of dire distress..."
27
Know Nothings from every corner of the country are on display and in abundance these days for sure. They always rear their nasty heads, when immigration soars. We got here, again, because neither political party can craft a coherent immigration policy. Of the 300M global refugees, 60M have come to America since 1960. That's greater than all our previous immigration waves combined. What is required is a clear and coherent immigration policy such as other liberal democracies like Canada, Australia etc, use. For instance, Canada, with a population of 33M, takes in 200K immigrants per year. They are sorted on an economic, family and refugee basis, in that order, with refugees being the smallest category by far. The US, with a smaller land mass, took in 1.127M immigrants in 2017 alone. Solve this and we won't end up with humanitarian disasters on our borders. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/canadas-immigration-policy https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/Annual-Number-of-US-Legal-Permanent-Residents
11
More than a little unbalanced. I don't ask either Party to be full of candidates for sainthood, but I do ask that they display the ability to add and subtract. No, we can't take in all of Central America. End of discussion. Do you want, like my Mexican American friends, to send aid? Sure. Get the UN to organize refugee camps on the Mexican Central American border, and send aid, or even volunteer.
And while we're on the subject, some of the border patrol guards you malign are candidates for sainthood. They have endured abuse, gunfire, rocks thrown at them, American prosecutors who can't wait to defend the people who shot at them and hold the border guards responsible for being injured, and still they will do their best all this hot, dry Summer to rescue illegals and also preserve our country's ability to know who is here.
13
Obama built the cages and I can find tanks, armored personnel carriers, and sundry military hardware at the local Scottish Festival. Get real and please pick up your pearls before you slip and fall.
12
The Founding Fathers would gag. But so what. All countries, nations, disintegrate over time. They sort of degrade and become vulgar, give up adherence to a moral order, get sloppy and we are no different. Trump is our Nero or Caligula. He represents the rot in our greedy system.
16
This is the best thing I've ever read in this paper. Finally someone tells it like it is. The South? "We did before and we can do it again, and we can do it again, and we can do it again..." Sherman should have finished what he started.
9
The Founders would gag at virtually every op/ed piece published by the NYT, too, and most of what passes for "news" found within its pages, as well.
10
The Founders would also gag at the Democrats: homosexual marriage, abortion on demand, open borders, free health care and college tuition, lack of faith in god (any god), and the subsequent decline in morality. Maybe that's why there is a loss of faith in America.
The Constitution was written for a moral and law-abiding people. If we no longer are that, it is unsuitable for the country and we should have a new one -- one of control and compulsion of a non-moral people and does not protect individual liberty.
As the philosopher Pogo said -- a long time ago -- "We have met the enemy and he is us."
7
I quit reading here:
"And half of all Southerners — the deepest, most anti-American part of Trump’s base, with the DNA of Civil War traitors still coursing through the region — believe the United States was founded as an “explicitly Christian” nation."
Cite your assertion, Egan. This kind of stereotyping is untrue and uncalled for and this southerner is sick of it.
You've lost this southerner's esteem. We certainly have our share of Trumpers, but let's not forget about the counties all across the U.S. that voted the Trump into office. You have your share, too, but I know how you hate to admit it.
I'll never read another op-ed you write - ever again.
14
They would be aghast at today's liberals too and would say that liberals epitomize the human behaviors they guarded against when they wrote the founding documents of our government.
7
"values and beliefs that Jefferson, Washington and Lincoln abhorred"
"Kids in cages and tanks for the tyrant"
Jefferson and Washington certainly put kids in chains. Washington may have liked to have tanks, but it was Lincoln who locked people up indefinitely without indictment, sent the military to attack Americans, and obliterated cities, towns, and farms (thanks to General Sherman in particular).
"First Amendment"
Consider Democrats' view: Only allow favored associations of people to pool their resources to speak; shout down, fire, badger, boycott, assault, and jail those who wish to speak a different opinion or abide by their religious beliefs. There is a place for enhancing libel laws in this country, but it is Democrats who are enemies of the 1st Amendment (and the 2nd, and the 10th).
"half of Republicans have adopted Trump’s authoritarian view that the news media is “the enemy of the people.”
That isn't an authoritorian view, that is an observation (not true in all cases).
"what part of 'Congress shall make no law'" ...religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech" or "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" do Democrats not understand? How is it that Timothy Egan can say with a straight face that Democrats support the Bill of Rights with their assault on people practicing their religion, the outcry from Citizen's United, and in working tirelessly to take away people's guns?
6
Excellent article. Thank you.
9
This article begs the question - what would the founding fathers think of Democrats? Do you think that they would be more or less shocked than how they view Republicans?
Free this, free that, expanding the government into all these areas like Social Security, welfare, on and on.
Point is - both parties are a disgrace to the founding fathers so stop pretending one is evil and the other is perfect.
9
No, sir, I do *not* understand why some Republicans consider themselves 'homeless'.
You can be a Republican and for child abuse, or you can be a Democrat and against it.
The rest is just window dressing.
It's way past time that Republicans stop parsing their vote and take responsibility for the shame they have inflicted on the rest of us.
17
The cult of trump has overtaken the GOP. Ethical and moral considerations formerly required by conservatives have been tossed... The moral flexibility necessary to argue that abusing children is okay because their parents broke the law -- or alternatively because President Obama did it first -- is breathtakingly disturbing. The cult of trump is leading steadily to fascism.
18
While the notion that people don't believe in global warming or climate change is pretty terrifying, we do need to look at the evidence presented before sounding the alarm. Aside from the fact that I'd hardly exonerate the democrats from those policy issues (most acts of speaker de-platforming at political events are by liberals on conservatives, there's still the whole debate over gender which at points is pretty anti-scientific), let's look at the data.
A) Claiming that most Republicans support making christianity a state religion based off of a poll of 316 people in North Carolina is absurd. We also don't know how the question was stated. If you asked me, "Should the US base government off of Judeo-Christian pricinples?" I would say "yes, in fact it was developed on those principles." I could see that being misconstrued, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt that the question literally was one about a state religion.
B) They're claiming Republicans don't support free speech based on a Vox article. Vox is a liberal news group that embroiled Youtube in a lawsuit, pushing it to remove conservative content deemed "hateful." Notwithstanding that Carlos Maza, one of their most popular hosts, called for doxxing and assaulting conservatives and idolizes Antifa. And they made the claim that Ben Shapiro, among others, supports Neo-Nazism and white supremacy. Uhh... he's a Jew that's constantly targeted by the alt-right.
I rest my case.
3
Exactly Mr. Egan. And I must add: July 4th: a disgusting, despicable depraved display of 8th grade jingoistic fascist garbage bearing absolutely no relation to the founding ideals of this country. Vile. We should ask our citizens, our voters, to think and think carefully about which political party has for forty years sponsored and supported the degradation of our political discourse (thank you Gingrich, a true fiend who should be in jail not peddling his latest ludicrous opinions), labored to demonize opponents, adopted win at all costs politics, and in general has operated with neither love of country, conscience, or shame: and that is: THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. The fact is, regardless how Fox News tries to wiggle out of it or how hard David Brooks or Bret Stephens or Ross Douthat try to rationalize, or excuse it, the GOP are to blame. Republicans. The rest is the pernicious and corrosive false equivalency that they and the rest of the supine media try to pretend is the case to neutralize the GOP's immoral and egregious 40 year assault on our democracy.
Getting rid of the Republican Party, first at the ballot box, then, punishing their bad faith, immorality and criminality in a court of law - with all the due process they always seek to deny others - for their ts many, many crimes against our country, and its people (not to mention humanity) is the first prerequisite for reclaiming our democracy and restoring our reputation in the world.
2020: NO REPUBLICANS. NONE. NOT ONE.
11
There is nobody better at the New York Times than Tim Egan. He says what others won’t say, and he says it clearly. This is the scariest piece I’ve read in a very long time.
11
Americans have been so convinced that our democracy cannot fail, that they have yet to understand that we have actually undergone such a right-wing coup d'etat, a coup that captured our government through a massive distortion of the electoral process. Voter suppression was combined with gerrymandering and help from Russian hackers in at least 39 states The symbol of vulgarity and ignorance, Donald Trump now serves the super-wealthy corporate elite while conning low education voters with the full support of hypocritical religious fundamentalists. The Republican leadership is totally complicit in Trump's incompetence at every level.
Sadly, Trumpists are blinded by Trump's pseudo-comic approach to filling the most serious office, perhaps on the planet. They don't care how much he takes from their pockets to pander to the wealthy. They don't care if he wants to take away their health care. They don't care if he is a Russian stooge working overtime to destroy the environment for them and their kids. No, they only care about his racist clown act that they absurdly think is "anti-establishment" Common sense and patriotism are not relevant to Trump supporters whatsoever. That Trump humiliates our nation before the world, and strengthens our enemies as a result, is of no concern either to Trump or his mindless followers. We must not make the same mistake that Austrians and Germans made in the 1930's. This is no joke -- Trump is a symptom, not merely a passing phase!!
15
Yesterday's Democrats would be Republicans today.
3
Beginning with Obama and worsening with Hillary Clinton and at an all-time low during Trump, liberals really enjoy insulting half the population every chance they get. Other than not reading fitting with the inclusiveness philosophy, there is just that overtly rude arrogance that somehow there are nice, intelligent people and they are liberals and there are evil, stupid people and they are Republicans.
Aside from AOC's wing driving the traditional, moderate Democrats and independents away from their quasi-nouvelle socialist radicalism, these unwarranted attacks on those who are the mainstream in America mean a Democrat won't win the White House in 2020. And when the new revolutionary guard helps drive the party into the ground, it will cause the party to divide in two and be forever irrelevant.
I hope Egan enjoys that sense of elitist puffery for years to come while the Republicans fix the Obama ruination decade and get America back on track.
5
Look, enough of this nonsense about "the founders would be horrified.....blah blah blah", I don't need to go back to the founding fathers to know that the Republicans are entirely corrupt in every possible way and are devoid of even the most basic principles that America SHOULD stand for. I mean I'm pretty tired of reading the same type of Op-Eds from the same writers week in and week out. Is there anything NEW to add about Trump? I don't think so. We ALL (of good character) know that he's vile and a liar. So let's either talk about policies that we'd like to initiate and how we can achieve them, examine the Democratic candidates and critique them OR ELSE we might as well talk about the weather, which can be summed up in one word: hot.
7
I think they may get a little sick at the democrats too. The founders expected people to take responsibility for their actions, not find someone to blame
8
I'm pretty sure they would be gagging at the progessive left too. They were all about self-reliance, not entitlements and victimhood.
8
The Grand Old Party of Lincoln has mutated into something that no one could see coming.
Founded in 1854 as a coalition opposing the extension of slavery into the west, the Republican Party fought to protect the rights of African Americans after the war between the states and today they fight to gerrymander so they can deny them and others the rights they deserve.
10
Without getting into all the points raised by Mr Eagen, I do have to say that I agree that the founding fathers and Lincoln would have found the present day Republican Party and its leaders, repulsive. They are the antithesis of the founding principles of this country.
Small government when they want to cut taxes for their corporate buddies. Big government when want to bail out the same corporate buddies. Embracing religion to gain support among voters knowing full well what a dangerous path they are on. And then demonizing the press because they don’t like what they hear. I can imagine the founding fathers holding their noses and carrying around those little bags that they have on the back seat pockets of airlines.
In a previous piece Mr Eagen talked about the Republican Party co opting the Christian faith.
I agree totally when he says that if Christ was alive today he would be a progressive. No doubt. He would have nothing to do with those espousing the values of the present day republicans or those preaching from crystal palaces and mega churches with their chauffeured cars, personal chefs and private planes.
14
The ignorance of the modern "Know Nothings" (and "Hate Everyone Elses") comes in greatest part from the propaganda they are fed daily on Fox News.
We must reinstate the Fairness Doctrine that Reagan ended for broadcasters - and extend it to cable news. Then even Fox would have to present a few facts now and then, and more (of course not all) of their viewers might begin to see the light.
12
Maybe 150 million people have private health insurance, that does not mean they are happy with it. Most of them can't afford it and have to fear possible bankruptcy.
There is no problem providing health insurance to all middle-class families and let the wealthy keep their private policies if they can afford it, but don't let them come back to Medicare when they are old and sick and not profitable anymore for the private industry.
Affordable health care for all earning less than say $200K per family. Health insurance should be compulsory, after all, everyone gets sick, some more than others, we just can't know if it will hit us. The wealthy will keep their option to go private, why not? They may need to be regulated private not for-profit insurance.
12
The founders would not only be appalled at the Republicans but also the Democrats. The founders set up our government as 3 co-equal branches. But because Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House has completely abdicated her responsibility to hold our President accountable and abdicated her oath to protect and defend the Constitution she has weakened the Congress as an institution to the point where our President is emboldened to do whatever he wants - obstruct justice, obtain election help from foreign governments, instruct citizens to ignore subpoenas, criticize Americans on foreign soil, treat refugees as criminals, appoint an AG as his personal lawyer, and on and on. Our founding fathers never anticipated Congress’s exercise of power and authority would be so small. They would not recognize the incredibly subservient and cowardly Congress we have today.
11
If Nancy Pelosi is “abdicating her responsibility”, she certainly had to look no further than Mitch McConnell for a master class in abdication of duty.
20
Democracy and representative government both naturally and inexorably lead toward certain liberalism.
They can't help it.
The more people you bring into the system, the more a promise that their ideas, desires, and needs can be looked after in a pact of mutual self-interest and draws them in, the more diffuse and inclusive -- the less "conservative," -- those ideas, desires, and needs become.
The participants become dreamers -- and "free," speakers -- of the lives they wish for and want, not captives of the lives they may lead at the moment.
Is it any wonder then that in the effort to preserve conservative ideas and positions -- to maintain the status quo of a less Democratic time -- eventually, Conservatives must turn against Democracy and representation.
They have no choice. In addition to intellectually holding tight to their ideas, their institutions -- including their religious institutions -- demand it.
Today's GOP isn't just eroding certain principles of certain Amendments, they are undermining our very form of government...they are a natural extension the threat to the Republic Franklin foresaw (as did the authors of the Federalist Papers)...the question then still stands today...can we keep it?
14
While I appreciate the history lesson on the Founding Fathers' views on immigration, equality, religious and press freedoms; I don't love the Us Vs. Them mentality presented in the article.
To me this reads as more examples of electoral disparities discussed by Elizabeth Warren (e.g. legislative priorities that run counter to mainstream opinion). For example, on immigration - based on the website linked to by Mr. Egan, attitudes towards immigrants have *significantly* improved from the mid 90's. A clear majority of Americans now say that immigration strengthens our country yet the conversation is about building a wall.
We should be punching at that problem and work on building those majorities to push forward popular legislation. We won't be able to do that if we start with the presumption that all Republicans, Southerns, and Christians are enemies of progress.
2
We are NOT starting with that presumption, but the data shows that this is reality, and we have to face it.
15
I hear many expressing these Trumpist fallacies. People forget that the first immigrants to our shores were fleeing religious persecution in their original country. No establishment of a state religion is a protection for all religions. Iran has a state religion, no thanks. The early Puritans were so extreme in their religious practices, they were the Taliban of the early colonies. That is why the founders were resolute in their view of not mixing government and religion. As for the media, their view that biased or inaccurate reporting should be stopped or shutdown? Rush and Alex Jones would be the first shut down. It is not always easy to see some of the media reports, but I don't think we should start censoring the press. That is the price for the freedom we all enjoy.
Blue Wave 2020!
8
Many points of thought provocation herein, Mr. Egan.
In some ways America does seem to be heading to these many points of contention.
Can we simply establish a universal code of conduct for political parties, religious practices, and corporate governance for each and every private, public or non-profits?
Let us simply base this on the factor and standards of HUMAN dignity...? Some violations of HUMAN dignity are more egregious than others, and gravity is measured by the appropriate scale.
The entire metric system is based on the properties of water.
The entire SAE and English—Imperial standards seemed to have been started with HUMAN factors in mind, but rely upon natural sciences and observations of nature or natural phenomenon.
4
When one does a careful reading of our founding documents, it is clear without even doing a detailed study of the Constitutional Convention and its debates that the men of land and property who hammered out the document were deeply concerned about saving a reserved space for people like themselves in determining the future of the country. Was this wrong? Not necessarily but, letting the Constitution go all these years without substantial changes represents a failure on our part.
Although the concept of democracy was developed by the ancient Greeks, actually applying its principles to a large nation was something new, an experiment. Out of these fear of the democratic experiment, and the desire of the various states to hold on to power, came the Electoral College and the appointment of U.S. senators by state legislatures. A truncated, fearful democracy was their dubious gift. Over the ensuing two plus centuries, we have failed to give democracy a formal place in the Constitution and only barely increased its functionality with the direct election of senators, continuing, also, the imbalance in representation of the largest versus smaller states (2 each).
Democracy is thus so fragile that one political party now thinks it can be tipped over into failure. The effort to do so is widespread with gerrymandered House districts, restrictions on registration, closing polling stations and other measures.
If we continue to neglect democracy, the only path forward is down.
13
"And yet some Democrats are pushing policy positions — such as taking away private health insurance from more than 150 million people — that are deeply unpopular."
Unpopular with conventionalist thinkers like Timothy Egan, that is. Health care should be separated from profit making. Full Stop.
Until it is, those in need of care will continue to be gauged by the profit takers. Serious illness often equals bankruptcy.
No, Mr. Egan, we are not worried by plans to provide health care for all. Get the money-grubbers out of health care. Health care is a right, not a privilege.
8
@Che Beauchard: Right, there is something really wrong with the way he phrases the question. It's quite possible that many people wouldn't want health insurance taken away just like that, in and of itself: but nobody is proposing that. The "taking away private health insurance" to the extent that it's proposed, is part of a plan to provide universal, rational and efficient health coverage. And that is a popular proposal.
6
@Che Beauchard
@John Bergstrom
Egan isn’t endorsing any position on healthcare. Yet that’s what you chose to see. Egan’s talking about whether the Democrats can win an election when most Americans like the insurance they have. You can’t convince all of them in one election cycle that national health insurance, even though it works in lots of other countries, is what they need. What you could convince them of, without alienating them, is that a public option insurance company is a good idea. We almost had one but unfortunately the insurance industry told Obama they would bury the Democratic Party if it passed. It was maybe two or three votes short in the Senate but after the threat there wasn’t a prayer. If you didn’t read that anywhere, check it out with anybody you know in Washington. That’s what happened.
Forget the words “national health care” and let the Democrats sell something to the voters that makes sense to them. If they don’t, and Trump is reelected, healthcare will be the least of our worries. Americans say they want universal healthcare and they also say they want the insurance they have. They’re giving you two separate answers. So just figure out how a Democrat ends up in the White House. If it doesn’t happen this time, be very assured that it never will again. That’s what’s at stake. The Republicans know it; this is their final shot at permanent one-party rule. (Try the words Supreme Court.) If you think that’s paranoia, God be with you.
3
There is still another aspect to this.
An early and bitter debate centered on the idea of "improvements" done by the government for the benefit of all, to advance the national economy. This meant things like roads, harbors, and river clearance for navigation.
The idea that ultimately lost was for private money to do all improvements, and then profit as rentiers on the economic life of the nation.
While we do have a few toll roads and bridges, imagine if every road trip was a long string of tolls, tolls as the major expense of internal travel. Our economy would be cripple, while the owners of the improvements would live as leaches of every other activity in the nation.
That is Trump's idea now. His promised infrastructure investment was to sell our substance to rentiers, tolls on everything.
He imagines rolling back our economic life by 200 years, to empower those who lost out in the battle with our Founding Fathers.
11
@Mark Thomason: Right. I haven't heard much about the Republican infrastructure plan lately, but what I have heard is exactly what you describe: the selling off or leasing of valuable public resources.
Here in Massachusetts we have done away with toll booths: tolls are collected via transponder as you pass under overhead structures, without even slowing down. With this technology, if the state ever decided to lease or sell a section of the pike, or the Tobin bridge, the difference would be invisible to the public: no handing over your money to a representative of a private company, you would just drive along, the little light overhead would flash, if you notice that kind of thing...
6
The problem with your analysis is that you think most citizens are thinkers.
The myth is that most Americans care about American values. Most aspire to wealth that can buy pleasure, and in the meanwhile use various media to distract them from unrewarding jobs.
Trump is actually a good metaphor for his followers: have a superficial understanding of American history, lean toward pomp and glory of the county, have the belief America is the greatest country in human history, ordained by God.
11
I live in a county Trump won with 80% of the vote. I agree with Mr. Egan about most things. I attended school in several states and in one American military dependent school in England. I went to school here all or parts of 1st, 3rd, 5th, 8th and 10th grades. There are great teachers everywhere and education is just a small part of the problem. The ignorance is willful and starts benignly with children who lack Pre-K experiences, and various dogmas they are exposed to. When the "Moral Majority" was on the rise in the 1970's it was clear to me that Rev. Falwell and his like-minded ministers were targeting an audience already feeling threatened by societal changes who easily slip into authoritarian thinking. I remember at some point it was clear in my small group of friends who discussed politics and economics that the Bill of Rights would provide a lot of fodder for authoritarians-mostly republicans- to work over and might even fail a vote among the religious right. That scared me then and it does now. I am a liberal/progressive Democrat and more are on the way but now is a critical period in our history. Regarding private health insurance those 150 million are happy to have it but do not understand it at all thus leaving our country with virtually a second class health care system. Medicare more closely resembles an understandable system with generally satisfied customers. Trump supporters are pretty clear about not messing with their Medicare and Medicaid.
14
Excellent, excellent article. I cry inside when reading these articles that the audience that needs to reflect on these thoughts is most likely not going to see them.
I especially agree with the description of southerners as having the traitorous DNA of the confederacy in their veins.
We need a massive turnout to decisively throw out every single republican currently in office.
23
@BBH
No it is not.
An ignorant article. The people he mentions were mostly slave owning racists.
If we keep honoring those clowns and their pathetic constitution, we end up with Trump and oligarchy turning into fascism.
1
There is no need to 'take away private health insurance' from the 150-million+ Americans who now have it, most through their employers. All that is needed is for a 'public option' to become available at a lower cost than those employers are now paying to insure their employees... and the employers will 'take away' the private insurance, either explicitly, or by continuing to offer it to employees, but only at a higher co-pay than the 'public option'. So leave the private insurance industry alone, leave the beloved private insurance in place, and offer a 'public option'. And watch the "miracle of the free market" destroy private health insurance on it's own.
29
@Jim Brokaw: I haven't heard anybody propose taking away private health insurance as a primary goal. It would only ever be part of a plan to provide better and more efficient coverage. You're right, it could probably be left alone to wither away from the competition of the much better public option. But the propaganda war launched by the private companies would be brutal and shameless, and they would certainly look for ways to disrupt and discredit the public system...
4
Mr Egan
You just hit the nail on the head.
The country was not this divided (though it should have been) even when war-criminals like Cheney and Rumsfeld were Bush's grim reapers... and we were fully engage din war on two fronts.
This is a new era... truly scary in where it may lead us.
I would seriously leave the country for those four years if this man gets re-elected in 2020.
I did so for at time of Mr Bush's second bigger debacle of a term.
I remember driving down from Canada in 2007-2008 through Michigan state, gutted businesses, signs of attorneys-will-work-food on main highway, Bank houses empty in smaller towns... I came back to Toronto stunned. When folks asked how was US, I said, devastating.
This is however a new-kind of devastating.
This 'regime' is taking a chain-saw to our values, integrity, social justice, and the pride of place to lead in world-trade and climate change measures.
As an international voice (although hypocritical at times) of reason and peace.
Now, we are all watching "Clockwork Orange" analogy of Politics being played on a world stage.
Surreal, surreal and wickedly cruel surreal.
21
Mr. Egan's editorial on the lack of democratic ideals of current Republicans is a good one. There is in my mind, however, a greater threat which looms in the near future. Does anyone seriously believe our would be dictator will leave office quietly or peacefully when he is defeated in 2020? Fat chance! He told us in 2016 that he would probably not accept defeat if he lost & after four years of demagoguery, he is not likely to do the right thing for our nation.
18
If the election turned out to be a razor thin defeat I can see him trying to turn the country into a full fledged dictatorship with no little help from the traitors making up the GOP.
That is why it is critical to massively defeat him at the polls. We must vote ! At times like this, third party candidates should be absolutely shunned. A third party candidate is nothing less than a trump quisling. .
6
I feel like many of us are wasting way too much time on Trump and the Republicans. About 40% of the electorate will support Trump no matter what - I'm not sure what complaining about these folks accomplishes at this point. The majority of Americans do not like Trump and do not support him - the challenge is to get these voters to vote for the Democrats and not to stay home or waste their votes on third parties. Sell Democratic policies.
24
I respectfully disagree that this is a waste of time. Our democratic institutions can tolerate and survive differences of opinion. Now, though, we have a huge faction that does not believe in objective facts, or in the foundation beliefs of our system of government. That is a real problem.
6
@Frank Roseavelt
I’ve never voted Republican in my life, but good luck convincing me to vote in support of the ‘progressive’ agenda: free health insurance for illegal aliens at taxpayer expense....legal advocacy and sanctuary from immigration law enforcement...open borders (yes, let’s not pretend that Democrats aren’t doing everything possible to entice foreign migrants by the thousands).
Want to live in an overpopulated, culturally divisive, increasingly violent and impoverished third world country without leaving home? The Democrats will be more than happy to grant your wish in exchange for your vote.
2
I read that the Republican party membership is only about 24% of the population. The party is dying. Democrats I believe are at about 27% with the rest being independents. Both parties have lost support and Trump won because many voters wanted a non establishment candidate. It's hard to believe but 10% of Bernie supporters voted for Trump. If Democrats are to win they better focus on economic issues facing the average voter and avoid cultural issues such as busing. Kamala Harris scored points at the first Dem debate with that but walked back support of busing the next day. If big donors carry the day once again the average voter will continue to suffer whom ever wins.
8
Bernie’s supporters were also fed up with the establishment and demanded change. Wake up, as many will stay home again
American politics are just merchandising, like everything else in this country.
There is no political debate as such in the USA , as there is in Europe.
Even among democrats, there is no real political content in the narrative . No plan and no program.
Just questions about who to try to seduce with what ideological surface image.
4
I don't believe the GOP can win this election. But I believe the Democrats can lose it. If this election is about kitchen table issues: jobs & education there's no way the Democrats lose. If the election is about immigration & reparations there's no way we win. Warren & Harris are for reparations. In poll after poll, the majority of Americans voters are against this. Reparations are the only issue that would compel independent swing voters to hold their nose & vote for Trump. Reparations guarantees the Democrats will lose the working-class vote. Voters are also against any legislation that would increase the flow of illegal immigration. Many Democrats are for policies that not only decriminalize illegal immigration but encourage it. They are on the wrong side of this issue. Last January NY lawmakers voted to allow illegal immigrants the ability to receive scholarships & financial aid. How are Democrats supposed to tell voters that state aid to help afford college isn't available for them but is available for those who are in this country illegally? Many state Democrats are now offering illegals free healthcare, welfare, drivers licenses, schooling, in-state-tuition & sanctuary. This is unsustainable. Why is the only answer, that they have an unrestricted right to come to the U.S.? The more benefits we give, the more will try to get here. It's an impossible equation. This is indefensible. If any of the far-left candidates are the nominees in 2020 we will lose decisively.
14
The "homeless" Never-Trump Republicans were very happy to ride the tiger of bigotry, division, and anger for decades as it delivered tax cuts and regulatory relief.
Imagine their surprise when the tiger turned around to bite us all in 2016.
12
The concept of any god is just that; a comstruct devised by those who ruled millenia ago and carried to this day by their acolytes. It is devoid of reason as extrapolated from nature and relies on its' continued existence to the fear of many who will not accept their death as the end of personal existence.
This construct makes each of us gods with eternal life as the reward
If we were taught from birth to accept our mortality as inevitable and complete we would cherish our individual lives and those of others rather than discounting them based on this and other equally articificial constructs such as wealth and physical superiority. An additional benefit would be the care of our planet, as the only one which will sustain us.
Many among us, primarily those who seek leadership positions, set themselves up as de facto gods who must be worshipped and obeyed.
If cynicism is ever defined correctly political leaders will be cited as prime examples followed closely by religious leaders.
4
check in the NYT commenters about once every 3 months. Never before have I seen anything but groupthink, an echo chamber, bubble progressives agreeing with each other over and over and over again. Today I see something different. Few out-and-out Trump backers, but great cracks in the big bubble, with much more than a few, a sizable percentage of NYT readers openly questioning the progressive dogma, and challenging the bubble types (who still dominate naturally). Looking at this, I have to ask: "Is Trump winning the day?"
12
Must laugh at your political opinion. You have it wrong. The founding fathers would all agree with the Republicans and not today's Democrats.
The Dem's want to destroy democracy and lead us into Socialism.
Don't think that's what the founding fathers espoused!
But good try! Your Goebbels Propaganda 101 is getting better!
8
Many colonies were formed as Commonwealths...the 17th century version of 20th-century socialism.
We as a country need a Psychologist. This worked for a group of 40 people I was peripherally working with. The group was at each other's throats and battling management. It took the Psychologist about three months to fix the problem but it worked. Where would we find a room with 300 million couches though?
When we assemble the Psychologists necessary to put the country back together we'll pull in some that specialize in cult deprogramming.
5
The US really is a public mental health basket case.
3
Perhaps the author would like to explain why Democrats have been on a mission to obstruct every effort towards securing our sovereign borders....
And why Democrats demand free health insurance and other financial and social benefits for illegal aliens, paid for by American workers....
And why Democrats defiantly provide illegal aliens sanctuary from immigration law enforcement...
And why Democrats claim to reject ‘open borders’, but do everything possible to entice illegal migrants to exploit our asylum and birthright citizenship laws...at a cost to American taxpayers in the $Billions, year after year.
We’d love to know.....
5
@Michal
As a progressive liberal, I agree that Dems have to have a clearer message on immigration. First thing a prez has to do is enforce the laws. I'm concerned about the anarchic labor markets being created. Wages will not budge so long as there is a steady stream of new docile workers willing to work at any wage. You should also know though, there is a secret cabal of Republicans who want to keep this steady stream flowing. Trump is all show concerning employers employing workers under the table, just like Reagan was all show concerning shrinking the government.
That said, impeachment proceeding should begin and no one should support Trump in 2020.
6
@Michal.... Lost in all the rhetoric about out sorry state of immigration is the fact that we, The United States of America, are party to numerous legal, binding treaties that compel the signatories, us, to give a legitimate, legal hearing on these asylum claims.
I would grant that the numbers were probably never imagined, and “humanizing” the specificity of what constitutes a legitimate asylum claim was probably not fully thought out, but the fact is we are OBLIGATED to hear these claims. The fact that we don’t have enough judges is on us, not them.
Some empathy, especially from all you so called “Christians” would be nice.
2
@Sirlar
Sorry...but despite my voting exclusively Democrat over the past 40 years, I will not do so again...unless and until Democrats get their priorities straight vis a vis illegal aliens, migrants, or whatever you choose to call the millions of foreign citizens brazenly exploiting our porous borders, our overburdened hospitals, schools, welfare services, natural resources, and taxpayer citizenry. Enough!
1
In 2019, the D's raise money and increase division over kids in cages. In 2014, D's had a big yawn for 60,000 kids in cages because there was no money to be raised off their misery. Instead of lecturing me about why it's so evil now, give me solutions. Open borders? Immediately release all people illegally crossing the border? Beef up border security? What exactly is your solution besides ramping up division and raising money? The stats cherry picked in this article are chosen to mislead not illuminate and to stir up hatred for Americans who want tighter control on immigration. That is a legit position and not one worthy of hatred.
8
@Tim
What exactly does believing a president should be able to shut down newspapers or Republicans believing Christianity should be our state religion have to do with immigration? What false stats are being stirred up there? If you think this column is about immigration, I think that’s called changing the subject. This column is about fundamental freedoms that are under threat. The Democrats’ position on immigration certainly deserves questioning; but so do Republicans, like Trump, who hire illegal imigrants repeatedly over a period of 30 and 40 years and then talk about how they’re opposed to illegal immigrants. Your problem with Democrats and immigration is a reasonable one. But if that’s what you’re worried about when you’re basic freedoms are under assault, it would also be reasonable to question your sincerity.
3
Another whiny Tim Egan column. Hurray. He had two tanks, two Bradleys -- and a couple of flyovers. Fourth of July is a good day to honor our service men and women.
I don't think your survey data was specific enough. I'm all for a free press and free speech. But when a news organization has for years cherry picked or misrepresented facts in order to push partisan political narratives -- that would the Times -- and uses its long established reputation as an objective source of news -- then that's a big problem. I can give you multiple examples, but, here's a couple.
Ever seen an article in the Times that was critical of Climate Change. Do you ever read anything in these hallowed pages that challenges the orthodoxy?
Or how about the narrative that racist white cops are hunting and killing blacks? Ever read anything in these pages about the racials differences in violent crime per the FBI?
And let's take Trump. Every since he won, I've read all sorts of nonsense in this paper about Russian collusion, he's a traitor, he's Putin puppet -- all without any supporting evidence. I've read editorial after editorial thinking of ways to get rid of Trump, thus disenfranchising those who voted for him -- when he has committed no crime as president.
So, ask me about a free press, I'll vote for that. But along with that goes responsibility. And when the press uses its power only to push a partisan agenda and not hold all in power accountable -- that's a big problem.
4
@Ralphie
To your point:
"Ever seen an article in the Times that was critical of Climate Change. Do you ever read anything in these hallowed pages that challenges the orthodoxy?"
Let's substitute "the earth being round" for "climate change".
Ever seen an article in the Times that was critical of the earth being round. Do you ever read anything in these hallowed pages that challenges the orthodoxy?
How does that sound?
Ralphie, I wish, oh how I wish you and your Republican friends were right on climate change, but just as I guarantee that the earth is not flat, climate change is happening FAST, and although I hate to tell you this, we are doomed unless some sense kicks in.
22
@Sirlar Have your ever looked at the actual data on temps -- ever analyzed it or thought about it critically. I can guarantee you as a Ph.D. scientist who has actually reviewed CC papers and forced them to print retractions on their conclusions -- that the global temperature data set is so weak that if it were used to support any other scientific theory, it would be laughed at. If you tried to sue someone re global climate change -- a decent lawyer who understood data and hired competent scientists would win.
Go to Berkeley Earth -- and look at the number of temp collection stations around in 1900 in Africa. Look where they were located. All on the coasts. Same story in 1950. Also true for S. America, Asia and much of Europe. There were no temp stations at all above the Arctic or below the Antarctic circles until 1950 or later.
The data set is a joke. It's based on extrapolation and adjustments to the data -- almost all to create a warming trend the raw data doesn't show.
But go ahead and be a sheep and believe whatever the MSM tells you.
2
@Ralphie
Do I understand you correctly? No supporting evidence? Have you read the Mueller report? If your position is that all of that stuff is made up, and that all the heads up all the intelligence agencies are in somebody’s pocket, and they are all part of a conspiracy against Donald Trump, including the people he appointed, and that Manafort passing polling data to a Russian oligarch means nothing, and that the report’s descriptions of obstruction of justice were invented by Democrats when a Republican appointed Mueller and when Mueller himself is a Republican, and that there’s no reason to think the president might be a traitor when he attacks our allies and meets in secret with one of our adversaries — if you think all of that is a total invention by some cabal trying to bring your guy down, then nothing really matters anymore. When you start talking about your belief in a free press and then qualify it with they shouldn’t be able to publish stuff if you don’t agree with it, then you don’t believe in a free press. Sir, the fundamental freedoms of you, your children, and your grandchildren are under attack. And if you haven’t noticed, this country is in even worse trouble than I thought. God help you; I’ll be gone when the worst happens.
2
As the forefathers gagged, our first national anthem, of course, would have had to be rewritten:
Cranky Trumpty went to town
A-riding on a crony,
Waved around his MAGA cap
As patriots laughed: "Baloney!"
Cranky Trumpty keep it up,
Cranky Trumpty randy,
Mind your godforsaken deals --
Remind your base you're dandy.
13
Our independence was earned by fighting, with weapons and warriors. It is very proper for President Trump to remind Americans of that.
In our declaration of independence we declared that American are endowed by our Creator (capitalized in the text), and in our currency we state that "In God we trust".
Mr Egan and Democrats will go nowhere with their attacks on religion and the importance of the US military to win and preserve our freedoms.
Newspapers did not win our independence. Warriors did.
Actually our geographic distance earned independence just as much as fighting. Personally I think questioning the wisdom of the American Revolution ought to be more socially acceptable.
Very little of the lofty Declaration of Independence was actually implemented in the liberty to enslave Constitution.
Actually words and writing had a lot to do with the revolution. The ideas had to come first. Perhaps you have heard of Thomas Paine, and the writings of others, influenced by the enlightenment. So it was more than the fighting you are talking about. America is about ideas, not just about military power, although that may be no longer true at this point. We already have days honoring our military. The 4th should be about all of us. Trump has a simplistic rather childish attitude about our military, he seems to want to have its “power” reflected back on him, and his history of avoiding the draft makes this appear cynical and pitiful. Besides that apparently in his speech he became deeply confused about the military and our revolution (airplanes????) so I feel like we may have bigger problems on our hands. This should concern us all. If President Trump has been around at the time of the revolution I am fairly certain he would have sided with the British or would have favored a monarchy here. In any event Trump makes clear money is his main interest in life, even more than parades.
4
Despite his personality, President Trump's successes are just killing the Left.
It is so obvious in every form of media, from cinema to MSM to coastal publications.
His critics must spend their entire waking hours trying their hardest to find a way to disparage him.
Now, even a celebration of our great country and its founding make his critics gag.
It truly is loathsome.
6
"Democracy is not mentioned in the Constitution nor in the Declaration of Independence, as the historian Virginia Anderson recently noted. It’s a human construct, more fragile than any of us believed until now. But when it’s gone, no one should be surprised."
My read on this concluding paragraph is that we need a NEW constitution. One that mentions democracy. Not jus mentions it in passing but clearly states it is our preferred form of government.
Our constitution is archaic as the people you mention throughout the piece. They were slave owners for the most part. We need to get out of this idiotic mode of thinking that we are special somehow. We are not. Our roots are barbaric. We killed and maimed to steal the land of poor devils. We enslaved others and kicked them out to "freedom" when they were no longer meeting our return on capital targets.
Enough with rhetoric! We want Democracy. We want social democracy.
We want Bernie, we want Liz. We don't want Biden.
1
I think our founding fathers would gag reading Timothy Egan's creepy take on half the country's population. They would find it disagreeable that the most prestigious newspaper in the land finds it necessary, on a daily basis, to surmise that every single solitary act on which a Republican might engage to be nauseating.
5
Agreed. If this is the case, why should this party continue to style itself as "Republican"? They can call themselves however they like, but w don't have to prop a name that doesn't reflect reality. I call for the public's suggestions. Mine are the "Alternative Reality" or "Trumplican" party.
7
In one clause Mr. Egan rightly fears the ignorance of millions of Americans promoting a version of Nation unrecognizable to our Founders. But in another he defends as beyond question the ignorance which holds as sacred private health insurance.
If there is a better way, the only right and honorable thing to do is to convince your fellow citizens that the status quo is unsustainable. If you lose by making that case and a bad man stays in power, well that occasionally is the price of progress. I would rather be on the side of the righteous than victorious.
4
Trump and his supporters and enablers are steering this country toward civil war. They don’t, of course, think so, but they are nonetheless. I seriously believe he may declare himself president for life. His supporters will rejoice.
4
Thank you, Mr. Egan, for your candid assessment of Trump and his Trumpian Republicans and their supporters! They have become intolerable! Hopefully, Trump, McConnell, Lyndsey Graham, and many other Republicans will be booted from office in 2020, and we will also be rid of the insufferable William Barr.
11
A full page ad in the local Fourth of July newspaper from the Hobby Lobby tells us that in 1892 the Supreme Court declared we were a “Christian Nation.” I wonder how many people think this is case today --- my thoughts not many. Obviously, the Hobby Lobby and their Republican cohorts believe we should return to the philosophies of 1800’s --- I suspect slavery would be OK with them too. If they spent the ad money on the homeless instead of trying to get prayer and bibles back in public schools, society and God would be much better served. We might even call them Christians instead of Bible thumpers.
3
The southern culture described in this opinion and its comments can be found in many Republican strongholds outside of the south, for example, upstate NY. Unfortunately, like most Republican strongholds living conditions in upstate NY have worsen as a result of the Reagan revolution. The truth is that being a Republican has come with no benefits for the people of upstate NY or in many other Republican regional strongholds. Over the decades since I left for the military in 1966 job opportunities, incomes, and home values have all fallen in upstate NY, as has life expectancy.
The Reagan revolution gave rise to an us against them political strategy, a strategy that feeds on hate and vitriol, a strategy that is tearing our country apart. Today's GOP's unethical and criminal election activities are a ruthless attempt to put and keep white, male, fundamentalist Christians in power.
When I read about the fierce divisions in our Nation I'm reminded of a story my grandmother told me about her encounter with an old Iroquois woman called Mary No-eyes, circa 1910. My grandmother claimed Mary No-eyes could see the future; the future Mary saw was that the US was destined to split into two nations. Now in my 70s I can't help but wonder if Mary No-eyes was indeed a soothsayer.
That said, I am hopeful that the two Americas, one red and one blue, will heal and achieve the future envisioned by the Founders and set out in our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
5
Religion divides.
6
“…some Democrats are pushing policy positions — such as taking away private health insurance from more than 150 million people — that are deeply unpopular.
The smarter candidates will rethink this, and soon, or otherwise ensure that an awful American aberration is more than a one-off.”
But will the Democratic base? Or for that matter the current front runners in the Democratic race to the primaries. It’s a dicey coin toss at best.
Red or Blue, underlying it all is the prime imperative of Americas winner-take-all at any cost political culture which so doggedly disdains the middle ground, moderation, and compromise.
Republican bashing, however deserved, is no very useful.
Lincoln warned that a tyrant could overtake the U.S. from within: {paraphrased to fit the space}
"It is to deny what the history of the world tells us, to suppose that men of ambition will not continue to spring up amongst us. And when they do, they will naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion as others have done before them. The question is, Can that gratification be found in maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? It cannot. Many great men, qualified for any task they should undertake, may be found whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress; but such belong not to the family of the lion. Do you think these places would satisfy Alexander, or Napoleon? Never! A tyrant hates a beaten path. He seek unexplored regions, see no glory in adding to the story of others. He denies that it is glorious to serve under any chief, scorns the footsteps of any predecessor. He burns for distinction and will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable to expect that some man with ambition will at some time spring up? And when he does, it will require the people to be united, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to frustrate his designs. Distinction will be his object, and although he would acquire it by doing good as harm, that opportunity having past. He would rather destroy than build up.
7
The point of the second paragraph is that doing away with private health insurance, while popular with Democratic party activists, is deeply unpopular with the populace in general. In the long run it could well come about but elections are about the next year two. Advocating it as a policy in the 2020 election is political suicide and will destroy any hope of being in a position to make any change at all to health care.
Stick to bumper sticker policies like "universal health care" and policies that are supported by a majority of all voters, not just Democrats.
4
I agree with the general sentiment of this article but the line "the deepest, most anti-American part of Trump’s base, with the DNA of Civil War traitors still coursing through the region" is appalling. This is no better than painting Jews with blood libel or Jim Crow laws labeling someone as Negro if they had even one African ancestor. Many, many Southerners are upset and angry with the current administration.
Everyone -- but particularly NY Times columnists (and their editors) -- should understand that words matter.
6
The Founding Fathers feared direct participation democracy and the hoi polloi as much as they feared the British. The FF were as class conscience as European nobility and just as defensive and possessive of their power and positions. The system for electing federal officials (president, senators and representatives) was designed to put as little power as possible in the votes of the hoi polloi and as much power as possible in the votes of the 1% of the day.
There is no guarantee in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights of a US citizen’s right to vote. Indeed, the Constitution gives control over elections to state and local governments.
In essence the constitution of the United States was conceived as a very conservative expression of governance intended to protect and preserve the social, legal and financial status of its writers.
Also worth considering, IMHO, is that America has been an exclusive nation since its inception. There was considerable sentiment among the Founding Fathers to restrict immigration to those emigrants from Northern Europe whom we would call today English and German. WASPs...
At Gettysburg Lincoln made Jefferson and the signers of the Declaration of Independence America’s Founding Fathers, not the creators of the Constitution.
1
Thank you for expressing in civil language the anguish and disgust that I and so many other patriotic Americans feel about the racist white minority elite party that the republicans have become. It is hard not to use uncivil language to describe this transgression.
Onward toward victory and salvation from tyranny in 2020.
2
Of course they would gag.
Starting, I would guess, with the right for citizens to own weapons of war, like semi automatic guns.
They were familiar with calumnious and scurrilous attacks, but not its escalation to Fox News or the mass production of lies by vested interests.
Comfortable with 3 million fellow citizens, how would they feel about 350 million? Sick.
Surrounded by open space and with country untouched beckoning, they were gentry with fond feelings for wilderness. The ravaged remnants would sicken them.
They believed in racism, though, and thought anybody who didn't wasn't a very keen historian.
And their racism separated not only black and white but also English and Americans.
Benjamin Franklin said "all races prefer their own." Said England might as well be sending us rattlesnakes.
But as intelligent, independent, self reliant, basically honest, educated and reasonable men -- how could they be other than abhorred by current Republicans, as Goethe and Frederich the Great would have been repelled by the Nazis.
And puzzled profoundly on their own spawn being hell bent on suicide.
If interviewed amidst the cumulous, I bet they would express some relief at being dead.
And George Washington and Jim Morrison would sing a duet:
"This is the end..."
4
Reading these comments....wow....just...wow.
Trump will be reelected in 2020 because the "progressives" (you are not liberal) still haven't learned anything about their fellow Americans on "the right". Your arrogant ignorance, fueling your incorrect characterizations of "the other" on the right, and your obvious hatred is all but assuring Trump's reelection. YOU (arrogant, ignorant progressives) are why Trump was elected in the first place.
Here's a thought: Go talk to your neighbors and those that have the audacity to disagree with you and your own interpretations of the world around you. You'll find they are nothing at all as to what you make them out to be. Selah.
5
Reading your comment...wow...just...wow. For me personally, the most vexing feature of the worshipful relationship between the MAGA crowd and their hero is how, on earth, can they possibly support a totally amoral person, bereft of any positive, redeeming human attributes whatsoever. Either they share some of his same odious characteristics or they have chosen to cast their own moral compasses aside for some tawdry personal benefit(s).
7
Precisely.
2
I would say the same thing to you. When was the last time you spoke to a Democrat? You can call me liberal or progressive or whatever for all I care. If you support trump you’re simply being duped. Or worse, you support his agenda because you believe it will eliminate your ideological opponents.
7
People seem to be bristling at the word "ignorant."
If all one consumes is Fox "News," it is possible to be both ignorant AND stupid.
8
the republican party is the party of fascism. trump is a stalinist. this is not something that has happened overnight. its a process that has been going on for at least the last two decades.
4
Why would companies continue to offer company-paid health insurance if the government offers to pay? Millions of people won't lose their health insurance because companies will discontinue offering their coverage if there is Medicare for all.
1
Because their workers collectively bargained for it thinking their coverage “better”?
What's been cynically hijacked here is our traditional sense of fairness, honesty and morality in the name of greed, corruption and yes, collusion with our most formidable sworn enemies in order to destroy our democracy. What's right has become wrong, what's true has been declared fake, our laws have been systematically violated, our tolerance for our fellow citizens has been replaced by our intolerance for anyone but ourselves.
Blame it on the Republicans, blame it on the Democrats, blame it on whomever or whatever you want, hope and unity have been shockingly replaced by anger and fear with no end in sight since
they are now used as the means to divide and conquer us according to another power's playbook. This would all sound like
paranoia if it weren't so factually true.
'It Can't Happen Here'? It already has.
Vote.
4
The kids in cages started with Obama. The tanks in the streets were nothing more than static displays and you see theses around during national day celebrations in many other countries. Have you ever talked to a Republican Mr. Egan? I doubt it. You can’t spell the word balanced!
38
@Dan Locker please don't justify the tanks or close your eyes to what's happening. I have hope for the Republican party. But you have to show us. And going along with the current direction this Republican administration is taking us - is inviting judgment on an historic level.
67
@Dan Locker
Obama was dealing with unaccompanied teenagers who showed up in the Fall after Harvest in Guatemela, Honduras and El Salvador. They were here without adults to protect them.
Trump is taking children, down to toddlers and infants, away from their parents. Those kids are here with people who can protect the and take care of them.
There is a huge difference between the two situations.
214
@Dan Locker
Obama didn't separate kids from their families, And they were in the facilities for roughly 2 days vs many weeks and months.
Most people agree there needs to be strong border controls. What Trump has on display is pure cruelty, and he brags about it.
159
Trump is no New Yorker. He is a Southern Big Daddy who officially resides in Florida, where his house is sinking into the flood along with many others’. Understanding no science and having no other wisdom, Trump has no equipment to fight climate change, even to save his house. The moral: Trump is brainless, bankrupt severally which motivated him to campaign for office, governs pathetically by quashing adversaries, his staff and the weak, practices destructive, ceremonial patriotism which would not have been recognizable by Founders or at the time of World War II and leads the weak to imagine his patriotism is the real deal instead of Potemkin illusion. Topping all, Trump masquerades as Chief Executive. Southerners worship him because he is “not a politician,” but he spends every work day politicking. Forty to sixty per cent of Americans are following Trump into the swamp without an air boat. Their preparation for their future: transferring their money to the wealthy and persuading Republican legislators to compel the middle class to make up the tax loss.
11
Whatever his stated views Jefferson kept and owned slaves, fathered children by at least one, spent himself lavishly into debt. And who did the work that underwrote his fancy lifestyle? His human property. Would there even be a U.S. if Jefferson's Republican views had won the day as against the Federalists? I agree that Trump is an abomination. Some of the so-called Founding Fathers also had some very serious flaws, Jefferson being one of those.
1
Our Founding Fathers would do, and did, a lot more than gag at such a threat to this country and its citizens’ quest for freedom both religious and political.
King George and his tyrannical governance of the Colonies caused the first American Revolution. We are now faced with an assemblage of single-issue, ignorant, generally un/undereducated and/or dysfunctional/disenfranchised people who call themselves Americans (mostly by passive and unchosen birthright) who have never fought for the freedoms and rights that they enjoy every day. They have, as we say, no skin in the game. They are like Trump who has never done anything positive for this country - only broken and skirted laws and all ethical and moral principles. He is an exemplar of all those who were GIVEN America and who have never earned it, never fought, never contributed.
As has been said often, freedom is not free. Without understanding and conscious commitment, freedom is often lost to evil and authoritarian under the guise of “patriotism”.
WAKE UP AMERICA! This is the anniversary of our Independence and we are losing it to a con artist and his cult.
6
Another tiresome Hate Trump opinion - I guess that in order to get an opinion published here the correct drums have to beat and the President of the United States has to be denigrated. This country isn't going the way the Democratic constituency likes (not a socialist country yet, people can still say what they think, and the news media is still looked at skeptically when its reports do not pass the smell test), so the only thing to do is blame the current sitting president. I think the founding fathers would be more likely find to find the current crop of Democrats abhorrent than anyone else – it’s like they were born into the wrong country and they are doing everything in their power to change it into their idea of Nirvana – like Cuba or the old Soviet Union.
4
“establishment of religion” by the state, the cult of Trump would throw that under a steamroller of bigotry as well."
"the deepest, most anti-American part of Trump’s base, with the DNA of Civil War traitors still coursing through the region"
It's interesting and frustrating how so many northern liberals are such bigots when it comes to southerners.
I have ancestors who fought in the civil war as do millions of other people. Who cares. What does it have to do with me or anyone living today for that matter.
I don't know too many people who voted for Trump and I'm a life long southerner. But I'm well aware that bigots like Timothy Egan live everywhere in this country. Some of them even live in New York City.. . Most of them can't even recognize their own bigotry through their self righteousness. Nor do they see the divisiveness their words can cause.
3
Mr. Egan,
If you cannot reflex on all sides of an issue your opinions lack balance. You should attach blame to all sides of our legislators who rarely in this day try to reach solutions for the people they represent.
The immigration deadlock, which has been going on for decades,
is a perfect example. Majorities on both sides support strengthening our border security so that we can have a system that stems the tide of illegal immigrants and assists immigrants to establish themselves on a path to citizenship. For various partisan reasons knowing who is entering our country seems to not be a priority with either side.
Our media have become unreliable in reporting without bias and as a result columns like your’s today lack perspective and offer no solutions. Please try harder
3
I find Mr. Egan's words most reasonable, and sometimes healthily funny. Nothing is really funny in the world today, so it is good to find a grin where we can, so thank you for the weed and redwood crack.
That said, I would posit that Trump and his acolytes are not ignorant at all. They are petty little misfits & bullies with a clear goal to take it all for themselves.
I can almost believe that there is a deliberate strategy to undermine every law ever passed to provide safety for the common human. Now he is plotting to ignore words of the SCOTUS , as he intends to put citizenship status into the census. He uses the Executive Order like his personal vendetta ticket.
I cannot understand why the patriotic residents of the USA did not turn on their heels and leave the site of his extraordinary election rally, paid for with my taxes. But like a bunch of gormless ignorants, they stood and listened as he described the airports of the civil war.
About the "Southerners" I absolutely personally know that there are people here in my own, very liberal town, who will vote for Trump because he is Israel's friend, or just because he is overturning the status quo. Meanwhile there are Democrats who are undermining the Progressives, and a press calling them Lefties, when, really, the only left leaning candidates are merely trying to put the power back into the hands of the voter...A condition we have been striving to achieve since 1776.
3
The writer has a obvious bias, as does this newspaper. I sense that the extreme left is running scared and doing their usual character smear campaigns.
The democratic party has done more harm to it's usual block and now is reaching out toward a fringe group or groups to strengthen it's base.
A vote for Trump in 2016 was a backlash , that the "elite" didn't see coming against the 8 years of Obama.
6
Egan's is a very vitriolic piece, and I believe most of us would agree there is not a single molecule of hyperbole or drama in it. Egan simply names the facts about this huge swath of our population that lives on hate and herd mentality not compassion and independent thinking. I'd like to add that he is also right about the Democrats. America should never turn itself into a boutique of give-away programs. While current Republicanism is a rancid aberration of selfishness, the Democratic image of government as iron fist in an altruistic glove is also sick.
1
My unscientific survey of the Republicans in my life indicates that there are at least three types of Republican: the pocket liners, the small-minded, and the salt-of-the earth folks.
The pocket liners are focused on small government in order to keep taxes low. They cannot stand the thought that their money will be transferred to anyone else.
The small-minded are the MAGA set. They have difficulty standing in someone else’s shoes, especially someone who looks, speaks or worships differently.
The salt-of-the earth folks have worked hard for every dollar. They’ve borne hardship and feel it has made them stronger. They help other salt-of-the earths. They don’t like the idea of government assistance because they never took it. They have difficulty understanding that groups 1 & 2 won’t help people who need help.
Dems need to focus on the salt-of-the earth folks. The other two are lost.
790
@Barb
Or Dems could focus on the tens of millions of people who don’t turn out. Give them a reason to vote for you, and we can win not just the house and the presidency, but the Senate as well.
80
@Barb
Sorry, but there's no such thing as a "salt-of-the-earth" Republican. There used to be, but not anymore. Anybody who is witnessing what the Republican Party is doing and still supports it is a profoundly immoral person.
100
@Barb
You forgot the religious fanatics, or as I see them, woman haters. They vote on banning abortion and will never vote for a pro choice candidate. That they love trumps other policies is just a bonus.
92
Mr. Egan, you hit the nail on the head.
1
@Mark
Really?
Kids cages today, slave cages in the times of the founding fathers.
Nail on the head indeed.
1
As I recall from reading history, politics was quite rough and tumble back in the "good old days" so fondly imagined by Egan.
The liberal elite has been gagging recently about Washington (slave owner) and Jefferson (slave owner and sexual abuser), while Lincoln has for the time being been spared.
One need only read some of the newspapers of the day, all of which were more fiercely partisan on one side of the other than the NYT or For can even dream of.
As for values and beliefs, I can only imagine what they'd think of Ilhan Omar.
2
I take comfort knowing most living Americans gag at today' Republican Party. They let them know in 2018 and again will send a powerful message in 2020. Never forget Trump was and is no more than an electoral college fluke.
4
@GUANNA
Unfortunately, you’re not taking into account the millions of moderate Democrats like me...disillusioned and disgusted by the so-called ‘progressive’ hijacking of the Democratic Party...their obsession with race & gender identity politics and histrionic advocacy for illegal aliens (now numbering over 20 million) at a cost to American taxpayers in the $BILLIONS, year after year. Free insurance for illegal aliens?....Really, Dems???
If you think your election win is in the bag....think again.
4
@GUANNA. It’s certainly going to be a long five years for you. And by the way, liberals are a minority.
3
Well, said, Mr. Egan! As for the comment about Southerners, you clearly identified them as those Southerners who support Trump. I could not agree more. Their line of thinking goes back to the traitors who destroyed the country over slavery. [Let's not forget that other, more treasured Southerners provided the critical grounding and leadership that this country needed to survive.]
For the life of me, I cannot understand why Trump supporters are so disaffected? Why don't they hold dear the cherished values and ideals that made America great? What would they die for today? In 1860 it was the right to own a human being. In 2019, the right to have a country full of white people and golden toilets?
3
Stop stop stop saying things like Democrats want to take away private health insurance from more than 150 million people.
No, what some want to do, is make sure that everyone has good affordable healthcare. My health insurance through my employer, while considered "good", has gotten so expensive and gives me so much less than it used to. Just stop with this narrative of taking away and concentrate on what they re trying to do-IMPROVE the system. The status quo is only working for the CEO's of Anthem et al.
3
You’re way off base Timmy. I’m a republican and while I don’t support all of Trumps actions, to put all republicans in the category of anti American is just ridiculous. Write smarter opinion pieces.
6
There was a story going around leading up to the 2016 election. A Bernie Sanders backer had fallen in love with a Hillary Clinton supporter. She said she could not marry him unless he changed his allegiance to Hillary. Desperate, he reasoned that, if surgeons can now turn men into women & visa versa, maybe there is an operation that would allow him to change his political views. He asked a neurosurgeon friend, who said that there actually was such an operation, but it required that the surgeon remove a third of his brain. He couldn't lose his one true love, so he consented to the operation. When he regained consciousness in the recovery room, he found the surgeon leaning over his bed wringing his hands. "I'm so sorry," the surgeon began. "During the operation, my hand slipped and instead of removing one-third of your brain, I removed two-thirds." Drooling, the patient sat up and shouted, "Make America Great Again."
8
Not all Americans have acquiesced to rule by political party. There are more independents than Republicans or Democrats.
Democrats a well as Republicans would “gag” the founders. When the wrote the Constitution, the founders gave political parties no role in government. George Washington warned us against political parties in his farewell address. He said, “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.”
Americans should demand an end to the unconstitutional parliamentary mechanisms that political party hacks have installed in the House of Representatives and Senate that permit political party bosses to control the flow of legislation.
We should also take the names of presidential candidates of the November ballots. The “popular vote” for president is a straw vote that doesn’t count. The only votes that count toward electing presidents are the 538 votes cast by members of the Electoral College. If it weren’t for the straw vote, presidential candidates would only need to finance stop at 50 state capitols buildings.
3
This opinion piece is divisive and hypocritical. I would like to see the poll that says almost 50% of republicans want to shut down biased or inaccurate media. I would like to see how it was worded. Neither side should want inaccurate information to be spread. However I don’t believe that many republicans want media outlets shut. At least I don’t think the percentages are any greater than the number of people on the left who would like to shut down Fox News. Remember what Obama tried to do to Fox? Imagine if Trump tried to do that. The left has been at the forefront of shutting down free speech. Conservative speech is now considered hate speech by the left and is being shut down on college campuses and on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google. Things that Obama supported 8 years ago are now considered hate speech. Where are the liberal journalists who have been attacked by the mobs of right wing groups? Yet a conservative journalist gets attacked by the left and the left tries to justify it. Most of the hate I see is coming from the left.
Trump and conservatives aren’t anti-immigrant. Yet, the author of this piece ignores the pro immigrant statements made by conservatives and the president. The problem is “illegal” immigration, which the left (including Obama) , not all that long ago, was against. When you have a welfare state with many social programs there is a cost to "illegal" immigration.
4
You mistakenly refer to “Fox News” as a true news organization. It simply is not. It is a cynical propaganda machine, and it’s raking in millions of dollars by doing what propagandists do. Sad.
1
Our Nation had a similar episode during the late 1800's. Journalism was assaulted by the populist politicians. The press fought back with fact based reporting - facts, facts, facts. That is how you combat a populist - you ignore the smoke and mirrors - you stay away from getting down to their level of grubby fighting, and just report the facts.
7
November 2016. Donald Trump lost the popular vote. Hillary Clinton lost the Electoral College. But there was one clear winner in that election: Vladimir Putin of Russia. Will he win again in 2020? Because if he does, it will probably be the end of the United States as we know it.
6
Jefferson and Washington might have looked down upon Trump as unlettered, but both were rich landowners who owned slaves, who restricted voting rights to men of property. Jefferson dabbled in extramarital sex. Were either keen on Indian rights? Lincoln might have abhorred the values and beliefs of the cult of Trump. But the other two?
1
Great piece from TE and hard to improve upon.
2
Despite the examples of Washington and Jefferson you have submitted the vast majority of the founders and population were explicitly Christian in 1776. The strictures against establishment of religion attest to the fragmented nature of Christianity in the US where dozens of sects and denominations competed with each other.
Most Trump voters were explicitly not in love with his persona especially after the access Hollywood tape. As far as a personality cult his predecessor in office far exceeded him. Lest we forget his administration is the one that built all the cages and initially separated children at thre border .
2
@Paul Horvitz
Yet we can't get impeachment done, because the Senate will not vote for impeachment. So, where does that leave us? The only option is to vote him out next year.
However, he has claimed before, and still claims that if the results are not to his liking (i.e. he loses the election), he will ignore the results and presumably stay in office, with the military behind him... (he claims the generals are HIS generals)....
4
Maybe if the Senate’s constituents (We the People) learned — through the mechanism of impeachment hearings — the true level of corruption and obstruction of justice engaged in by this so-called administration, we would demand the Senate hold the lawbreakers liable, so loudly and long that we’d finally get some accountability.
4
Americans in general fear and dislike socialism and yet have socialistic institutions -- public schools, Social Security, Medicare -- that they like and want to keep. This means that they are confused, and billions of propaganda dollars are spent to keep them so.
Shrinking private health insurance will save lots of money and get rid of much bureaucracy, which we in general like. But we are confused, and Democrats who fight this confusion risk winding up with more of it.
3
T"he Founders would gag. So would Abraham Lincoln."
One is put in mind of H.L. Mencken: -- “As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
Now that we know roughly half of our citizens will tolerate a dangerous imbecile and life long grifter as their president one can only "gag" in astonishment and the reality that we are no longer the america of the founding fathers -AND never will be again!
Sadness
7
Any sane, reasonable, & compassionate person would gag at today's Republicans. If you want to see just how radically far today's Republican party has strayed from the days of St. Reagan, you only have to watch Reagan's very last speech as president - on the topic of immigration. Check out the video on YouTube at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R8QxCD6ir8
If you watch this, you will never again tolerate today's Republicans and their perversion of Reagan's GOP legacy.
4
I am really tired of liberal writers (Timothy Egan here) bashing liberal, left Democrats who are presenting new, perhaps even outrageous ideas. We need NEW ideas to discuss, develop, and even compromise. As RFK said, "Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not."
This is the beginning of an election cycle. We are not yet in the primary season. It's the perfect time to be creative!!
I recall a computer development session we held when I worked at my major US corporation. Our manager and our group went out into the forest with a giant easel and huge, blank flip chart. We brainstormed. No suggestion was considered absurd. We just thought "what if?"
It's like the writers and politicians are trying to stifle creativity.
But, yes, Republicans have become a frightening glob.
5
In addition to the First Amendment, do not forget Article VI of our Constitution: "The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath of Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
The First Amendment guarantees the right of people, like the officers of Hobby Lobby, to offer their personal opinions but now does not afford Hobby Lobby the power to dictate what "we the people" must do.
Of course, the same freedoms the folks from Hobby Lobby would like the federal government to take away from the rest of us, also afford the Hobby Lobby folks freedoms to try to amend the Constitution. But the freedoms to try to amend the Constitution to take away rights; to, for example, have the government impose a religious Test, present frightening possibilities.
The founders worried about the tyranny of any religion and were very clear that our government does not get any of its authority or power from anything like the Church of England, or any other conceivable form of a religious group.
7
@Chris: "Of course, the same freedoms the folks from Hobby Lobby would like the federal government to take away from the rest of us..."
What freedoms are you talking about? Be very specific. Also, do you agree with anyone who wants to get rid of the Second Amendment?
@Chris, the Hobby Lobby proposal is the epitome of religious tyranny.
1
Mr. Egan is correct to worry about Democrats who are calling for the immediate implementation of policies that are wildly unpopular. Medicare for all might be a wonderful long-term goal, but this particular trip needs a very detailed map on how to get there while not blowing up the deficit the way GOP has done recently.
We the People need to focus on removing Trump from WH but we also need to be reasonable and think like a spendthrift, finding areas to save money in order to fund programs, without expanding the debt, that anyone who calls themselves a "Compassionate Christian" can understand and support!
5
Thank you, Mr Egan, for this thoughtful piece. I agree that the founders and Lincoln would be appalled by most of what is going on these days, which is why I would have included a few more lines from the Lincoln quotation about Know-Nothings. I believe he goes on to say something to the effect of: "In that event I would prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."
2
Great column, but too late to worry about out of touch Democratic presidential contenders. Among the debates, noisy fireworks and "Salute to Trump" arguments,, democracy quietly ended this week.
Our democracy is based on three branches of government, (executive, legislative, judicial) holding each other in check. Without that, there is no democracy. Trump ignored subpeoneas from the legislative branch, while also ignoring a ruling on the census from the judicial branch.
Checks and balances are gone. Kaput. Game over.
10
Impeach.
2
"Congress shall make no law..."
About shutting down the free press, Republicans don't care whether it's by a Congressionally enacted law or by executive order.
5
I think your Founding Fathers if they could be brought back alive today, would be deeply shocked and depressed by the state of the US - and very, very angry towards the contemporary Republican Party. I also think that they'd feel very deep regret for their part in creating the present situation. More than anything else I think they would say that the Electoral College was supposed to prevent someone like Trump being elected, and as it didn't, it is not fit for purpose and should be scrapped. I think they would also be ashamed that their reservations about the merits of representative democracy, have prevented the US from constantly and consistently forming a "more perfect union" so devastatingly. Talk that they had not formed a democracy because they did not say it was such explicitly would leave them flabbergasted. They'd want another revolution I'm sure, but being men of reason they'd soon conclude that such are much harder to fight these days. Instead I suppose they'd advise their choice of Democratic candidate and urge the election of them and Democrats in the senate and lambast the Republicans at every opportunity. Or commit ritual suicide.
8
"And close to half of Republicans have adopted Trump’s authoritarian view that the news media is “the enemy of the people.”"
Actually, he referred to the Fake News Media being the enemy of the people. I have no problem with that. Definition? State that you are real media, and then attack a politician you don't like from 6:00 AM to midnight. Yes, this is CNN.
3
Republican Party have lost there way since President Donald Trump Platform of hate and division. I cannot thing last 2 years a party no cannot do Senator Mitchell McConnel due do wife work with Trump Admin.
Its going be hard if make to next century Republican Party as one China philosopher a house cannot stand divided will fall.
Or Bible a house Build on sand will fall.
If Republican Party can reach across aisle to Democrats maybe still hope.
2
If the founders would gag at today's Republicans I wonder how they would feel about the Republicans from 15 years ago who lied us into an invasion and created a catastrophic worldwide mess that will take generations to recover from. For me, I think today's Republicans are a big improvement over what came before. And it's funny how those warmongering Republican neocons are the biggest haters of Trump and are now being embraced by the left.
2
@rpe123: "...I wonder how they would feel about the Republicans from 15 years ago who lied us into an invasion and created a catastrophic worldwide mess that will take generations to recover from."
I wonder how the Founders would feel about the welfare state. I wonder what the Founders would think about world-wide deployment of troops and never-ending wars, none of which were declared by Congress. I wonder how the Founders would handle citizenship in view of today's massive influx of illegal immigrants.
2
There is a very simple reason why a certain percentage of the country hold these ridiculous beliefs. Fox news. They are the one's telling their viewers that all immigrants are illegal. They are the ones lying about liberal journalism. They are the folks telling people that Christians are under attack. 24 hours a day.
There are some states in this country where every airport TV is tuned solely to Fox. Boise, Idaho for instance. Of course they believe stupid things because that's all they know.
10
There is no way our Founding Fathers would support 30 million illegal immigrants. No way. Especially when one party, the Democratic Party, supports them in order to steal political power, from citizens, after the next census. That is foreign meddling in our elections. But, because it doesn't involve Trump, it doesn't count.
When it comes to free speech: I can say anything I want to conservatives. They will disagree with most of what I say. Liberals / Democrats? No way! Oppose illegal immigration and you are a 'racist' and a 'bigot.' Regardless of the basis for your opposition. It doesn't matter if you oppose it categorically, not on the basis of race of nationality, because Democrats will attack you. They will try to get your fired. They will try to destroy your life.
Liberals / Democrats are now attacking 'fake news.' They, of course, get to define what the 'truth' is and what constitutes 'fake news.' There is nothing liberal or democratic about that.
And, to make sure people understand, I am not a Southerner by birth and have no relatives that were traitors to this nation. And, like every single person outside of the East Rift Valley in Africa, I am descended from immigrants.
7
Excellent.
I have come to the conclusion, Americans are not as smart or savvy as I thought. How many times are they told a lie before they start believing it. I’m afraid once.
4
Well written. Clear in its chosen focus. A needed "wake-up" caveat. For the "converted." An inadvertent "flaw," easily corrected. A key issue is not "homogenized" Republicans or Democrats; which are Identities. Labels. Rather it is ummenschlich behaviors- words and done deeds-which continue to self-seed, and harvest a toxic, WE-THEY violating culture.Daily.Enabling violating by words and deeds, created, selected and targeted "the other(s)!" At ALL levels of a divided USA. United by letters.Separated by traditions. Legacies.Laws and regulations. Revised, "alt-facted" histories. Enabling, by complacency and complicity for selected and elected policymakers, at all levels, everywhere, to operate with personal unaccountability. Harming, by voiced and written words what should not be said.Written.Tweeted! Doing what ABUSES. Creating unnecessary pains. To "kidnapped"(AKA "separated")
children. "Caged" in "Sites for Seeding Traumas." You note Party labels; sharing your concerns. We need your words to fuel activated outrage. To take on the asphyxiating willful blindness to what shouldn't BE, but which each of US somehow may contribute to. In ranges of doings and nondoings.CAVEAT your OP-EDs about willful deafness to the experienced existental pains of so many. Willful ignorance about what IS.NOW. Let the Constitutional "originalists" ponder in irreality, and perhaps even "chutzpah," what words from THEN, mean NOW. Amidst lessening mutual trust. Incivility. Respectless uncaringness!
2
Your second paragraph misrepresents what those Democratic Presidential candidates are proposing. We don't have a private health insurance system. Most of us are insured through plans provided by our employer and we have no say whatsoever when our employer decides to make changes to the plan. If we had a public health plan to replace our employer plans, then we would no longer be at the mercy of our employers to provide us decent health plans and as a bonus our employers can focus on their business and not worry about our health plans.
I for one don't like my health insurance being tied to my job and I know a lot of other Americans feel the same way.
What these candidates are proposing is a national healthcare system that will replace the current system based on employment. People with means can still buy their own health insurance if they want.
Also, this is a campaign where ideas are batted about. An entirely healthy process. What will happen, most likely is that Obamacare will be strengthened to include a public option, which should have happened to begin with.
So, if you are weighing the parties and one party is debating ideas like national healthcare and the other is destroying the fabric of our nation, I think the choice should be rather easy.
17
Unfortunately Mr. Egan too many people on both sides of the aisle want to throttle free speech. Witness the calls to ban Nazi websites and the call to shut down sites that preach hatred. This is the left asking for this, not the right.
The hardest free speech to accept is that which you abhor.
2
Just under half of Republicans now believe government should be able to shut down “biased or inaccurate media.”...
Unless it's FOX
7
Love this column. Truer words cannot be written. For its dissenters, look in the mirror and ponder how you got to this place where we put children -- babies -- in cages and too many people think it is OK to treat women like breeding stock. And how about our president who thinks he is king. Good luck.
10
Since we are appealing to Founding Fathers, I will add this great piece of advice from Abraham Lincoln (I am aware it is disputed, but it is included in his collected works).
It came during the second debate with Stephen Douglas, who had a bad habit of misrepresenting Lincoln’s positions, distorting known facts, inflating his own pretentious and promises, and so forth.
Lincoln said: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
He would of course go on to LOSE to Douglas in the short term. Realism and pragmatism are part of the ethos of our democratic heritage.
But he would go on to WIN the ultimate prize—including finally the approval of Douglas himself—by his sheer dogged determination.
In 1859 it would be difficult to predict that slavery would end by 1865, but it did.
And that’s because: You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. Lincoln trusted democracy.
Truth has a way of speaking up, and speaking out, just when it is needed most. Let’s hope it speaks again.
13
The quote from Lincoln: “I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be?” He continued, “As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it, ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.’”
This is the one that best encapsulates for me, the nature of the Republican Party over the last 10 years, and in particular, during the administration of Mr. Trump. In this version of the Republican Party, you have an in-group that becomes ever more exclusive, and an out-group that is ever expanding. I just hope Americans quickly realize that what they are willing to tolerate being done to the current members of the out-group might eventually be done to them, because the in-group to which they think they belong will eventually shrink to exclude them.
9
@Mark
It’s important to differentiate between ignorance and a lack of intelligence. They are not the same. Every intelligent person is ignorant of many things because they simply cannot have knowledge of all there is. It’s also important to distinguish between the understandable ignorance of certain subjects (e.g. medicine and nuclear physics) and willful ignorance in which someone simply chooses to believe something because of, for example, personal, cultural, or religious biases. I have known a number of otherwise intelligent and highly educated people who nonetheless harbor extraordinary ignorant/bigoted views. Also, as others have noted, there is certainly a relationship between being ignorant and residing in a rural community regardless of which state or country you live in. Rural communities, probably because of their relative isolation and insularity, have always adapted more slowly to change of any kind.
4
"Kids in cages and tanks for the tyrant. After that dictator-friendly Fourth of July, it’s time for all true patriots to conduct a political gut check."
Most of he heroes and the founding fathers that you mentioned were slave owners as you well know. Those slave were transported onto our shores in cages in the lower decks of the boats that sailed them here.
I would suggest we reform our deeply flawed country by looking forward to social democracy advocated by Sanders and Warren rather than the nostalgic claptrap that has been fed to us throughout our lives, especially around 4th of July.
The American centuries are filled with horror stories starting by our theft of land from the natives and our enslaving a large chunk of our population because we could.
What did Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton and Madison do while slavery shamed us all? Nothing. I am even skeptical about their liberation having to do with political economy more that decency.
So, Trump is the worst President ever. Yesterday was my worst 4th of July. The lesson I learned though is to look forward to a country where rhetoric of being best and God-chosen is replaced by genuine humility and decency.
Bernie/Warren or Warren/Bernie in 2020.
8
This was a enhanced campaign rally coercing and politicizing the US Armed Forces, and a gross abuse/misuse of the commander-in-chief's power, carried out in front of a restricted privileged audience of supporters, not open to all citizens, in one of the most hallowed spaces in our country. It was an abomination, not a glorification of our grossly bloated, globally dispersed military--The Department of Defense should be retro-branded, back to the Department of War, and the commander in chief should be relieved of his duties immediately.
--A retired physician and Vietnam Combat Veteran (Navy
Battalion Surgeon w/Marines, '69-'70)
--I posted this earlier today on an article in the Politics Section, but as a long-term reader and supporter of Mr. Egan's work, would like to add it here.
9
I share Egan’s view that our country and what it has stood for is in need of urgent care. If #45 wins re-election, it will be too late.
The Senate will remain in McConnell’s hands. The Supreme Court will require at least one more vacancy, one more nomination. Could that nomination be Barr?
With solid control of the Federal Bench, our last bastion of justice and law at the moment, the Senate, the DOJ and, with 45#’s view that the press is the enemy of the people, increased power to censor the press and eviscerate our First Amendment, we will be living in an tyrannical autocracy, a dystopian universe, in which freedom as our forefathers envisioned it will gradually disappear.
The solution, if one exists is to replace the king with a real President. Easier said than done. Will the good guys win again, as they did when Nixon resigned in disgrace?
Where and who are the good guys today? Are there any with the power to energize those who stayed home in 2016? To inspire?
To return decency, honor and truth to our government and our nation?
Stay tuned...
7
"The Founders Would Gag at Today’s Republicans"
I think the Founders would gag at American politics in general. I find it interesting that the picture for your article is of the Jefferson Memorial. Jefferson was the champion of limited government - do you see that spirit embodied by either major political party, Mr. Egan?
3
Dies irae. Dies illa.
(from the Requiem Mass)
1
So 23% of all immigrants are here illegally (per the article). Big number. Needs to be addressed. Gives DJT an enormous ( fact based and data driven) advantage in 2020 if unaddressed.
3
The same Lincoln who suspended Habeas Corpus by fiat? Yeah, I'll pass little Timmy...
...and then admitted it in the face of criticism claiming that in a time of existential crisis he was willing to break one-tenth of the Constitution to preserve the remaining nine-tenths.
What existential threat not of his own making justifies the destruction of Constitutional norms by the current occupant of the White House?
4
I did not learn, until I stumbled on a plaque in Philadelphia, that our revolution was financed by a Jew. (It was supposed to be a loan, but he was never paid back.) He did this precisely because this was a country where he could practice his religion freely. That religion is mine, and I want to be able to continue to practice it freely—if you call it freely, when our temple now needs armed guards.
7
All true Mr Eagan but until you mountain dwelling and coastal elites understand the grit it takes to live in the heartland, and the south, this country is not going to move forward. Yes the workers and the poor and the undereducated are a threat to our beautiful Republic. And yes they are not earning enough money to send their children to the often world class universities that were originally land grants from this US gov.
Hoosierland Indiana exports some of the finest intellectual capital this world will ever see. Our college grads foreign out of state and home grown LEAVE after graduating. Have done so for years. A few but not enough considering the state of my State, stay here.
Smart and oh so liberally educated they choose nicer to their point of view, places to Worklive in. This Ind, for it's inhabitants, is a stingy place to live. If you are poor, you cannot even get away from our worse weather or now in our lush and green well watered time; the Mosquitos and or the humidity.
PS I have lived and voted here for 57 yrs. Only ever voted for one GOP person. He died recently. Richard Luger. I disdained the clintonite young Evan Byah and loved his dad Birch. Of the the title 9. Enjoy ya all's view. Happy beaches and lofty mountains.
Dont live here. You cannot take it and thrive.
3
Trump is a temporary blip on the screen. But unless you dream of living in an overpopulated, impoverished, environmentally burdened, culturally divisive, increasingly violent third world country without ever leaving home, you will immediately come to your senses and reject the destructive, irreversible ‘progressive’ agenda currently being rammed down our throats by the faction formerly known as the Democratic Party.
And I’ve been a Democrat for forty years, so don’t give me any of that name-calling ‘Trumpster’ nonsense.
5
"...the DNA of Civil War traitors" is a bit rich for a 4th of July story about the founders of the United States: people who, at the time of THEIR Civil War, could fairly be characterized as traitors to the British Empire.
1
I grew up in a very Republican part of Colorado. This knuckle-dragging, anti-intellectual Republican landscape that everyone seems to think is a "recent development" is not new. The difference between my view of Republicans and those who think they are now suddenly worse than before? I grew up gay in a red state. Republicans have a long history of demonizing "others" and not respecting equal rights for "others." The majority of you are just now seeing it because you (blue state liberals) are now the target of Republican contempt. Welcome to the club.
6
"And yet some Democrats are pushing policy positions — such as taking away private health insurance from more than 150 million people — that are deeply unpopular."
Demagogy at its best!
People like their medical care not the insurance companies providing them. If they can get the same medical care at a lower cost and knowing EVERYONE can do the same independent of their age, medical condition, employment status and whatever else, I would be much happier.
Most countries which call themselves civilized offer Medicare for All equivalents. We can too.
Tell me ONE reason besides maximizing profits for its shareholders that we need PRIVATE healthcare insurance companies?
You hide behind "liberalism" in perpetuating the terrible capitalist system we have in this country. The ugly disparity in wealth and income makes me want to throw up. The Healthcare Insurance Industry is one of the biggest offenders. They are also redundant since they do not produce ANYTHING (unlike industrial manufacturers, technology companies and even pharmaceutical firms).
I am a wealthy individual with degrees all the way to a PhD from Harvard. My wife and daughters are highly educated people who have degrees from Harvard, Yale and Juilliard. I can afford the best health care money can buy. But this is not about me. It is about decency and menschkeit.
Do the right thing. Support Medicare for All. Support Bernie and Liz.
9
I choose "newspapers without a government".
Factoid of The Week (compliments of the think tank, "People's Policy Project", June 14, 2019, Matt Bruenig.)
"Between 1989 and 2018, the top 1 percent increased its total net worth by $21 trillion. The bottom 50 percent actually saw its net worth decrease by $900 billion over the same time period."
(The decline was from debt and actual decline of net worth.)
The Cult of Trump requires constant whining from the rich that they are not being treated well enough and that some 1-year-old baby is stealing their job or house or car or....
The Cult of Trump also requires that God be mentioned in some way..... however, that "way" must never have anything to do with actual, real, live, breathing children no matter where they are presently incarcerated. God and Republicans only love 6-cell humans.
And, lastly, let me point out that those numbers are only from 1989. Before that the 1% had already accumulated another 9 TRILLION DOLLARS.
Last factoid: The "three wealthiest people in America have as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent."
Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
The Cult of Trump is nothing 'new'.
5
I do not know what the founders would have done about the asylum crisis. However, I would bet they would have valued honesty, and closed the door. We should do the same.
2
Mr Egan decries Trump for calling the media the "enemy of the people", and then he writes an article like this.
Obama put kids in cages too. He built them. They were there long before Trump came along. I dont suppose you wrote a similar article about Obama?
I didnt think so.
And then you wonder why after articles like this, where you are deceiving the American people, you are described in such a way.
7
There is plenty of blame to go around. The past is done, and wasting the present on finger pointing is useless.
When the boat is sinking...everyone bails.
Every single person. If we aren’t bailing for all we are worth, we are all sinking, faster and faster.
Let’s spend our energy on solutions rather than nattering about blame.
7
The founders aren’t spinning in their graves over these simpletons. They knew very well the types who threaten good governance and the rule of law and tried to build a system that would thwart them. Those types have always walked among us.
What the founders might have trouble grasping today are the 10 of millions of us who don’t vote.
6
Normally love Egan, but this column is seriously flawed. He starts out by condemning progressive democratic candidates for not being slaves to the sentiment of the electorate and then cites numerous opinion polls that show the majority of republicans not supporting freedom of the press/religion. Doesn't that mean those freedoms should be abandoned, since a majority doesn't embrace them? Sometimes the masses are wrong and our leaders have to put principles ahead of public sentiment. Warren, Sanders and others want to rid the country of insurance companies because they believe the public will be better served. Why should they compromise their values because they are unpopular? That's how elections are won, but countries are lost. People don't want to give up private insurance because they don't know anybody or our battered by disinformation from lobbyist representing that industry and the legislators they own. Instead of shaming candidates into capitulating to the masses and this disinformation, you should be encouraging Warren and Sanders to work hard to make people understand the rationale behind their values. A party singularly focused on electability instead of values has none.
2
If the goal is to eliminate private health insurance then it actually makes more sense to start a Medicare for All program at the state level. The fact Bernie and Warren haven’t started a M4A program in their respective states is all you need to know about the viability of a M4A program in America.
3
The United States has always had a lunatic fringe. Always. Social media has amplified their presence. Besides, as we unravel from the effects of the very mainstream Republican attacks on democracy, the fringe has moved to the middle.
The remnants of the Old South are still fighting the Civil War. They were wrong then, and they still are but that has never slowed them down. Please, can we divorce them?
It is wrong to describe the stresses being experienced by the Democrat Party as extreme. It is normal to have differences. The old guard is clinging to power by any means possible. They violated their own agreement to refrain from personal attacks on other candidates. Establishment candidate Harris (she gets money from Wall St and Silicon Valley) attacked establishment candidate Biden. So much for agreements. Neither "radical" Sanders or Warren attacked others personally. Sanders actually - if you watch the exchange - was about to defend Biden but was cut-off.
There is ONE reason that Medicare for All is "deeply unpopular". It is easy to say "Raise taxes" in 10 seconds but more difficult to say that some - but not all - of the money now spent on premiums, co-pays, and deductibles would instead go to pay the federal government to cover you through Medicare.
It is the duty of the press - yes, you - to make that distinction. You don't because you eat at the billionaire's banquet.
Really, Egan, you need to get out more often.
6
Actually in a M4A program it makes more sense to keep co-pays and deductibles but have CSR payments...which means no new taxes.
1
The reason people think the Democrats are nuts is because they are. They throw around absurd descriptives like “authoritarian” and “despot”. OF COURSE DT dislikes the spectacularly partisan media. And no leftist who can’t utter the words “Citizens United” without spitting on the ground will be heard on the subject of free speech.
Southerners are “anti-American”? Hmm. If the US faced an existential crisis requiring people to take up arms to defend it, what group would respond first: Confederate flag wavers, or NY social justice warriors? The left considers the Gadsden and Betsy Ross flags “racist”, too. Because the left hates America.
In Portland, we saw how the left treats journalists; show me a single NYT reporter assaulted by a Republican mob; go ahead, I’ll wait.
The “pride in the country” ebb results SOLELY from the fact that Democrats now actively despise their "deplorable" countrymen, as this article demonstrates.
Consider: if 23% of the “immigrants” in this country are criminals, throw them out. And while “immigrants” are a benefit, unskilled immigrants are not. It’s typical of the left to disparage the GOP for advocating for policies akin to those of Canada. And to lie about who designed those cages and the conditions in the “camps”.
And America never needed a standing army, because its people were armed. The left’s view of that essential freedom is ...?
An existential threat to American freedom exists; it regularly finds it voice in these pages.
7
On first reading, I thought this one of the best descriptions so far of our current condition.
Then I read quite a few comments, most of which seemed to miss the larger points about the condition of the two major parties, the widespread lack of understanding of the U.S. Constitution, and a recap of the theme in the headline; instead, readers seemed to focus on a single sentence in paragraph 9:
"And half of all Southerners — the deepest, most anti-American part of Trump’s base, with the DNA of Civil War traitors still coursing through the region — believe the United States was founded as an “explicitly Christian” nation."
Maybe Mr. Egan has struck a nerve.
Times readers in the South: This is not about you as Southerners, nor is it a denial of backwardness in the North; it's about the establishment clause. Please, get a grip!
BTW, now that I've re-read the article, I still think it's one of the best descriptions so far of our current condition.
5
The founders? You mean those white racist capitalists whose statues and paintings are next on the demolish-it list? Those founders?
6
Here, here!
1
Just about everything George Washington worried about in his Farewell Address has come to pass.
That the fragile Constitution would not be respected, that regionalism and sectionalism would destroy our country, that the factionalism and competition among political parties would undermine the spirit of democracy and the art of compromise. For example, he worried that a party would work to make the other party look week, rather than working together for the common good of the citizens and country.
One conclusion by historians and political scientists is that our country was just plain fortunate we had such an outstanding group of intelligent men who struggled to work out a democratic structure as the foundation for our politics. There were clearly some self-serving, obstructionist founders, and there were mighty battles and difficult compromises before the Constitution was hammered out and passed. But the better angels seemed to triumph--luckily.
We have had 45 presidents, that have been ranked by historians and political scientists: A few were gifted and outstanding (Lincoln, Washington, TR, FDR). Some ranked at the bottom, many of whom were businessmen (in the 20th & 21st centuries, from the worst on are: Trump, Harding, Hoover, Nixon). And mostly it was a lot of mediocre presidents in between.
https://www.businessinsider.com/greatest-us-presidents-ranked-by-political-scientists-2018-2
The point: We are in terrible times--again. This too shall pass. Speak out, VOTE
4
Medicare for all would give the best coverage for the money because the policy holders would not be paying for high executive salaries and dividends for the investors. Mr. Eagan should explain why he thinks people would want to spend more money for the same coverage, or the same money for poorer coverage by purchasing a plan from an insurance company.
1
Republicans have rejected democracy, representative government and the will of the American people in favor of right-wing messianic authoritarianism.
NOTE to Americans: this is a giant RED flag warning.
Republicans have told us who they are: Hijackers of public policy via 0.1% campaign finance corruption, voter suppression, voter file purges, gerrymander, Grand Old Propaganda, Supreme Court rigging, census rigging and cheating, lying and stealing elections and the government so the rich can flourish and average Americans rot and die in poverty and gun massacres.
Oligarchism is Kremlinism.
Republicans are Russian-Republicans, happy with sham elections, fake justice and a poor populace.
Democrats, independents and any remaining Republicans with a human conscience must outvote the radical Republican right in 2020.
It's time for Red Flag Republicans to be thrown out of American political office en masse and to wipe the Republistan off the face of the American political map.
2020
Register.
Vote.
Donate.
And help and inspire others to register and vote.
America has been hijacked by the radical Republican right.
8
This article, like many others (although this one is particularly well articulated), is telling us to beware. Our democracy is not to be taken for granted. It is a fragile as life itself. The signs of its demise are everywhere, but most importantly, in the distain of a free press.
We Democrats need to fight back with our people power and voting power if we do not want to end up with a totalitarian regime.
4
Does Hobby Lobby consider Trump a good Christian as most evangelicals do?
Is lying and cheating and paying off porn stars and separating babies from parents and ripping off small contractors and making fake universities going to be model behavior in this future Christian nation?
10
True, but this is yet another example of NYT columnists "preaching to the choir".
1
I think there are two policies that Democratic presidential candidates might support in good conscience, for good reasons, that they could espouse that could scare people away from voting for them, that they thus should reconsider.
The first is that they support moving to Medicare for All as the only health coverage available to people. This is not necessary to provide universal publicly-funded health care for all. Here in Australia such only provides a reasonably high level of basic care. So no choice of surgeon, no private room and elective surgery waiting-lists apply. People are perfectly free to buy private insurance, if they can afford it, if they want better service and treatment than that. So nobody goes without treatment, or has to rely on GoFundMe or whatever to get treatment if they don't have private insurance (and don't qualify for Medicaid), but nobody has to rely on only what taxpayers and the government will provide either. I really think this is the kind of situation The Democrats should campaign to introduce to the US.
The second is suggesting that they do not discriminate between those that apply through official channels for asylum in or immigration to the US and those that enter the country without doing so - or they are for "open borders" in other words. Progressives like me here in Australia have learnt the hard lesson that such, while well-meaning, is just electoral poison that just ensures the conservative side of politics remains in government.
3
Hear hear!
2
The Establishment Clause (poorly named) does more than simply prevent Congress from "establishing a national religion." Congress can make no law "respecting" (i.e. "concerning, touching on, having anything to do with, promoting, advancing, funding") an establishment of religion. BIG DIFFERENCE! Please read or re-read the First Amendment.
3
They would hate the democrats too. I mean week ago all democrats said the federal government should make private health insurance illegal.
You think the free association founding father would agree with that!?!?!?!?!?!
1
Amen, brother.
1
It's all about the Benjamins, baby.
The Republican Party is all about greed. Wealth and power trump (pun definitely intended) individual freedoms and doing something just because it is the right thing to do.
Republicans in power during Watergate were honorable people, and that wasn't that long ago.
I never imagined that one man along with a political party's willingness to support him could unravel what took a couple hundred years to establish. Shocking. Shocking and very depressing.
10
A nice history lesson, Mr. Egan. Teaching of history, American history especially, has declined in our public schools. Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton might be seriously dismayed about Trump's America but also as they see their wisdom fading from the American consciousness.
4
For the second time in as many columns, I have to express sorrow for this outstanding commentator's loss of self-control in argumentative design, and even more in rhetoric. There is almost casual weakness in hoisting quotations of heroes, a game which Republicans and their scribes play all day long, ignoring the limits of relevancy. There is terrible license asserted here to impugn, for example, residents of an entire region of the country, which simply goes too far for any partisan of fair play to accept. This is the character of invective we look our doors against. It is tragic to see Tim Egan on the other side.
2
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, says the First Amendment.
Ah but, say, Republicans, the founders never said anything about presidential executive orders abridging the freedom of the press.
8
As a conservative libertarian, you probably already know where I stand in my disagreements with many of you readers. Well, take it from me, they increasingly appall me as well. No principle. No integrity. A gross display of nationalist and populist hate that uses government in the worst way. I'm just as worried about it as many of you all.
15
It's with their sense of history that gives them justification for their worldview. Instead of adapting their opinion with observation, they double down to what they feel is right.
If you ever tell them that an asylum seeker can legally claim asylum through illegal entry, they'll spit in your face. If you tell them that there's a possibility that CBP contains a toxic workforce culture, they'll laugh. Anything that will show them the opposite of their established perspectives with facts doesn't work.
It's about a willingness to never change- to seek like-minded people in a time of polarization and division.
No one enjoys being told they're wrong. But that error comes at a great human cost. The word of the law that Republicans supposedly hold dear is 'fake news' when it is convenient for them, and the swamp that threatens the democratic integrity of the nation's institutions is no concern to them.
Is stubbornness and willful ignorance the price to pay for thousands of people looking for a better life in the southern border? Where we don't hold the worst of them accountable in a court of law or in congress?
When the law is no longer at their side, who knows what could happen next decade. Even now, right-wing extremists commit acts of violence when Republicans hold the most power, threatened by the dissimilar Democrat. What's to stop them from escalating in 2020-2024?
4
The worst of "them" is directed at Republicans. Stupid mistake in my part.
@Agustin,
The vast majority of American citizens support granting asylum to people when they are being persecuted by their government and face imminent death or torture if they are returned.
What many disagree with is granting asylum to people because they made bad dating choices (domestic violence), because they might come from an area with crime, or simply because they are poor.
None of those reasons requires that a person settle in the United States.
I want all people to have a good life- free from material want and violence. I have a personal obligation to fight for that- for the people in my country. I am even open to donating my resources to help foreigners. But this country is not responsible for supplying that to the world. It is unreasonable because it is impossible.
United States citizens are right for questioning our asylum practices. It would be immoral, to our children, were we not to do so.
3
"Southerners — the deepest, most anti-American part of Trump’s base, with the DNA of Civil War traitors still coursing through the region" As a life long Southerner--except for a decade or so getting educated--I loved that line. The South flipped from solid Democratic to solid Republican over race starting in about 1960. The national Democratic Party that had acquiesced to its Southern wing was finally shamed and started backing civil rights for black people. Southern politics is still mostly about race; the other bad stuff tags along. There appear to be twinges of purple around the edges, but I suspect the core of the South will remain solidly red until the current voters die off. A lot of Southerners are very happy to have Trump as head of the Party since he supports their bigotry.
17
The founders may well have 'gagged' at Trump but would be appalled Democrats are attempting to insert themselves though federal power into the minutiae of peoples lives. Promising a litany of free stuff comes at a heavy cost beyond economic calamity,worse if steals basic freedoms. How soon we forget the tyrants produced in the old USSR, Cuba,Venezuela et al all with overpowering national governments providing ever diminishing free stuff...and no freedoms. The Bill of Rights would mean nothing.
4
@Lane - in recent decades the Republican Party suggested amending the Constitution to ban same-sex marriages. The Republicans have been passing laws all around the country to feature things like invasive ultrasounds and lectures directed at women wanting abortions, or banning it altogether. The article also in the Times about the man selling sex toys to Walmart notes that they're still illegal in some Republican-controlled states.
Republican states lead the way in trying to disenfranchise as many of the types of voters they don't appeal to - forcing voter id laws to fight an imaginary problem, but really to take away a basic freedom to vote.
That's interfering in individual lives. That's GOP interfering in basic freedoms.
Republican state governments have also intruded when cities in their states try to pass minimum wage increases or make other local choices to improve the lives of local residents.
The Republican tax law is creating deficits to give money to the rich. It added double-taxation on state and local taxes, for the very first time, too. Fiscal irresponsibility and double-taxation in one bill!
The current administration cuts regulations on the fossil industry and manufacturers. These regulations include workplace safety rules and pollution controls - the costs of increased injury and illness will be picked up by the poor and middle-class taxpayers.
G.W. Bush expanded Medicare and didn't fund it - that's free stuff. Obamacare, in contrast, was funded.
10
To quote Stealers Wheel, “Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right...”
To quote Thomas Jefferson, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
I don’t know what to think of someone who identifies as a Republican, and then goes on to proclaim that they don’t believe in government.
Similarly, I don’t know how to reconcile the idea that a group of self-described Democrats would seek to impose any sort of ‘purity’ standards upon prospective members of their political faction.
The Constitution may be a living document, but we’ve got a long history of using it as toilet paper.
1
Our country is in such a mess because we have allowed this demagogue to become President. For whatever reason the Republicans allowed him to run - yes, I know, it's a free country and anyone can...- but there should be some qualifications other than cheap rhetoric and bluster. This man is so ignorant of the Constitution and history it's unbelievable. I did not hear his entire speech yesterday, however, I did hear him state that Washington had a highly trained army with which we won the Revolution. Fact check me. Did I really hear that?
Perhaps if the President had actually ever studied history or even read a book, he would know that many of the farmers who dropped their plows to join the militia had no shoes. Talk about a know nothing.
One wonders when serious minded, informed Republicans will cry uncle and agree that his thwarting the Constitution and failure to adhere to his oath of office will merit impeachment. The sooner, the better.
8
Egan' s opinion is hard- pressed as a rebuttal to American exceptionalism.
Republicans talk a good story on upholding the Constitution but the only part they want to keep is the right to be armed.
12
I guess it's a good thing that no northern state would never fall for such as Trump.
2
To all those Christians out there who want no separation between church and state -- how about all those churches start paying taxes like the rest of us. Share the tax burden if you're so patriotic.
15
How many Republicans do not have immigrant ancestors?
6
The Republican Party today certainly seems to meet the criteria of a fascist party. It has an authoritarian leader, a longing to return to a mythical past, groups to hate, enacts policies of cruelty against other groups such as asylum seekers, and is a carrying out a war against truth. I think if the Republican Party changed it name to something like Nationalist American Party or something like that what is going on would be much clearer. The party of Lincoln it is not.
10
Thank you for this.
3
No, the founders wouldn't have "gagged" at Republicans. Don't allow such hyper dramatism. Both parties were totally different then, and Blacks and women weren't even considered voting citizens. The founders wouldn't have understood humans' exhaustive need for me-ism, or 24/7 info cycles. But partisan Supreme Court, like RBG stumping for HRC....that, they might have had then.
1
Well done.
1
“But what part of “Congress shall make no law” abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, do these citizens not understand?”
ALL OF IT!!
5
IGNORANCE and not being able to realize that one is ignorant is the basis of this and other countries problems.Dictators and tyrants depend on this to rule. We have a downward spiral of facts and truth in this country.
Roger Ailes and FOX were leaders in this and as Ailes said, "People do not want to be really informed ,they want to think they are informed". He also said that people want to hear what they want to hear. Dear Leader referred to airports during the Revolutionary war and FOX will probably substantiate this with early plane schedules dated 1774. The faithful will accept this. Texas will add it to its history books.
7
Of course this is all true but yet I must take issue with the easy use of "ignorant".
The Trump base does indeed seem to constitute a new low in politics and humanity, at least as we have seen it in our nation. However, ignorance is too simple a term. A lack of intelligence alone cannot explain where we are. Nearly 40% of American's are afraid for their way of life. They are in a precarious position, economically and socially. We "we" have not provided them with a means to make a living such as preserves esteem and community. In the mind of a MAGA person, they are fighting for the "American way of life". Are they grasping at exactly the wrong straw, yes. Do they blame the wrong constituents for their position, yes, and it is indeed ugly. Many of us would behave similarly given the complete erosion of everything we've known. Instead of ignorance, think "desperation". And democrats need to present the MAGA crew with a clear blueprint for how to lift them up from their doldrums. That they don't see Trump and his brand as a vacuous fraud is disappointing and frightening, I get it. However, we still have more in common than we have apart and our plan for 2020 has to be an appeal for commonality.
72
@Mark
So according to you once a politician gets elected and stops listening and being accountable to their constituents that is OK? Let our factories close and move them and our jobs out of the country because the elites know better? Let budget deficits with China allow them to build a huge military and force Communism and their rules on the world is smart?
Politicians committing to Paris climate agreements where it costs us trillions that go to other countries and they can fully pollute for decades (China and India) is somehow brilliant?
We subsidize NATO for billions to protect our "allies"?
The status quo ivy league politicians of both party's got us in this mess. You don't think other countries are looking out for themselves? Wake up and fight for America or lose it.
2
@Mark
Ignorance means a lack of information. I am ignorant about quantum physics and string theory. That doesn't make you stupid. Information will cure a lack of knowledge.
Information, however, is fairly worthless when it comes to tackling prejudice and that is what we are really discussing in Trump's cult. You can't argue people out of their fears. Many of you have tried.
First, don't take opinions/defenses head-on. Instead, patiently listen to their fears. Once people feel heard, they become less entrenched. Listen. Express empathy for the underlying fear. Once you see the defenses coming down, you can begin to point out discrepancies between what they fear/believe and alternative possibilities/explanations.
156
@Mark
Nothing can be said to lift these people out of their stew of xenophobia and anti-intellectualism. No opposition party can build a coalition by reaching out to these people in it, nor should, though I must note Thomas Edsall's column in this very paper indicates that bigotry is generally what republicans and independents have in common. The only hope for this country in the long term is to disenfranchise these people -racism should not have a party- and for them to slowly fill the graveyards. Whether in western Massachusetts or rural Texas.
11
Democracy could not be mentioned in our Constitution because there were many, likely a majority, of those at the convention who had grave doubts. Although the concept was developed by the ancient Greeks, actually applying its principles to a nation, one that was even then large compared to European nations, was something new, an experiment. Out of these fears, and the desire of the various states to hold on to power, came the Electoral College and the appointment of U.S. senators by state legislatures. A truncated, fearful democracy was their dubious gift.
Over the ensuing two plus centuries, we have failed to give democracy a formal place in the Constitution and only barely increased it with the direct election of senators while we continued the imbalance in representation by allowing small states the same number of senators as the largest.
As a concept, a theory, democracy is at the heart of our American enterprise but we have neglected to keep it healthy and evolving. It is so fragile that one political party now thinks it can be tipped over into failure. The effort to do so is widespread with gerrymandered House districts, restrictions on registration, closing polling stations, racist inspired removal of voting rights for those previously convicted of crimes and massive barrages of negative television ads paid for by influence groups.
If we continue to neglect democracy, we will lose it. The lesson of natural life applies: that which does not change, improve, dies.
9
@Doug Terry
The US is like a corporation formed by it's stockholders the states with each state represented by two Senators each. A Senator is a member of the "Board of Directors" overseeing the operations of the corporation. It's why the founders set the states up with an equal number to represent them. The states used to select their Senators. One of the worst amendments put this control in the hands of the people.
The House of Representatives is elected by the people to represent them to the corporation. That's why it controls the budgeting and taxes since it is the people who pay the taxes not the states. Each provides oversight of the other legislative branch.
Wasn't this taught in Civics?
1
@NYHUGUENOT
What we were taught is not necessarily what we should be. Our system creates serious, lasting and unfortunate distortions in the direction of the nation, bending the will of the voters in ways they do not want to go.
Wasn't this taught in civics? No, it wasn't taught because our country and our government was put forth as some sort of perfect entity, functioning well when functioning normally. Just because you believe what the teachers told you doesn't mean anyone else should accept it whole.
The two senators rule made much more sense at the time of the nation's founding. It is 100 years, at least, out of date now because of the disproportionate influence of small, rural states versus the larger ones.
Frankly, I don't care that the individual states, as entities, are equally represented in the decisions of the nation. States are, for the most part, artificially constructed gatherings of people. They are not ordained by god or anyone else and should not control the fate of the nation. (Giving them extra power is a way for the influential in those states to have extra power nationally.) We, collectively, are more important than the individual states which provide both excellent government and services and are also prone to vast error and, furthermore, are often easily manipulated by the rich and powerful.
2
@NYHUGUENOT
At the time the Constitution was written, the population of the various states was much closer to being equal than now. At present, California has around 40,000,000 people living in it. The five lowest population states, none with more than 800,000 citizens, have about 2.7 million between them. Those low population states get ten US senators, California gets two. Is this fair? Is that representative government by any stretch?
The imbalance in the allocation of senators then turns over into the Electoral College where those same five states get ten votes plus their House members. This gives the smaller states the right to choose who is president against the will of the majority.
We need a system that encourages cooperation rather than forces division. It would not be easy to achieve, of course, but one with greater balance in representation could have a better chance than our current set up.
3
I share the authors’ characterization of the current state of the Republican Party. However, when it comes to the aspect of “disdain of written law”, the author conveniently ignores that the blame is also on the Democrats, in particular on those on the left side. The current state of immigration law might be deplorable, however, it is still written law. If you don’t like it, you need to get it changed according to the process foreseen by the constitution, and not ignore it. There are large factions on both sides of the political spectrum, who just don’t bother with written law as soon as this behavior fosters their pet case. This troubles me. Hamilton was right!
2
@Tom Mix
The United States is obliged by law to recognize valid claims by refugees for asylum. A refugee is a person who has a fear of persecution based on race, nationality, religion, political opinion and membership of a particular social group. Under asylum law refugees' claims must be heard and they cannot be sent back to their home countries.
Democrats would obey the law, including court orders issued by federal judges that children not be unnecessarily detained, in no case over 72 hours, and with their basic needs met.
In addition, Democrats would adhere to the law providing for due process and the law prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment in our own Constitution in the treatment of asylum seekers, and their innocent children.
Democrats would abide by laws which protect the vulnerable, which Donald Trump does not. But Trump and Fox News traffics in lies about Democrats and lies repeated often enough, unfortunately, become what people believe.
9
Let's not cave to the myth that Americans love their private health insurance. It's all they know, and until they've had single payer (like I have, with Medicare) they have nothing to compare. It's the best thing that has happened to me, after years of usurious price gouging by private insurers.
Dem candidates needs to tell voters they are already paying a huge tax to insurance companies, and held hostage by the collusion of insurers with hospitals and drug companies to negotiate reimbursements, and pass the costs along via premiums. Who represents the consumer in this equation? You've got it -- nobody.
Medicare for All would lower their "tax" (premium) bite. I've had no delays on needed procedures. Another GOP canard.
Kaiser Family Foundation polling shows 56% support for single payer, and 74% for Medicare option. Republicans know (and Dems, should, too) that "socialized medicine" gets much less support (46%) than Medicare for All (63%) or national health plans (59%).
Message? Push an optional, incremental approach, and when Americans get a taste of Medicare for All, we will all gladly kiss private health insurance goodbye.
7
Some of today's Republicans are gagging at their own party.
Andy McKean, a longtime Iowa Republican legislator, recently quit his party over its policies like gutting collective bargaining and politicizing the appointment of judges but what pushed him over the edge was his revulsion for Trump:
"[H]e sets a poor example for the nation and our children. He delivers personal insults, often in a crude and juvenile fashion, to those who disagree with him, and is a bully at a time when we’re attempting to discourage bullying, on- and offline.
"In addition, he frequently disregards the truth and displays a willingness to ridicule or marginalize people for their appearance, ethnicity, and disability.
"I believe that his actions have coarsened political discourse, contributing to unprecedented polarization and creating a breeding ground for hateful rhetoric and actions."
Good Republicans are leaving the party and becoming Democrats whose policies are moderate and whose care includes everyone, including vulnerable minorities. Hopefully more will follow.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/andy-mckean-why-im-becoming-democrat/589240/
17
@Sherry
One of the most distressing aspects of the entire Trump presidency is lack of any push back from members of the republican party. People I used to respect conclude that getting conservative judges on the courts outweighs any possible harm trump can do. I don't see any "good" republicans, I see a vast army of enablers.
What this writer fails to point out is that our Founders would gag at today's gaggle of Democrats as well (with the possible exception of Tulsi Gabbard, a non-interventionist who is willing to sacrifice her life, fortune and sacred honor for what this country is supposed to stand for -- Spirit of '76 values). The writer slams the Republicans for strong-arming rights to free speech, yet it was under Obama that Occupy was rousted and ousted far and wide, and ex-Mayor Bloomberg in NYC, who now aligns with the Dems, was at the forefront of this. I miss the good ol' days when critics went after both (or more) sides with equal gusto and precision.
5
Are there ANY Democrats proposing to “take private health insurance away from 150 million people”? All proposals I have heard involve introducing publicly funded insurance that would likely displace private insurance through market forces due to its cheaper cost. The private sector would then shrink and likely transform into a supplemental insurance system. But again, that would be due to market forces and would be driven by the choices of consumers. I am unaware of any serious candidates proposing to forcibly “take away” anybody’s private insurance. That almost sounds like a Republican talking point.
15
I don't think they'd be real happy with the Democrats either. In good conscience, I can only be an Independent.
5
If you really read the article Egan pointed out he is troubled with the Democrats but is more worried about the values of the Republicans.
6
First, you're delusional if you don't think the founders would gag a-plenty all around.
Sorry, they'd gag on millions of abortions, they just would.
They'd gag on the anti-gun left claiming that the 2nd Amendment didn't protect the right to keep and bear arms (a right that Americans already possessed pre-war via the English Bill of Rights of 1689), the very arms they just used to win their freedom.
They'd gag on the woefully bad job of public education continuing the understanding of civics and liberty.
They'd gag on the abuse of the treasury.
They'd gag on the taxation (we revolted over a tax on tea).
They'd gag on the unbelievable intrusion of gov't into our daily lives.
That doesn't even mean any of the aforementioned is right or wrong, but you're wholly intellectually dishonest if you refuse to include all gag reflexes that would exist with our founders, before you try to get on your high horse citing what they'd gag upon.
3
@Constance Underfoot - Shortly after the US was founded, a bunch of Pennsylvania farmers decided they shouldn’t have to pay the tax on whiskey. None other than George Washington himself led the army to put down the Whiskey Rebellion. The Founders were not against taxes. They were against taxes being levied by a monarchy in which the people had no voice. Oh, and if you can produce a single solitary quote where a founder espouses on the topic of abortion I would love to hear it. Without a shred of evidence, you have magically aligned the ideals of the Founders with your own, which seems to be a common affliction among the Right.
35
@Jim - her mention of abuse of treasury is funny, too. Might even be a gold-bug.
Constance, please read up again on the Second Amendment's opening phrase about the well-ordered militia. Then reread the Militia Acts of 1792 - voted into law by the Founders who filled Congress at the time.
The US had no standing army after the revolution. The purpose of the militia was to allow the President to call up a prepared, authorized, armed force in order to:
- fight off possible invasion (we were ringed by France, England, Spain, Indian nations).
- suppress rebellions against federal authority - the Whiskey Rebellion is one example, but they were also intended to act if individual states rebelled.
So militias were to be called up and commanded by states and state-appointed officers, yet were to be used at command of the federal government and the President.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militia_Acts_of_1792
3
@Constance Underfoot
Well put.
Nothing is faker about the US than the claim it is “under God”.
7
@Steve Bolger I'd say "amen" but I don't believe in made up fables that are used to control the masses!
3
@Steve Bolger,
You said it, pal.
Sincerely,
God
1
George Washington, who never once mentioned the word " Christ" in all his writings, said this in a letter to his aide Tench Tilghman about what workers to hire at Mt. Vernon. ..." If they are good workmen they may be from Asia, Africa, or Europe, they may be Mahamotens, Jews, Christians of any sect, or they may be Atheists..."
15
Remember back in 2017 when National Public Radio tweeted the Declaration of Independence? Some Trumpublicans viewed it as a socialist-pinko call to rebel against President Trump.
I wonder how many of the complainers were Republican politicians.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017/07/05/npr-tweeted-declaration-independence-some-people-got-angry/451112001/
16
Another socialist left commentary. It is time for all the elitist liberals to wake up and realize that most Americans are patriots who truly love the Trump area, and wish for accolades in the next 5 years. Go POTUS Go you will be re-elected as our beloved president.
2
So the Bill of Rights is leftist socialism?
5
@lieberma. How are we better off, by being divided?
2
@lieberma - most American voters voted for Hillary in 2016. And currently, if by "beloved" you mean "having a negative approval rating" yeah, that's our boy.
The current average of a set of polls shows only 44% of the people agree with your view, vs 52.4% who think he's doing a bad job. I know, it's "liberal math" to think that 52.4% is clearly a majority, but there you go.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html
Even Rasmussen's latest poll gives him a negative rating, it's REALLY hard to see Rasmussen show that - they're usually the oddball poll that shows the opposite of all others.
8
Goodness, Timothy, what other Things That Go Bump In The Night have you shivering in a locked closet? Or hiding under the sheets? It's a foregone conclusion that you are trying to imbue Republicans and Democrats of the D.C. geography as somehow different. They aren't. I believe, after you've had some warm milk and an eyebrow tweeze, that your complaint lies with the difference between Conservatives, of which there are few, and Radical Liberals, of which there are many.
Also submitted for your quaking observations is the hysteria to which you ascribe non-events. Kids in Cages? That's since 2014. A military aspect to Independence Day? A tradition that's been going off-and-on for about a century.
Should you recover from the latest bout of agita regarding all things Establishment in D.C., you might consider the efforts of true Conservatives to emulate the robust individualism of our Founders. If you will indulge some multi-tasking, you'll notice the Radical Liberals are interested in anything but your average American citizen. Why that is, I haven't a clue, but let's just admit they are onto some sort of new mewling dependent class. Easily led by the unctuous Leftist contributors to the Balkanization of the Republic, they will line up in droves to vote in the latest version of St. Nicholas promising them . . .
. . . everything.
Perhaps that gift-giving will include a subscription to the NY Times?
You're wrong, Mr. T. Donald Trump might be our last, best hope to save us.
@George Our last best hope just stated in a speech that Washington's Army took over airports.
6
Waving a flag, or wearing a flag pin, does not make you a supporter of the United States' Constitution. Many of my Southern neighbors place both a "Confederate" flag (which doesn't really exist) right next to the Stars and Stripes, which makes ZERO sense. If you are both supporting the Confederacy and Christianity, along with the Constitution you must drive yourself crazy. Ignorance and Bigotry is what the Trump and GOP are standing for at this point.
15
So we—the 52-60% who have consistently said we "disapprove" of Trump and his job performance--have been left to fend for ourselves, while the damaging and dangerously disturbed Trump and the entire GOP is perceived as winning.
Why are we anti-Trumpers out in the cold, while the lying, and damaging Trump (who lost the popular election) is reigning like an authoritarian king and tearing up democracy with wild abandon, while his party aids, abets, and cheers every destructive, illegal Trump action?
1. Ineffective Opposition to Trump. The Democratic Party has done a very weak job of opposing, as Tim said. Lots of reasons why but no space to dissect now.
2. The Trump Base of angry, low-educated, rural, evangelicals who gave themselves over to Trump like a bunch of cult worshippers. Yet, they are only 30-42% of the electorate who "approve" of Trump. Clearly, they prefer lies to truth, authoritarianism to democracy, religion and region to science and modernization, and punishment to empathy and humanitarianism.
A political scientist told a group of us about 30-40% of citizens in many advanced countries prefer authoritarian rule—it's a human condition. But the other 50-70% generally beat them out at election time.
Why not in America? Electoral college, money, GOP cheating, Fox, foreign influence, #1, & our media, which loves the bizarre & gives Trump so much free attention he manages to convey the impression he is far more important than he is.
Get to work Dems!
12
@PB, there are strong indicators that the president's progressive dementia, symptoms now glaring, ideation bizarre, Pence staying in DC, and more, will prevent his continuation in office much longer. As to what will follow, I have no idea. Although the handwriting on the wall is flashing red, people are not seeing it, so shell-shocked from the bizarre nature of the situation over the last two years. When you hear whispers of a bipartisan meeting in the WH, or Pelosi's office, you'll know they finally found something to agree on.
4
@jb
I know what you are taking about, but mostly we wait and we wait. We can only hope that this shared knowledge at the top about Trump's derangement and danger will keep the 2 sides quietly working around Trump. They are afraid to go public--probably because of Trump's riled up and violent base.
Can we/should we hang on until Nov. 2020?
3
@PB, I don't think that's up to us. But think it's coming soon. Hide him or invoke the 25th. Not just his statements' increasing detachment from reality but more. If you look on YouTube at the July 4 speech, observe his struggle at end, expressions after indicating great stress and possible medicine side-effects. Observe most the people lining up by him at speech end. Expressions to a one are extremely grim, funereal, and Melania goes from smile to anguish to smile in an eerie way. Some real trouble afoot. Worth a look. I don't think they can hide this and am virtually certain he won't be able to run in 2020
3
Get rid of electoral college, super delegates, gerrymandering and all forms of voter suppression. See Republican "majorities" disappear overnight. See humanitarian candidates win Democratic primaries. See humanitarian candidates win general elections. Humanitarian party, anyone? End billionaire rule. End fascism in America.
13
So tired of hearing that Democrats want to “take away” health insurance from millions of Americans. That’s nonsense. That’s sloppy journalism. Those Democrats who support Medicare for All are seeking to ensure universal health insurance for everyone. And since the government would be the source of payments to medical professionals and hospitals (hence, single payer), no one would ever pay out of pocket for health care: no co-pays, no deductibles, no insurance premiums, no surprise medical bills bankrupting families, no fighting with insurance companies to provide the services contracted for. Nobody out; everybody in.
Best path to that outcome is a public option buy-in period, so Americans could buy into Medicare rather than getting private insurance if they chose to. How many of the Democrats championing Medicare for All would ease us into it with an initial public option ( some have stated this position)? That’s the reporting I want to see.
7
"with the DNA of Civil War traitors still coursing through the region"
That is precisely the sort of statement that makes political discourse difficult. Suppose a political statement was made about the DNA of Nazis still coursing through Germany. Race riots and race hate occurred throughout the North long after the Civil War. Consider busing protests in the North. The Founders of this nation were traitors one and all and many were slaveholders. Considering that 1/5th of the nation moves each year, I submit the DNA of Civil War traitors is nearly everywhere in this country. Check your own history.
2
Well done, Mr. Egan! The Republican Party is part of the problem, not the solution. It’s root is in the antebellum South and descended from the traitors who instigated and fought in the Civil War. The “war against Christmas, the fanatical crusade to deprive women of the right to choose, the effort to create a uniformly Christian, White nation (except the Jews who seem to be the flavor of the month due to their identification with Israel), are all part of an ideology that has existed in this country for centuries and has to be marginalized and eradicated. Progressives have always excused these Fascist tendencies as being cyclical and unavoidable. Now we know what the ultimate consequence of those cycles can be.......the loss of Liberal Democracy. This Republican Party, which represents the haters, dividers, and killers, needs to be resoundly defeated, along with those like Trump, Pence, Meadows, Nunes, Cotton, and all the bigots masquerading as government leaders. The Republican Party needs to start over, or to be replaced by a genuine small government, fiscally conservative alternative to Progressivism.
4
One thing that Mr. Egan left out is that trumpsters are anti-science, something else that Jefferson and Franklin would have found appalling.
Here’s an example of the trumpian “mind” at work. A recent opinion piece in a Vermont on-line paper thoughtfully expressed concern over global warming. One of the usual right-wingers posted this comment: “If the writer was actually paying attention he would find the NASA data that glaciers are growing and the seas are not rising…” A 10-second Google search of “NASA glaciers” found the NASA site that totally contradicted this comment. I posted the link and a couple of quotes, which appeared immediately afterward. The result: numerous thumbs up for the “glaciers are growing” side.
7
I sense you're well intentioned with this piece but you aren't helping republican voters with their ignorance by not clarifying this statement:
"And yet some Democrats are pushing policy positions — such as taking away private health insurance from more than 150 million people..."
You might have added this to the end:
"...and giving health care to everyone without the need of private insurance."
---
Democrats are the pro-health-care party right now... no one in that party is arguing for less health care.
You mention republican voter ignorance... it's because they won't research that comment you made. You have to spell it out for them.
5
Terrified of Republicans? I’m terrified of the everything’s going to be “ free” Democrats. Kids in cages? Hand wringings who insisted no crisis at the boarder but no solutions either.
2
I too share your outrage!
A modest proposal - let the Trump states just go on their own way. The Northeast, the upper Midwest, and the West Coast can keep Harvard and Stanford, Silicon Valley, Wall Street etc etc etc and the Rebs can keep on marrying their cousins and making moonshine.
2
The Republican Party has stood for racism, militarism, paranoia, anti-intellectualism and misogyny since Lincoln's death in 1865.
3
The Founders opposed arbitrary government. Trump and his GOPer enablers have conspired against the Founders' Constitution and embarked on rule without accountability to the People. Trump ignores the Supreme Court and puts his racist citizenship question on the census. Trump ignores Congress and funds his vanity border wall with money illegally removed from the DOD. Trump ignores the emoluments clause. Trump conspired with a foreign power to gain the Oval Office.
2
The headlines should read that our Founders would be in total disgust with some of the writings within the media as the authors of some of these posts profess to be journalists .....
1
All the mote treason to nominate Biden or Klobuchar orBooker. The country cannot take another Trump term.
2
This column is only the latest in the Times's seemingly unending series of op-eds and editorials imploring the Democratic Party not to endorse progressive policies.
2
This article is a continuation of Hillary’s “deplorables” comment. Rather disgusting to indict whole groups of fellow Americans based on a few polls.
4
Trump is evil, his sons are too, as is ivanka, Ordinances should be drawn prohibiting them from residing in New York,
2
The Founders would also gag at today’s Democrats, too.
4
Please. The intolerance of the whole Democrat party ethos is what you should be talking about here. The only real gag in the story is the PC culture shutting down all civil discourse. People have had enough of it.
4
“And half of all Southerners — the deepest, most anti-American part of Trump’s base, with the DNA of Civil War traitors still coursing through the region”
Wow! If you think you will be successful with that approach turning Texas blue, you may want to reconsider.
6
"When a true genius [democracy] appears in the world, you may know him [it] by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
Jonathan Swift
1
"Kids in cages and tanks for the tyrant" sums up the ghastly reality show that our government has become. Republicans are the true "enemy of the people," denying science, revelling in their KnowNothingism, hating immigrants, lapping up the Pravda-style propaganda of Fox News and worshipping at the altar of the Trump personality cult.
2
Re: the South. I recall almost gagging once watching Lindsay Graham in some committee hearing talking about how people in South Carolina are more patriotic. This from the first state to betray the Union in 1860, the first state to open fire on the US Army in 1861, the state that gave us Fire-Eaters and the nullification crisis, the state that abolished public education so it wouldn't have to comply with federal law to integrate schools.
It's time to be frank. If you don't respect or understand the Constitution, if you support dictatorship and censorship, if you won't recognize as equals your fellow citizens because of their complexion, you are not a good citizen, you're a disgrace, so stop waving your flag in my face.
5
Its laughable that you disparage Republicans by using the words of Jefferson. Led by city liberals, Charlottesville recently voted to no longer celebrate Jefferson's birthday. Liberals want no part of Jefferson anymore.
Additionally, our Founding Fathers may not be happy with how both sides have slid toward extremism, but I believe they would be horrified by the Democrats embrace of infanticide. They absolutely be against higher taxes (another love of the Left) and would not tolerate gun restrictions.
2
"... half of all Southerners — the deepest, most anti-American part of Trump’s base, with the DNA of Civil War traitors still coursing through the region..."
Sheesh... That's pretty harsh. No wonder the "mainstream media" are so unpopular these days.
5
the author is like a child who is more afraid of the monsters under his bead than the predator living next door. He quotes Jefferson but doesn’t apparently recognize that it is the left that wants to rid the country of not just confederate generals, but mr Jefferson as well. And Kate Smith for insensitivity. And even liberal icons like the folk singer who wrote Puff the Magic Dragon. In short, the left is going to erase from memory any who disagree with them, any who are insensitive. Re: the press—sorry, but much of it is simply corrupt. Not only have leftist so called journalists decided that it’s okay for them to use journalism to Resist, they don’t distinguish between news and punditry. And so they attack the pundits on FOX but pretend the prime time lineup on CNN and MSNBC are giving the straight scoop. They are not.
4
Lets us pray that the Democrats are elected in 2020. Use any religion you want or just hope.
2
For the "this isn't who we are" folks (and I fervently hope we aren't like this), we're going to find out one way or another in about sixteen months. By acts of commission or omission (voting or not), the "who we are" question will be well and truly answered.
4
Democrats - please read and re-read Egan's key comment:
"Like many people, I’m worried about the Democrats. A majority of Americans are desperate for someone to dislodge the despot from the White House. And yet some Democrats are pushing policy positions — such as taking away private health insurance from more than 150 million people — that are deeply unpopular.
The smarter candidates will rethink this, and soon, or otherwise ensure that an awful American aberration is more than a one-off."
First take the White House and Senate by appealing to a broad spectrum of Democrat and non-Democrat voters. All Democrats are not progressives - let's bring in as many voters a possible. As we've seen with trump and his republicans, without power, we're in a very scary place - unable to accomplish any Democratic goals. This is a time to be seriously practical.
3
Many of the Founders were from the South.
Most of the evil deeds attributed to people in the South were performed by Democrats, not Republicans.
Legal immigration is not the problem, it is ILLEGAL immigration that is the problem.
The Founders never envisioned the huge, complex, and powerful Federal government we have today which in many cases is immune to the separation of powers doctrine - Federal agencies are judge, jury, executioner. The social safety net that we have constructed did not exist over two centuries ago.
Their ideals were rights of life, liberty, and the PURSUIT of happiness - no guarantee of happiness, income, success, universal health care, or leisure time. The Constitution is not the UN Charter. They respected property rights, and the right of religious freedom separate from the State. The US should not be a "Christian nation" but rather a nation dedicated to the preservation of the family unit and good citizenship no matter what the religious preference.
Our nation under the Constitution is a republic, not a democracy by design. It is a Federal system, purposely designed to avoid the tyranny of the majority, with separation of powers which still exists today to the delight of some and the chagrin of others. That's how it works - slowly, deliberately.
2
Here is some corrective history.
There was never a golden age of love for the press.
Since the dawn of our Republic, various degrees of the press were partisan and defamatory, and continue to be so today. See this misleading op-ed.
After the founding, public figures could sue and possibly put out of business newspapers for libel. This was the law until the awful NY Times v. Sullivan decision essentially legalized media defamation.
Like Trump, the press of the day savaged Jefferson, who often had far more choice words for the press than the quote offered here.
The Bill of Rights' Establishment Clause prohibits Congress from establishing a government religion like the Church of England. What is a "national religion?" Ask people instead whether Congress should establish a government religion. Your polling answers will change.
During most of our history, our elected representatives exercised their religion in public office, as was their right under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court invented the idea of a legal wall between church and state a century and a half later by cherry picking a line from one of Jefferson's private letters.
The US never suffered an invasion of illegal aliens like the one over the past generation. American Indians did when the Europeans swarmed their lands. How did that work out for the natives?
Finally, many Democrats have no pride in the country. Their "pride" waxes and wanes depending on how much of the government they control.
1
As a proud American and a life-long Southerner, I find this column to be deeply offensive because the author is painting Republicans, especially Southern Republicans, with a very broad brush. However, I am a strong believer in a free press and freedom of speech. I may not like or agree with what you say, but I will always defend your right to say it.
4
What a disappointment in an otherwise intelligent piece--more ill-informed fear mongering around adoption of universal health care. I've never loved my insurance plans, just tolerated them and wished for decades we could catch up with Europe, Australia and Canada, to mention a few adopters of universal care. Few American writers bother to learn even superficially how universal care actually works in practice, for example, most retain some provision for individual add-on purchase of more luxurious private care. Our private insurance is largely a scam here and has always been problematic, trickily insuring illness (or not), and not insuring health, mostly full of unwanted surprises. I doubt that a typical private plan's quality, what you think we'd be "sacrificing" approaches even typical universal or universal + private options in any o these countries. Learn what universal insurance is really like rather than repeat uninformed complaints and assume we'll follow your advice to reject such a plan. Please stop misleading your readers.
6
Mr Egan, a suggestion if I may. You use a quote from Washington, "...examples of an enlarged and liberal policy,..." that I think is poorly understood these days. Washington was not talking about policies that are "progressive" in today's sense. When people say liberal now, they tend to mean to the left of center. Of course, the root of liberal is freedom--liberty. I wonder if turning your pen to this distinction would help the discussion.
2
I am grateful to Timothy Egan for speaking so clearly and forcefully about the state of our union. After seeing reader's comments, it makes me wonder what the state of our nation would be if the Confederates had defeated the Union in the Civil War, because it sometimes seems that they had. Reading the last 2-3 years of news brings to mind the dread I felt while reading Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. The images coming out of Washington yesterday hammer in the sense that life is imitating dystopian fiction.
2
Trump is the best friend the American press has ever had. Interest in your dispatches and subscriptions are are on the upswing and no government agents will be coming to seize your printing press or sequester your laptop. You are free to say whatever you want, no matter how indelicate and inflammatory, and free to make ever more money. Very American, that. (Hamilton, by the way, was not an immigrant to the US since he was here if I recall by about 1770, acceptable even to the DAR, although for the really hard core pink-faced types he was a little late to the Colonies.)
1
All I can say is the Democrats better get their act together. That should be simple. A Democratic platform that people would vote for would look like this:
Public option added to health care - leave private insurance alone for people who want it, but make health care available to everyone.
Support for organized labor without qualification. Immediate $15 per hour minimum wage.
Affordable public college - free community college. Increased support for public K-12 Education with universal preschool.
Comprehensive immigration reform, with increased border security.
A Marshall Plan for Central America to eliminate the circumstances that cause so many Central Americans to risk their lives to come here.
A pledge to pull our troops out of Afghanistan within six months of taking office.
As it is, the lunatics have taken over the asylum.
9
One of the true things I've noticed in a long life is that people see what they expect to see. Trump's fans expect to see a great man; Trump's adversaries expect to see a cruel man (with more cause, plenty more). But neither seems to be seeing what is there now: a man in the grip of serious dementia, even at times psychosis, and it's getting worse. His mad statements, many of late, his being "more mistreated than any other American" or "than Abraham Lincoln was," his placement of the Air Force in wars before there were planes, his belief that homelessness just became a problem two years ago: these are not the statements of a man trying to be funny, or trying to deceive. They are the statements of a man with a severe illness, and it is progressive. And it cannot be hidden much longer. Pence"s staying in DC may be related to this, as may the funereal looks on the faces of those who flanked him after the 4th of July speech, and Melania's alternations between smiles and looks of anguish. It's eerie to see. People see what they expect to see, a man who plans and decides; he isn't that anymore. (And people expect Kamala Harris to be a hero of minorities, when she tormented them dreadfully in her power in CA, but that's a different story. Takeaway: look it up, think it out, and look it up again. But with Trump? It's going to slap us in the face if we don't see it soon.)
6
Thanks very much, Mr. Egan, for this outstanding example of why the press in general and you in particular for this and other examples of your fine mind are so important in this time in our country's history. Great to expound on those we venerate and to take note of the great discrepancies between those educated, yes slave-owning some of them in the first batch of Washington, Jefferson, Adams. How fortunate that frontiers-men like Lincoln who came to power from their own strength, with a sense of morality about slavery and like Hamilton, also with a sense of the necessity of a strong federal government. Much to be ashamed of for the person in the White House and his followers today.
5
Thank you for calling today’s Republican Party “anti-American.” I used to be a Republican, including working for a Republican congressional representative. However, I left the party a long time ago when two developing patterns became apparent: it entered into a bargain to gain votes with so-called “Christians” who have weaponized faith to eviscerate our secular constitutional rights, and it also embraced the old Southern Democrats, aka neo-confederates, who are racist, misogynist, disdain American values of equality for all, and still seek to subjugate racial and ethnic minorities. There is now a dangerous alliance of evangelicals, neo-confederates, and corporatists who look the other way at the party’s anti-democratic and anti-American views in order to further enrich themselves.
One can only hope that people wake up before it is too late. Vote, register to vote, and actively campaign for Democratic candidates across the board. Boycott companies like Hobby Lobby that promote the anti-American value of the establishment of a state religion. If you can, donate to the ACLU which is leading the fight for the Constitution and beating the Trump administration at almost every turn. We have no choice but to become as activist as those who are trying to impose their will and anti-American agenda upon us all.
29
Most of the people who self-righteously wave their copy of the constitution around really have no understanding of what it contains beyond the 2nd amendment, which until DC vs Heller broadened the law beyond the well-armed militias clause. They would be intellectually lost in a conversation with the Founders because the Founders were the “elites” of their day, and the MAGA crowd detests elites precisely because elites highlight their lack of intellectual abilities. Which is why they make a mash of the constitution trying to fit it to their shortsighted yearnings instead of recognizing its appropriate restraints. And the conservative side of SCOTUS has become just as feckless.
11
I admire your photo editor immensely. The photo heading this piece with the cobweb between Jefferson's foot and the statue's base is a great editorial in and of itself.
5
What concerns me most is that many, if not most, Americans are incapable of critical thought and of exercising the fundamental requirements of citizenship. I remember growing up learning not to believe everything you read in the newspaper or see on television. To be skeptical of authority, to challenge it, was your role and solemn obligation as a citizen. To go even further, Trump supporters deny their own experience or reality to maintain their loyalty. The soybean farmer near bankruptcy by the unnecessary and irresponsible trade war can’t bring himself to condemn Trump. The small businessperson whose profit margins are hurt by the tariffs believes unflinchingly in Trump’s vague promise of something better to come. Trump does everything to bring us to the brink of war with Iran and then pulls back. His supporters tout his restraint. The Democrats will sort themselves out. It’s early. The challenge for them will be to bring the so-called educated types in the suburbs who voted for Trump after supporting Obama. If they return to the D column, we win. Finally, I want to know why newspapers like the Times don’t call Trump a Fascist when he is the textbook definition of one. You have no problem mentioning Bernie and socialism in the same context.
11
"And half of all Southerners — the deepest, most anti-American part of Trump’s base, with the DNA of Civil War traitors still coursing through the region..."
There's no other way to describe this comment as other than profoundly insulting. I am a proud southerner and a descendant of men who fought on both sides in the Civil War. I also detest Trump, the GOP, and all that they stand for, but this kind of asinine comment makes me wonder if I should vote next year. "Traitors"? If Mr. Egan said that to my face, I think I might teach him something about the word, 'respect'.
6
Yes. Unfortunate comment and one that would have been better left unsaid.
2
@James R. Filyaw, yes, I know. There are 700,000 democrats in Oklahoma, and about 940,000 republicans. But the lefties here, a scrappy and brace lot, if I do say so, often are scornfully cast as Trump fans, Confederate sympathizers, and so on by our progressive brothers and sisters. And so do the many millions of liberals and moderates who have moved to our states over the hundred and fifty years since the Civil War. But despising millions of people you don't know, and finding ways to justify doing so, is a human failing of the highest order. And it's not that our "side" doesn't do it , too.
2
Mr. Egan,
The remnants of the Confederacy are no longer geographically constrained to the South. You can find these people all across America. James Carville once said that Pennsylvania is "Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with Alabama in between."
6
Yes, there are fine people on both sides
The notion that 50 competing states will ever deliver equally protective laws is delusional.
You should take a look at the "chilling effect" the Obama administration had on journalists. I borrow the phrase from a NYT article during his presidency. Trump says a lot of stuff, but Obama actually took steps to intimidate journalists with the specter of being jailed.
3
What we find today in Republicans, or the right-wing in general, started LONG before the Trump administration.
Over several decades, Republicans well-tuned their role as victims into a fine art. If the USA isn’t completely organized and run the way they want, Republicans accuse their opposition of not being “true” Americans. Republicans whiningly believe that their opposition is oppressing them, just because others want their rights respected.
It might do well for Republicans to look up words like oppression, freedom, liberty, and choice in a dictionary.
The truth is that Republicans just don’t want to share with others, and they don’t care about those who differ from them. Sharing and caring are global values, held by a majority of humans because, without sharing and caring, our species wouldn’t have survived.
Republicans want a president who is only “for them”, but the president is supposed to represent all Americans.
Republicans want to shove “their values”, “their culture”, and “their god” down everyone’s throats. Republicans say they oppose multiculturalism, but what they really oppose is freedom, liberty, and choice. Opposition to freedom, liberty, and choice for others is a pretty good definition and example of oppression!
So, No. Republicans don’t get their own president, but they can keep their values, culture, and god... just keep those things off the rest of us who happen to disagree.
2
Let's face it: If the GOP and Trump didn't get the Stupid vote, they'd get about .01% of the population. We are witnessing why the GOP started a campaign against teachers, education, "elitists", intellect, and with FOX, being informed, years ago. As usual, Republican cynicism about the American public paid off. If you can dumb your voters way down, that opens the door for demagogues like Trump and creates vacuums for authoritarianism. That is what is going on. Also as usual, Democrats are pathetic at fighting back.
4
Not just the founders would gag at today's Republican Party. Nevertheless they represent ~40% of American voters. Something is very sick in our society to have so many who believe that the evil being perpetrated by Trump and his Republican abettors is morally acceptable. Where are all the TRUE Christians?
3
Every thoughtful, decent American gags at the thought of today's Republicans, with their tax cuts, their "foreign policies," their lies and blaming, their law breaking, and their fictitious victim-hood--not to mention tacit approval of mental, physical, and sexual abuse of women and children, at our southern border, or in department store changing rooms. These are not strictly "human beings" (the Republicans) with which I would ever want to be associated. If you're not part of the solution... We are, and should be, judged by the company we keep. (I'll remind you that I was once a Republican...now I wouldn't let one in my home.)
3
"Trump has compared himself to Abraham Lincoln, which is like comparing a noxious weed to a redwood tree. "
Classic.
6
Funny listening to a liberal complain about the first Amendment. Liberals routinely shout down, have violent demonstrations, refuse to listen or debate anyone they don't agree with. Yet, because the "news" media in this country has thrown away the cloak of non-partisanship & taken up the cause & become the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party. They cry foul when Republicans point out the unfairness. The "journalist" today do not investigate a story & write about the facts. They make up a narrative & find facts to fit their story.
Republicans have adhered to & celebrated the first Amendment more than any Democrat or Liberal. Show me when a Liberal was not allowed to speak. Had mass protest or threatened with violence because they were a speaker at an event. The Republicans may want to shut down a Propaganda press that pretends to be legitimate news, but there has never been a case where conservatives or Republicans have tried to stop someone from expressing their views.
News organizations have become the enemy of the people because they refuse to be honest about what they are. They are just talking heads spouting the dogma of the political party they support. So lets stop pretending any news outlet is true , honest, & fair today.
4
@Troy
Maybe John Rawls can provide an answer:
“While an intolerant sect does not itself have title to complain of intolerance, its freedom should be restricted only when the tolerant sincerely and with reason believe that their own security and that of the institutions of liberty are in danger.”
Republicans have long been intolerant (e.g., toward women, POC, LGBT, etc.) and they have increasingly posed threats to our institutions of liberty (e.g., an increased surveillance state).
With the rise of Trump, and his vile and hate-filled rhetoric toward persons and institutions, there has been an increase in death threats and hate crimes.
Therefore, Republicans have no right to complain because the “left” is no longer willing to tolerate Republican behavior. In fact, given the seriousness of right-wing threats to our institutions of liberty (e.g., the free press, no establishment of religion, etc.) and right-wing harassment and death threats to journalists, liberals, and those despised as “others”, it’s time to “restrict” certain right-wing individuals and groups.
1
About religion and politics we have also the same kind of problems in my country Canada. We do not have the separation of the State and the Church. God is in our Charter of Right. Provinces financed religious schools. You may get exemption from the Law or Rule based on religion. And almost all politicians from the Right to the Left support it. The Liberal Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau, went in a mosque discriminating against women. He praised it as a "source of strength". In 2004 the Liberal government with the support of the Conservatives and the New Democrat, almost allow Sharia Law tribunals in Ontario. Sharia Law is discrimination against women in the name of religion. And the majority of the Ontarian Muslims were against it. The Québec government just adopted a secular law forbidden public servant in position of authority (like judges, police officers, government lawyers,..) to wear religious symbols while performing their duties. This law is supported by a majority of the Muslims living in Québec. Not only the Liberal Party of Québec and Québec solidaire, a left(?) wing party, opposed the law, but they did not hesitated to allied themselves with Islamists whom they want to impose Sharia Law. In 2013 Fatima Houda-Pépin, the first Muslim member of the National Assembly of Québec was expelled from the liberal caucus because she was supporting secularism or separation of religion and the state.
Thank you, Mr. Egan, for focusing your critique on the Republican Party and Trump’s supporters, rather than Trump himself. There would be no Trump presidency without his white nationalist/neo-fascist political party and his adoring fans.
8
Even Reagan would be appalled.
124
@tom Not unless he was given a script that told him to "act appalled ( upset)".
14
I find it amusing that Egan hits Republicans for not adhering to rule of law due to "Lock her up" and at the same time for not favoring unlimited lawless immigration.
Republicans believe the law should apply to all equally. If Hillary broke the same laws that little people broke and sit in jail for, Hillary should also be in jail.
Similarly, we have laws about immigration. We can discuss changing them, but until that time the laws should be enforced. It is the Democrats who favor mass lawlessness by willfully ignoring immigration laws and declaring sanctuary cities.
I wonder if liberals would be OK with conservative states being sanctuaries from federal taxation? If we can choose which laws to follow, I would start right there.
With regard to free speech, both parties fail. Republicans often favor banning things like flag burning and liberals want to force Christian bakers to engage in speech they oppose.
As far as diversity and immigration, my view is this: I welcome anyone who comes here to help pull the wagon, as long as they enter legally. I do not welcome anyone who comes to ride in the wagon....we have too many not pulling as it is.
So I would like to see as a condition of entry "no public support for a period of 20 years" ...so no welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, subsidized housing, any of it. You want to come here and pull the wagon? Great, you can pull next to me. You want to ride while I pull? Go home.
You may wish to read Randall Balmer, American author and a historian of American religion, to understand how Evangelical Christians (once a dear and enlightened people) got snookered by TV evangelists and the Republican Party.
3
Trump's base realized long before the rest of us that he is deeply racist, and that's why they support him, no matter what. They had to hide their racism for a long time and now they have a champion. And the Republican Party wants to hold onto that base, no matter what they have to say and do to keep it. I had no idea that hidden racism ran so deep in this country, but with a new leader it is totally committed to expunging any non-White, non-Christian minority.
2
More and more, the Republican Party is being described as a cult -- and not just by progressives, but by conservative columnists, reporters, and politicians as well. When Trump took over their party, the majority of Republicans -- and, to be very clear, Republicans in Congress, no less -- began to overlook, rationalize, and defend his flaws and cruelty, from imprisoning children to slandering a war hero; they forgive crimes that would have found Obama or Clinton impeached and under arrest; they now surrender their will and their faith to his; they applaud name-calling and petulant behaviors they wouldn't accept from a child; they wave off his hush-money payments and invitation of Russian assistance and cyber-espionage and concealment of taxes that would unveil fraud and money laundering; they take his word on what they should really believe even though they have watched and witnessed the opposite; they believe they are being attacked and persecuted and he is their guardian and protector; they dismiss his theft of millions of dollars from veterans and cancer patients from his foundation shuttered for its rampant corruption; and they now take positions which are antithetical to what they once believed, from the tenets of their core religious beliefs to unlimited government spending to overt racism and intolerance. Is this the definition of a cult, or is there another word for it?
4
The founders would gag at today's Democrats. JFK would be to the right of DJT. Dems would rip him to shreds, as they are Dem policies of the last 20 years..
1
“We have met the enemy and he is us”
2
It is pieces like this that cement the fact that the cultural elites have no clue how to relate to most of the people that live in our Country.
1
A contest about eating 75 hot dogs in 2019,:that tells more about the USA today than a false idea of history.
Stuffing yourself with stupidity.That is real great America.
1
Like the NRA and its feckless flunkies in Congress who believe the 2nd Amendment trumps (no pun intended) all the other parts of the Bill of Rights, so no doubt Trump could pull out the one part of the Declaration of Independence that he would totally agree with: describing Native-Americans as "merciless savages". Trump has repeatedly shown how much he enjoys denigrating minority groups (except of course wealthy white males).
1
I have been insisting that Trump is not just un-American but anti-American since 2016. It's nice to see that view reflected in an op-ed in the New York times.
1
How dare Timothy Egan blame the south for this crisis that we are in. I wonder if he has ever been in the south? If he has, then he would have seen we are just like every other region. Some are outraged and can not even speak the name and others are ignorant.
1
This piece is wonderful, fomenting significant commentary by its readers. It is full of inflammatory rhetoric and historical references some of which may be unknown to the reader. Those on either side of the partisan divide gather from it what they will through their own lens and either congratulate Egan for seeing a deep truth or dismiss him as missing one. History in the United States, as elsewhere, plays out while we're living it. Looking at where we've come from and where we've arrived is always a valuable exercise. More challenging is guessing where we're headed and to try to help move all of us toward a country where all are created equal and treated as such. The changes affecting the entire world, let alone the United States have made some of the efforts to predict the future appear immediately necessary, even urgent. Demographic, climatic, economic, political, social, religious, and scientific changes are reported daily. 24/7/365. The real and apparent flux in these areas impacts everyone and moreso those without the benefit of education or reliable information. Politicians, like salesmen, use the lack of information to support a call to arms regardless of which party or ideology they support. There is little difference between Trump and some current Democratic contenders in that regard. Egan is laser focused on the debate: is it better to be right or get elected. Ours is a representative democracy- can't be right if you aren't elected.
2
There is a dark state. It has been put in place by right wing white conservatives over decades in preparation for the day that they can only win elections through gerrymandering, voter restrictions, right wing justices, people who have long been groomed to carry out their policies like William Barr, and a host of others being appointed whose names we will seldom know. The web is insidious. The swamp will never be drained by this lot. Their purpose is to run the country for the corporations and the one percent and keep the rest of us dumbed down and utterly confused. Trump merely makes it easier for them, having no values of his own and no commitment to anything but himself.
29
Today, individuals who are eligible for Medicare but who continue to work (more than 1/2 time) for an employer who provides medical insurance must keep that private insurance, which remains primary while Medicare becomes secondary. So if this rule is part of Medicare for All, this private insurance will not go away.
2
A large part of this was bound to emerge in party politics sooner or later. It had already appeared among the American people at large, even before fevered polarization set in.
Surveys have for years shown that many people will agree with statements that contradict the core principles of the US Constitution, while mistaking unattributed excerpts from that document or the Declaration of Independence for subversive texts.
With so much fertile ground for un-American ideas known to exist, it's almost a wonder that it took politicians till now to start cultivating it systematically.
6
@Longestaffe
Republicans have been systematically cultivating un-American and anti-American sentiments for at least 40 years. Republican divisiveness has been pretty much at a fever pitch since Bill Clinton was president. The only difference, between then and now, is that Trump blatantly says ugly things himself. Prior to Trump, many Republicans let right-wing hate radio/websites do the talking and cultivating.
6
Would the Founders gag at today's Republicans?
I am not so sure of that Mr. Egan.
It would seem to me that they have far more in common with the reality that the Founders lived, as opposed to the intentions they put on paper.
After all, is that not what Originalism actually means Mr. Egan? What did the Founders actually do?
Values and beliefs have little meaning when you are the holder of slaves and create a government that preserves and encourages that institution. Nor do they have meaning if full rights were only enjoyed by white property owners.
Even the reasons why the Revolution came into being has been distorted by the winds of time, since, after all, colonists just did not want to pay taxes for a war that was fought in their behalf.
Perhaps it is finally time that we evolve past the Founders and stop glorifying them, but in terms of Republicans, I think a few of them might actually be smiling from the grave.
5
But that's what authoritarians do: They convince the angry and afraid that they are uber-patriots – the only ones standing up for traditional values and ideals vis-à-vis enemies foreign and domestic. Of course, it's all a con dependent on misinformation and lies (e.g., Fox, almost every time Trump speaks). It's sad and infuriating how Trump and the GOP are able to manipulate and exploit Americans who want to be and think they are proud patriots, but the values and ideals they've been tricked into supporting are profoundly un-American. But convincing them that they're actually unpatriotic would be as much of a shock to their systems as convincing me that I’ve been in a coma all these years and my entire life has been a dream; I think Trump supporters prefer the version of “reality” where they’re right—they’re not out of step, the world is—and that’s what cult-leader Trump provides for them.
15
Republicans who still support Trump despite his all-too-obvious corruption and incompetence should at least show some respect for truth in advertising, “Republican” being a brand name after all. To have any commercial value a brand must imply something positive about the product it represents, like high quality, or good value for money. Care to point out anything high quality or good about Trump or his brand these days. Like, say, balancing the federal budget, a Republican staple for how many years? Fifty?
When Republicans were voted back into power in 2000 and 2016 we got what? Annual deficits “as far as the eye can see”, mainly to finance tax cuts for the very rich. Sops to the rich. Trump told his cronies that himself down at Mar A Lago. Republicans inveighed against wealth redistribution on principle until McConnell changed the plumbing so money flowed the other way. Turns out Republicans weren’t against government pick-pocketing per se if Republican donors got the loot.
Since neither Trump nor his enablers respect truth in advertising (or truth itself, evidently) I’m now “Independent”. But I just sent money to the Weld For President campaign hoping against hope that enough sentient Americans will do the same. If just 10,000 lapsed Republicans ignore the long odds and send his campaign $100 he could conceivably do to Trump what Eugene McCarthy did to LBJ back in 1968. There’s still time to retake a sullied adulterated brand from the ne’er-do-wells who stole it in 2016.
3
Somewhere in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution it must infer that we deserve the government we elect.
5
Tim, I'm an admirer of your work. "M4 All" is an education issue and nothing to fear. Ask ANY senior if they would trade their Medicare for a private voucher. Ask anyone with private insurance about their deductibles and co-pays. What good is "insurance" when you have a $5K deductible and a trip to the E.R. with a sick child could cost at least that much? For many of the millions of workers with private coverage, what they really have is the illusion of health care. Thanks for listening. Don't argue Trump's brief for him, please.
22
No one is in love with an insurance company. They're in love with having employer-subsidized coverage they can afford. Dems need to hammer on that point. Point out the ridiculous compensation of insurance company CEOs, who do not provide health care.
5
“Medicare for All is an ‘education issue’?” Oh, boy. If only someone would simply TELL the peasants how things work, we’d all be singing from the same hymnal? Perhaps your political temperature gauge has been in your climate-controlled room for too long. Our nation is in dire straights. We MUST have a Democratic candidate who appeals to a wide variety of Democrats and anti-Trump voters, not just far-left ideologues. I’m convinced any candidate running on Medicare for All - which, to work would require the dismantling of an entire U.S. industry - will hand the election to Trump. This is not the hill to die on and no time to rebrand! the Democrat party. But if for some bizarre unforeseen stroke of whacky magic a M4A candidate did beat Trump, M4A will never happen (not in time for 2024, get it?) due to something called ‘Congress.’ Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Get reasonable. It’s a winning strategy.
1
The Trump years have been great years for the National press. Times stock has risen sharply. The Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal are backed by huge personal fortunes. And constant conflict with Trump keeps the news entertaining and provocative. It sells papers.
Whatever Trump may say about the press, his Presidency is a boon for their success. The number of articles and editorials about Tump is unprecedented and is a reflection of the press’s awareness of the profitability of ongoing conflict. Trump means big dollars for the press as long as they claim that he is causing them terrible harm.
5
Thank you! The press i deed should be sending holiday cards to DJT. They help create this monster and have been profiting nicely. They report on every stupid little thing he does or says - thats his oxygen. But absence of attention is his kryptonite, his achilles heel.
1
Side show, peripheral issue.
Americans only know the origin of their nation as a fable, the way it is taught in high school , full of false notions.
Americans have not read their constitution and are not able, if they do, to understand it.
They don't know for exemple what the French word "inalienable " means and what is its relation to the constitution . In the constitution .
And above all that fable is detached from the history of the rest of the world, like if it was god's creation.
It is a mystique .
3
Of course, Thomas Jefferson spoke of our inalienable rights in the declaration of Independence not the Constitution.
@Sneeral do you know what "inalienable " means ?
1
@JPH Yes, I do. What makes you think that the word is so difficult to understand?
And to be precise, Jefferson spoke of "unalienable" rights. Neither word shows up in the Constitution.
I'm afraid our country is susceptible to demagogues like Trump and weasels like McConnell in large part because the 'founding fathers' set up a flawed structure from the start.
I'd much rather be wrong about this but it does seem to me that a reactionary tyranny from within is able to grow and take control - by exploiting the anti-democratic mechanisms built into the constitution. It makes total sense that the more fundamentalist, racist, xenophobic regions and demographics serve as the power base for this cancer.
4
This whole “Trump is a tyrant” thing is getting old for moderates like myself.
2
@Matt Oh no! I've alienated another 'moderate'!
Let's stipulate that, like Egan, I am terrified by the Republicans but also troubled and worried about the Democrats. Egan's piece troubles and worries me in the same way. I pretty much agree with everything he says, but it also reflects the sensibility that the shrinking pool of "moderates" in this country find so obnoxious on the part of the militant Left -- that "we are virtuous" and "they are evil". It comes across as elitist and self-righteous and shrill. We've got to work on our tone, Timothy. I'm not worried about hurting mean people's feelings, but I do worry when the anti-Trump and anti-Republican voice sounds whiny and petulant.
12
Polls show that the Republicans can be beaten in a presidential election. Because we know that, op eds like this - bashing Republicans - are click-bait for progressives, little more, and they do nothing to advance the cause. The biggest threat to our republic right now is a Trump re-election, and the only way that can happen is if the Democrats pick a candidate who alienates the moderates. So it’s in the Democrats’ hands. The party needs to look inward and fix its own house. If we can moderate our worst impulses - (read: identity politics) - also threats to the first amendment among other institutions- then the White House is ours.
3
While we are dumping on Republicans, let mention the Democrats also. The weakness and utter helplessness of the party in handling Trump is astounding. Yes they ran on healthcare but were also put into office to be a check on this President. Why can't they take more decisive actions? Hold this President and Senator McConnell to account. Why bother putting them in office if they aren't going to do anything once there? All we heard was that we were going to wait for the Mueller report, well, it's out and the President had obstructed justice according to it and Dems act as if the have no power to do anything. They let McConnell, Barr, and the President walk all over them. I am thoroughly disgusted with Pelosi and her whole team and the Dems would get exactly what they deserved if Trump got re-elected and they lost the house.
5
The difference is Organization. GOP has made a dedicated effort to take over government from school boards on up. ALEC writes identical bills to be adopted by GOP legislatures GOP soldiers are selected to carry out the plans
The Dems are an every person for them selves. My ideas are best and if I can’t be the winner. I’m going home. Most of the Dems running for President should be working to win the Senate instead.
4
@GG
But unhappily, the rest of US get what THEY deserve, too.
We need to be clear that in the next election, we the people need to vote AGAINST Trump not FOR our best loved candidate.
2
@Ephraim Also unhappily if we vote for them, nothing gets fixed and nothing changes. I have been a Dem for years and I am so sick and tired of candidates for President, Congress, Senate, local essentially acting like my vote is a given. Basically daring me to not vote or saying "What are you gonna do? Give your vote to Trump?"
Well, of course the founders would be repelled by today's Republicans. But they would find today's Democrats equally repugnant, for different reasons.
This column was a pointless exercise in trying to use the Founders' ideals as a baseline for condemning Trump and his ilk, but a sincere examination of the Founders' beliefs would show that the both parties (but more so the Democrats) promote a role for government so omnipresent in people's lives that the Framers would wonder what they had fought for in the Revolution.
2
If the Founding Fathers would gag at today's Republicans, they would denounce today's Democrats as divisive and foolish demagogues who put winning above any principles. And if you were honest, you would agree that both parties have fallen far from the ideals set for us by the Founders.
4
Trump would not have a seat at the table with any Statesman mentioned. His abject loyalty to dictators over US intelligence, ignoring thereby condoning election interference, ignoring the law would leave him with the same fate as Benedict Arnold. He and the Republican Congress pose the most hideous threat to this country.
9
In the poll Mr. Egan sites about Christianity being a national religion he fails to report that in the category of "Somewhat Liberal" 63% were in favor of it. Doesn't look like a very reliable poll.
The Constitution says Congress shall make no law. Congress has never made a law and has never shown signs of making a law. The left has twisted ONE letter from Thomas that was in fact defending a Baptist church from government, not government from religion.
Question - If Thomas Jefferson was so against religion in government, why did he attend Christian church services in federal buildings?
1
Jefferson and Washington were slave owners and Lincoln won the Civil War by throwing bodies at the South. Their positive accomplishments were also considerable but let’s not hold them up as exemplars of all that is good. They were imperfect people doing the best they knew how.
1
It's not "taking away private health insurance" its replacing a broken and very, very expensive system with the system that works for the majority of people in the world. Stop with the propaganda and get it right.
11
It got even more expensive under Obamacare.
1
@Shannon I'd prefer a GoFundMe health plan any day over giving the current (or any future) US gov't total control of my every healthcare decision.
Timothy you and your cohort are on the wrong side of history. The self congratulatory umbrage of the last four years has accomplished nothing while America has moved forward without you. Trump is saving America while his detractors have spent their time formenting a hate that does not do them credit or accomplish anything of value.
3
The irony is that the self-righteous and intolerant left of today doesn’t get this. They don’t see how the media’s relentless assault drives away moderates like myself from their views. They distort the truth and obscure reality. I recommend for everyone to read from many different news sources and formulate your own options.
2
@Tony Francis
"Trump is saving America"
Saving us from what, exactly?
5
Speaking also from Vancouver Island, I am happy to report that I know no one who shares your view. Trump and Co. has not been a reliable friend and ally to Canada, as most all previous US administrations have been. If you are a US citizen living here, then I’m not sure why you have not rushed south to bask in the wonderfulness of Trump. And if you are a natural-born Canadian, then why the lack of appreciation for the relative safety and serenity of our beautiful home here?
6
Ya well, when you dig under the covers and under his splendid words Jefferson is a different beast. I believe we owe him the legacy of partisan politics that has been one of the greatest curses to the founders constitutional republic.
1
Recalling Franklin's quip "You have a republic -as long as you can keep it", didn't the framers (at least some of them) anticipate this? It now and always in our hands, each generation's hands.
6
The headline neglects to mention that after gagging, the founders and President Lincoln took up arms. I'm hoping we don't get to that point
2
The Founders would not only stop at “ gagging “ in response to the de facto traitorous reactions of Trump Republicans to their cherished beliefs and values, in defense of which they devoted their very lives. They would be calling for the immediate initiation of impeachment proceedings against modernity’s King George III, and the complete national electoral rout of them in 2020 to bring a democratic death to this evil institution.
4
Trump's speech was trivial, wooden, and his attempt to seem worthy of “enlightening” us to the meaning of America was creepy. Applause was weak because the president's “history lesson” was so third grade. He radiated his usual petulance, and the "fly-overs" were merely comical as high-powered punctuation marks to trump's childish jingoism. It was a hypnotist's show, complete with that sappy lee greenwood anthem of faux-patriotic mawkishness. Proud to be an American, where at least you know you're free? That line in that song rings with the deepest irony, sounding exactly as though you've lost everything, as the song imagines and which America is doing. What a joke to "salute" such an ongoing collapse of Democracy.
8
"Southerners — the deepest, most anti-American part of Trump’s base, with the DNA of Civil War traitors still coursing through the region"
Thank you. Exactly.
Of course, there also are many racists in the North, there are cruel selfish people everywhere, but it's in the stars and bars worshipping south that the traitors to our democracy can, thanks to the Republican Southern Strategy combined with 2 Senators/state and the Electoral College, pile up enough votes to grab control of our Government
2
@Lynn Since the Civil War, Southerners, per capita, have fought and died for this country in much larger numbers than have Northerners. Exactly.
1
@Southern Man And given our unnecessary wars since 1945 is that a good thing or a tragic and mistaken thing?
1
@nattering nabob Neither. Just shows which region is most willing to stand when called -- by a Democrat or Republican president.
Sure, and they would so embrace open borders, socialism, free rides for everything and the lack of responsibility and accountability that the left/dems preach? Give me a break.
Who are calling themselves....Republicans ?.....
Present day Republicans are not original Republicans.
Definitions are needed to distinguish between the
original Republican Party versus the present-day
Republican Party.
So the writer of this OP ED has failed to make this distinction
and so I ask the commenters to do so.
Who were the original members of The Republican Party
and what did they stand for.
Who are presently members of The Republican Party and
what do they stand for.
I think perhaps William F. Weld...Republican (original) who
will challenge Donald Trump in a Republican Primary will
be able to answer this question..so why not ask Bill Weld.
Re the founders: gagging would be bipartisan.
3
“The modern-day Know-Nothings are the pink-faced mobs calling for a wall at Trump rallies.”
You got that right- every one of them white. How sickening. Can’t they just take pride in being human? Why is this?
Because they gave up their claim of being “human” when they threw their lot behind a party fueled by hate of anyone that are not just like themselves.
The GOP has got to be driven out of today’s world like the anachronism it is. It just doesn’t belong.
Perhaps more importantly, I wonder how the Founders would react to Trump's supporters.
Much of the way the Founders structured our Constitution and government reflected their views on how common citizens might be expected to behave. Would the Founders think they had over-anticipated, or under-anticipated, U.S.citizens.
Further, the Founders felt strongly that the new nation should steer clear of foreign entanglements. I wonder how they'd feel about our engagement in foreign wars since the early 20th century? Would Hitler have surprised them? How would they have responded to the 9/11/01 attack? Would they have chosen to invade Iraq? Afghanistan? Vietnam? How would they have responded to Fascism at home, within our borders?
True, many things the Founders could not have foreseen have happened. On the other hand, reading the writings of the Founders, they seemed to have a good grasp of human behavior. And human behavior is very much the same now as it was in the Founder's world.
So, yes, I agree that the Founders would not be happy with where the Republicans seem bent on taking us. I especially doubt that Lincoln would be pleased to see the Koch Brothers financing an attempted return to pre-Civil War "libertarianism."
1
"half of all Southerners ... believe the United States was founded as an “explicitly Christian” nation."
For the record:
13 Colonies -
VA was founded as a commercial venture by the Virginia Company. NY was likewise founded by the Dutch West India Co., PA, NJ, and DE by the Swedish West India Co.
NC and SC were founded by grants to English lords by Charles II to pay off debts incurred in returning him to the throne.
RI was founded to insure religous freedom for all people, not just Christians.
GA was almost a penal colony, but the plan changed to commercial.
NH was founded as a fishing colony.
So 3 colonies, MA, CN, and MD were actually founded as explicitly Christian.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
2
@Speakin4Myself Three colonies founded as Christian overstates the case. Yes, Catholic families founded Maryland. However, they granted freedom of religion to all Christians and, which was radical at the time, to Jews.
1
@Speakin4Myself
Maryland was founded as a refuge for persecuted English Catholics. The Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies were set up by intolerant religious fanatics who hanged Quakers, burned "witches," cheated, abused and then slaughtered the indigenous peoples, and drove out those who didn't agree with their policies. Understandably, the writers of the Constitution wanted to prevent such lunacy from infecting the body politic.
2
And what would the Founders think of the Democrats? What would Harry Truman think?
1
The sheer irony of this moment in time is stunning: yesterday Hobby Lobby published a full page ad in the Baltimore Sun, filled with cherry picked quotations by the Founders and other prominent Americans to show that, historically, the US is a Christian nation. They contradicted the very amendment that allowed them publish that ad.
6
@Maryellen Simcoe: To add insult to the injury of Hobby Lobby's screed, it was probably recorded on the company's books as a tax deductible advertising expense.
2
We have a newspaper here in Maine that is taking up the mantle that would please Republicans. The newspaper is the Portland Press-Herald, Maine's largest. It involves the comments sections on stories about the recent arrival of about 150 immigrants into the city. On EVERY article about the immigrants and their struggles, the outpouring of sympathy and aid from citizens who genuinely care, and the immigrants' sincere desire to integrate into the population, starting a new life, the comments-sections are disallowed. ("Comments are disabled on some stories about sensitive topics."). I would like to be able to express my thanks to all who are helping and let the immigrants know not all of us here are against them. What about it, Portland Press-Herald?
1
To understand today's Republicans I recommend Sen. Dave Durenberger's recently published book "When Republicans Were Progressive." Tracing the history of Minnesota politics and his own career, Durenberger shows us how parties were once able to work together for the good of the country instead of for their own narrow and selfish interests.
3
Mr. Egan, yes, Confederates were traitors to the Constitution, but their descendants are not. To imply treasonous motivations to these citizens “with DNA of Civil War traitors still coursing through the region” is ethnic bigotry whether you meant it culturally or biologically.
America is a paradox. A slaveowner who routinely abused his “property” penned the inalienable rights language in the Declaration. The First Amendment was written by another slaveowner. Nor were they atheists, but deists who recognized the role of the divine even though they were not sectarian.
What about the rest of the South and its citizens, especially those who arose after the Confederacy? Martin Luther King Jr. was a Georgian. Rosa Parks was born in Alabama. Jimmy Carter another Georgian. These leaders asserted the equality of people from a range of religious positions as well.
Let’s get the story right and recognize that we are a complex people with a difficult past.
The GOP seeks to revise history to fit their preferred narrative. Just because they do, those on the opposing side don’t get to as well.
3
@David Potenziani
Thank you David. The broad generalization is hard to stomach. And lets not forget Reverend William Barber
2
I think the Founders anticipated this kind of thing. We can remember the bad things put into the Constitution, but they did a number of things that tend to stall and confute tyranny, which they vocally abhorred.
2
The founding fathers were incredibly insightful and there is no doubt that they would gag at today's republicans. But how would they view our government in general? The founding fathers envisioned a national government that played an extremely limited role in society.
The federal tax rate, up until the 20th century, was 0%. It was increased, only temporarily, at brief times when there was an urgent need for funds to avoid debt - such as during times of war.
How did we pay for our social programs like welfare, food stamps, and medicaid? They did not exist. People could put in labor at a poor house for a good meal a little money, but these were extremely limited and a last resort.
These conditions were harsh. You found a way to contribute to society and make a buck, or you simply went without. Today we, justifiably, consider such things barbaric, and so governments spend immense amounts of money supporting those otherwise unable to support themselves.
But our past brutal system had one very positive upside: Migration was at worst a non-negative. People contributed, or they simply could not survive. But today any individual can become a net-negative on society. And we have an obligation as a society to ensure that the systems we have remain solvent so that decades and centuries from now the United States is still a nation people *want* to migrate to.
Well, that... or we can return to a semblance of what the founding fathers envisioned.
3
I am terrified that at least half of our citizens adore Trump. This situation will not disappear when Trump goes. No explanation of this makes sense. We may have had it.
10
@Bill Metcalf
Half the population definitely does NOT adore Trump. Actually, they PREFER Trump over the Democratic alternative.
Unfortunately, and inevitably, this percentage will increase dramatically if the Democrats continue to follow the left radical track.
1
@Alan I hear this all the time from people my age, but the youth feel differently. My kids, all in their 20s, don't consider it a radical track. And our future is our youth, not 50-somethings like me.
2
Speaking of the 243 years of this country's existence, the right wing believes that the United States has done very little or no wrong, and the left is convinced that it has done very little right.
To paraphrase Jim Goodwin, when it comes to patriotism, Republicans get it wrong, and Democrats don't get it. I would suggest that the Democratic party needs to develop an appreciation for the true genius of the American experiment in democracy, regardless of the shortcomings of many of the all too human Founding Fathers. I would hope that liberals and progressives would come to understand that provides a vision and framework compatible with their beliefs and programs. Rather than reject the American system outright because of its many past failures,why couldn't Democrats study its potential and work to perfect it where others have failed? In doing so, they would create a home for all Americans of good will.
1
The founding fathers, so to speak, shared several Christian denominations, but they were considerably influenced by Deism, and the ideas of John Locke, Isaac Newton, etc. in putting great value on human reason and compassion for others. They would immediately recognize our current evangelical brethren as religious rabble and nothing more.
7
Whenever there's a shot of Trump at one of his rallies and there's a group of cheering supporters behind him, pick one or two to watch. Often you'll see that many don't know what he's trying to say and stare in a puzzled way until the cheer goes up or a simple slogan (lock her up or keep america great) and then they cheer and clap. They wait around for someone to show them how to react and then conform. Very 1984.
10
@ JSW... I'm sure that you are brilliant and every liberal you know is equally brilliant. My hunch is that all you know are other brilliant liberals, thus the inability to understand any person who likes Trump.
3
Lincoln finished his speech on the Know-Nothings by saying, "When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, without the base alloy of hypocracy."
I wish more Americans would take these words to heart because there is a much more fine line between self-government and despotism than most realize.
9
It's not that Trump's supporters have adopted his values; it's that Trump gives voice to values his supporters have always held, but were constrained from airing in public by social disapprobation.
The Republican Party has been courting these people for half a century, secure in the knowledge that while their wooing was subtle enough to pass for civil speech in the public square, the intended listeners would recognize the message hidden just below the surface. All Trump has done is take off the mask, and shown himself openly to be one of them.
16
"Like many people, I’m worried about the Democrats."
I too am worried about the Democrats and I wasn't heartened by the recent debates. Who will save us, if we are being held hostage by the left, just as we are being held hostage by Mitch McConnell. People understand reason and policy that moves toward a more progressive vision of this country, but what I see is a less reasoned approach and more pandering to the left at the expense of moderates. I hope they can get it together, but we are at a crucial moment. We must beat Trump and we can't unless there is a practical approach to illegal immigration and a progressive approach to health care. Once these are taken care of we can deal with the fundamental problem facing the planet, climate change. How did we get here and how do we get out of here are the questions Democrats need to ask themselves and they need to honestly address these issues.
7
How ironic! The party that believes it's the epitome of an American hasn't the slightest idea about The Bill of Rights. It's as distorted as Trump's gaff about aircraft during the Revolution. I've come to the conclusion that Republican party has but one principle and that is that they have no principles. Whatever it is they need to do to get their way is acceptable. For example: They complained about Obama's use of Executive Orders; Trump's average is double that in the first 200 days.
21
The Republican principle is limited government and the value of the individual and community. They are for freedom of speech and maintaining our own sovereignty.
Don’t believe everything you read in the NYT or any other media for that matter. Diversity your news sources and make your own conclusions.
Contrary to popular belief, I believe they would be quite at. As a person of color I do not look upon them as the great men history portrays them as. Once I grew up and was able to read about them in depth, I was appalled to find that they were slave owners. Sorry, but for me personally that fact disqualifies them for the greatness endowed upon them. They were a part of the beginnings of the horrendous 400 year ordeal for my people. They set what happened afterwards in motion. I consider them to be founding racists who would fit very nicely into today's Republican party. Although it has been proven that Jefferson fathered children with slaves, to this day his descendants refuse to recognize or accept them.
2
“Stamped from the Beginning” is a great book that brings your comments to surface and explains the racism and bigotry that existed back then. The same racism and bigotry that has been given free rein to thrive again by trump and his followers.
People need to remember not to judge history by today's standards. Try placing yourself in the time and place of the events happening. Opinions on things change as we change and grow old. One day we too will be judged by the standards of a future generation. But unless those people lived in OUR time, they wouldn't understand the context of what and is happening.
2
Nice try, Mr. Egan, but I think the Founders, of who Lincoln was not, would have more to agree with than disagree with Donald J. Trump. In his advocacy of nationalism, Trump is speaking to “a common ground, common standards, a common frame of reference without which society dissolves into nothing more than contending factions, as the Founding Fathers understood so well – a war of all against all.” The quoted text is from the Revolt of the Elites, written by Christopher Lasch before his death in 1992. Lasch recognized the dissolution of American society in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which ultimately came to a head with the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016. The average American, who had played by the rules, had reached the point where enough nonsense is enough, and wanted a leader who was for them, for their values, for their culture, for their God, rather than the disjointedness of multiculturalism. For too long the political Establishment has fanned the flames of division for selfish political gain. Try as it might to attribute selfishness to Donald J. Trump, true Americans see through that smoke screen; they know were the selfishness resides, in the Establishment flaying about since its loss of power in 2016. Finally, in Donald J. Trump, we have a leader who speaks to the ties that bind us as a nation. Thank you.
14
You have a leader who speaks to your segment of the population that has great difficulty in finding an ounce of humanity for any person who doesn’t look like you. That’s not good leadership. It’s a budding dictatorship.
7
@Southern Boy
Trump hates and threatens the press for doing their job, and has utter contempt for the majority of the nation because they didn't vote for him and have the good sense to not believe anything that flies from his lying mouth and fingers, and disapprove of his carnival- barking sideshow of a presidency. That's not "speaking to the ties that bind us as a nation." Not by a long shot.
9
@eheck,
Unlike the Democrats vying for their party's nomination he does not speak to the elements coming between us and pulling us apart. Thank you.
2
Why the pause at the beginning to fret about universal healthcare, inadvertently, perhaps, equating it to all of the Republican insanity? If you tell people you are "taking something away from them," of course they're going to react negatively. If you ask, "Are you in favor of receiving healthcare regardless of your income, employment status or preexisting conditions?" I suspect you'll get another result entirely. People are tired of having to worry about whether they'll be able to see a doctor when they're sick. The president and party who finally end that dilemma will be as popular as FDR.
24
@Mark. If I am to be forced to pay for your healthcare then I demand that I get to control my costs by controlling how your live your life.
Is that a deal?
2
@Robin Dreeke You do realize that you already to pay for my healthcare. If we are with the same insurer, costs are shared, that's what insurance is. If an uninsured person goes to the ER, we all pay those costs, because we don't believe in turning people in need of health care away to bleed or drop dead on the streets. Your understanding of the current system is deeply flawed if you don't think we all are sharing health care costs.
5
Sorry--But I simply don't understand why Republicans with a sense of history find themselves politically homeless in 2019 as opposed to 1980. The current Republican Party had just begin its long reign way back then, and its huge shifting of the entire political leadership of the country to the right.
1
These kinds of articles make the problems worse.
"pink-faced mobs"
"that sees helpless and newly orphaned babies as subhuman"
"all while laughing at the cruelty"
This is the same type of over-generalization that Egan, and others in the NYT, accuse Trump supporters of engaging in.
This kind of description of a large segment of our population is, itself, cruel. It is a demeaning put-down. And exacerbates the divisions.
Nowhere do I see any thoughtful analysis of how information can be presented to people that will change their minds. Instead, the approach among liberals seems to be "who cares about changing hearts and minds?" Instead of working to understand the deep fears that create beliefs that one doesn't like, the idea seems to be to make oneself look better, more informed, more moral than the degenerates who have different beliefs than I do.
You don't change people by starting off insulting them.
How about some ideas for change instead of the constant put-downs of Trump and Trump voters. All that approach does is make the divisions larger.
And more significant, all that kind of approach does is make the other "side's" ideas more powerful.
15
We have tried to reason with ignorance for 3 long, exhausting years and have discovered trump supporters only want to hear information that supports their narrow, skewed point of view.
I think trump and his supporters should embrace their views and take a state to have as their own country. Leave us believers in the constitution to do our thing in America. Let them learn the hard way since they refuse to learn history and factual information.
22
@Tiffany
reason with "ignorance"
That's a good start toward helping people see there is a different, and probably better, way of viewing something.
"narrow" point of view
they "refuse to learn history"
Everybody, I'm afraid, "only want(s) to hear information" that supports their point of view. Fox News people don't read the NYT, and the reverse is just as true. Data support that assertion.
Everything in your response supports my thesis that people on the left are just like those on the right--they think they can change the other "side" by insults.
Good luck. In fact, what insults do is make people hold more rigidly to their positions.
People join political "groups" out of fear. And because we are tribal, and want to be around others who make us feel safe. The left and the right are the same.
I was a psychotherapist. You don't help people change with insults. You help them change by working...hard....to understand their points of view and their fears and needs.
You are making the problem worse with your insults. And the divisions larger. But, you are not alone--you have a big "tribe" doing the same thing.
1
Trump is not exactly shy about recklessly insulting people. The press is the enemy of the people, Hilary Clinton is crooked Hilary, former Vice President Biden is Sleepy Joe, and Democrats are an angry left-wing mob, to name just a few. By comparison Mr. Eagan’s op-ed is the epitome of civility.
3
Jefferson, Washington, and Lincoln would also gag at the enormous federal government, the high taxes, and the many restrictions and regulations that burden holders of property. Please don't try to take icons from the 18th century and ask what their opinions would be in the 21st century. It's an unknowable question, but the most likely answer to any question can be found by applying what we know of general 18th century morality, not what we may think we know of the individuals. These men were the product of their times. As a result, you probably wouldn't like the answer. It's a fairly pointless question to ask. You're just projecting your own morality onto these icons, using them as a mirror to color your own views with a patina of revered antiquity.
9
@Tom Meadowcroft..."Jefferson, Washington, and Lincoln would also gag at the enormous federal government, the high taxes, and the many restrictions and regulations that burden holders of property. ".....There would be no need for laws or regulations if there were no interactions or interface between people. It follows that the more people there are, the more their needs and interests overlap, the greater the required role of government. In 1776 there were approximately 2.5 million people in the U.S., whereas today there are upwards of 330 million. You may not like that fact, but when you consider the need for laws and regulations you should not ignore it.
5
As evidenced by yesterday's parade, the head of the Republican Party is a "Entertainer-In-Chief" - and not a very good one at that. Otherwise, his ineptitude at all things Presidential is woefully apparent. Thus is the fate of the "Grand Old Party."
11
Mr. Egan, what the Republican party has become can be traced back the poisonous tree of hate planted by Reagan and his band of usurpers of American values. That tree of hate has been fertilized by likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and many others in conservative and mainstream media.
Reagan's tree has been watered by money from corporations and the wealthy. Reagan's tree has seeded congress, the DOJ and the courts with far right christian conservatives who have been slowly bending the law to reshape our country into a Nation many of us do not recognize. A Nation that fills for profit prisons with people who have not committed violent crimes. A Nation that puts children, fleeing with their relatives from unimaginable violence and poverty with links to US foreign policies intended to spread American style predatory capitalism to our southern neighbors, into detention centers with 3rd world conditions.
The Reagan revolution gave rise to a strategy that created and us against them political environment that feeds on hate and vitriol and is tearing our country apart. That revolution gave rise to today's GOP's unethical and criminal election strategies that are a ruthless attempt to put and keep white, male, fundamentalist Christians in power.
You are right Mr. Egan the Founders would gag at today's Republicans. I love my country, but I hate what the Republicans have done to it.
37
“It’s a big club and you ain’t in it.”
George Carlin
The club de-indutrializes America, gets rid of unions and good jobs. The club then deregulates the banks( Bill Clinton signs off on repealing Glass- Stegall). The club votes to go to war with Iraq, a country that didn’t attack us, wasting trillions of dollars. The club crashes the economy and bails out Wall Street while millions of ordinary Americans went underwater. Now you tell us not to vote for people who want to make life better for the Americans that the club threw under the bus. This is the club protecting the insurance and pharmaceutical industry insiders.
Here is something that corporate America and the establishment might consider. Enact decent healthcare coverage and free college and see if that actually helps people at the same time diminishing partisan rancor in America.
16
The writer of this article did not differentiate between legal and illegal immigration. It's is also disturbing to see him refer to Trump supporters as "pink faced". By the way I'm sure the founders would be "abhorred" by the Democratic Party too.
9
This is a tried and true method to make people believe Republicans are against legal immigration. By conflating legal and illegal immigration, they can bring up the Statue of Liberty and claim Republicans are against immigrants. It couldn’t be further from the truth. They are for the rule of law and therefore against illegal immigration. They are very much pro legal immigration.
@Sophie Marie.... "It's is also disturbing to see him refer to Trump supporters as "pink faced".....I believe it is true that most Trump supporters are of white European ancestry. Why is the truth disturbing?
Anyone who has even the most basic knowledge of American history will agree that trump and the republicans are anti-American and founders of this country would fight them with everything they had. They are the shame of America.
29
Who are "the Republicans"? I mean that seriously. I grew up in a Republican household surrounded by many Republican neighbors. Most of those adults are gone now, but I have no doubt that they would be horrified by Trump. Yet, polls consistently show that around 90% of "Republicans" think that Trump is a great POTUS doing a great job.
I have relatives who never voted for anyone other than a Republican their whole lives who voted for Hillary or one of the 3rd party candidates in 2016. They will never be Democrats, but they also will never, ever vote for Trump (for once I'm actually on the same page as some of these relatives). They will never be Democrats. If the GOP puts up a reasonable candidate in 2024, they will vote for him (or her).
So, who are "the Republicans" who are so enchanted by this bigoted, racist, misogynistic bully?
5
@Anne-Marie Hislop A lot of them who aren't just "passionate" (even when implicit) racists and xenophobes are just older or less educated folks in the "traditional" industrial/ag society/economy whose situation and future look dim thanks to the onset of deregulated, un-unionized, and globalized corporate capitalism under both the Dems and the GOP since St. Reagan's time.
Theyve been so propagandized for long about the "horrors" of gov't and taxation and the wonders and promises of "free enterprise" and "negative liberty" that they can no longer see that the latter is much more at the core of their grievances than the former.
The very soul of America has degenerated so much in the last three years. The divisiveness is ugly and disheartening to see occuring.
7
It's about time responsible media started broaching the difficult problem of Trump's base. Up until now there has been an overflow of stories, columns and social science screeds about how Trump voters are misunderstood, or ignored, or frustrated. America needs to come to terms with a hard but simple fact; Trump has successfully destigmatized, and even incentivized, hatred, xenophobia and racism. Republican efforts to attract votes by appealing to bigots gradually morphed into empowering them. Trump stepped in, removed the veil and turned the bigotry up to eleven.
The bast case scenario is that over time the bigots will be forced back into harboring their hatred in private and decency will dominate. That is for the future. Right now, America faces a defining crisis and must be fully awakened to the country's peril. The Trump base must be defeated decisively at the ballot box.
Donald Trump can be viewed in two very different contexts. One the one hand he is a rather pathetic figure, wholly unable to resist the compulsions of his narcissism. He will luxuriate in praise, even if its source is an insincere, murderous dictator, and will lash out wildly at the tiniest perceived slight, even from a stalwart ally. But in the context of his influence as president, Trump is extremely dangerous. Empowering the nation's most bigoted is a Pandora's Box that leads to some very dark places.
23
The fact is that the founders would "gag" at the results of any mass polling measuring the beliefs of both Republicans and Democrats. In polling (as in voting) the opinion of the stupid have the same weight as those of the most brilliant. Both parties have their own good share of the ignorant, as without them an election cannot be won. Granted, the Republicans now have a lot more than they used too, as many of the Democrats formerly reliable cognitively deficient base defected to the Rs in the last election in support of Trump. Without them, he would not have had a chance. However, if Egan is prepared to accept some of the other well documented positions of the founders (rather than just the ones he cherry picked here to support his argument), let's say about taxes, guns, capitalism, the sanctity of private property, law and order, etc., etc., then I am with him 100%. Never knew Tim was a closet originalist.
3
For sure a swath of formerly reliable Democratic voters fell for Trumps promises and latched onto his message. But what of the great millions of informed smart Republican voters (perhaps like you Southern man?) who, by my lights, ought to have rejected this con man’s divisiveness and false promises out of hand?
@Dave Not me, but I am sure many did, as the only viable alternative was Hillary. I chose to waste my vote but retain my integrity. I voted for Rubio.
@Barb:
How right you are regarding your classification of Republicans.
Let the Dems follow in the footsteps of Barack Obama, who recognized the importance of connecting to those "salt of the earth" voters - a black presidential candidate who had the savvy and courage to embrace those Republicans and independents who could be swayed with some down home logic.
Please, Democrats: Don't throw it all away on ideological purity. Stop putting down those of your countrymen with whom you don't agree. Just get in to office.
6
And Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine? They would probably mock him in their pamphlets, urging an insurrection against him. Besides, in 18th century, Trump would certainly be a Tory and walk around in a powdered wig.
7
The founders would know what to do! We know as well! Shall we?
4
@C Green
I’m all for tarring and feathering Trump, if that’s where you’re going with this!
1
I am suggesting we go where we have gone before, where we should always go, that our government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall have a new burst of freedom!
The biggest problem in this country at this point is pride held in the willful ignorance of republicans, who choose to view the one propaganda channel that their so called president promotes. This same happily, willfully ignorant group refuses to read anything, just like their “president” and to view or listen to opposing points of view that stray from the FOX model. These people profess to love their country while hating most of the people in it, and are now in support of keeping “president” trump in power as the reigning dictator into a time where only mummification could keep him seated at the Resolute Desk.
These people are supporting the most dangerous man to hold the office since Andrew Johnson, a man who only valued white, native born citizens, and cared not for the safety or welfare of citizens of color, as he turned his back on the slaughter of thousands of black citizens by southern whites. Trump is allowing and endorsing this same abusive behavior towards people of color our southern border.
The only response from his base is cheers.
5
I would guess that no one ever schooled Mr. Egan in the fact that both Washington and Jefferson owned a multitude of slaves. And he should read about Lincoln and Habeas Corpus.
4
The reality, of course, is that the Republican Party began to corrode with Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” intended to draw off disgruntled whites alarmed about the Civil Rights movement and the push for equality by black citizens. Things have gone downhill from there in an epic fail of Christian virtue.
Which is the flaw of the modern-day GOP. It is riddled through with the rankest hypocrisy, tearing at Constitutional protections while pretending to revere the Constitution and the rule of law.
Trump is the epitome of fraud, deceit and hypocrisy, and relishes in lying and obfuscation. His success is dependent upon uninformed voters and truckloads of secret cash submitted by wealthy donors who want an ever larger slice of the American pie.
Eventually, the piper will be paid for the current shambles. Those who know better, or ought to, will come to their senses and realize that being a smug and satisfied hypocrite is a fool’s errand. If you can’t be honest with yourself, your role in society and civilization is fraught with unease; as in how can you sleep at night, when the mindless mobs who always take advantage of upheaval are knocking on your door.
1
Since Reagan the Republican party has been focused on winning at any cost---whatever it takes--a Willie Horton here a Mitch McConnell there. For all intents and purposes they are a policy empty shell---and so, for over two decades at least--their entire strategy is to cheat, lie, and steal---that's it.
10
Our longest war isn’t Afghanistan, it is the cold Civil War immediately following the hot one. It’s no coincidence that two of our very worst presidents serve as bookends to this epic tragedy of gross ignorance and tribalism. We can only hope that in the end, Trump will serve as the flashing red beacon that alerts the good into lasting action.
2
Can't we just ignore Trump and his cult. They love the attention and if they're ignored by the news networks and newspapers they will disappear.
And don't forget to mention gerrymandering and voter suppression. The Republicans have forsaken the Republic. They worship their own tribe now.
6
I think they'd also gag at the modern Democratic party and its cowardice. Biden is out! If he wins the primary, I won't vote once again. No way, no how are we going back in time to his world. Biden is a conservative. I think he should change parties and try to reform that one.
1
New flash! The Founders Would Gag at Today's Democrats.
Appropriate title for this article would be "The Founders Would Gag at Today's Politicians".
Today's politicians have lost sight of why they are in DC. They are too steeped in their own ideology, and ignore the needs of their constituents. Career politicians are of no value to anyone, but they keep getting elected by making empty promises.
1
The Dems have more problems than just the nightmare of pushing out private health insurance. They talk of long-discredited school busing as if that is just another handy tool in the Dem toolbox, maybe not to be used, but maybe... They push their ever-increasing expansion of abortion as if abortion was just another way to assert an individual's rights, all in the face of continually updated scientific/medical info that strongly suggests that by most definitions of what "human life means" it starts much earlier and much differently than previously understood. The Dems seem to have no immigration strategy except to "let everyone in” and we'll worry about the consequences later. The Dems talk about free and unhindered speech, except when it takes place on at university. I think there is some acknowledgment that the press is skewed towards a liberal bias. What is most troubling is when "reporters", liberal and conservative, become “opinionators”. Timothy Egan is an opinion writer, not a reporter, and his strong hatred of all things "Trump" is palpable. Surely he can’t or won’t write that he may be venting mostly to those supplicants on the two coasts, East and West while ignoring (at much peril to the Dems hopes), the rest of the country. While Trump and the Republicans do have major problems, the Dems' problems are just as great, if not greater. I think these will ensure another "Hillary" like moment of "weeping and gnashing of teeth" come election time “OMG, how did we lose?”
4
The hand of God is favorable to everyone who looks to Him, but His power and His anger are against all who forsake Him.
Ezra 8:22
1
Trump is the capitalist President attempting to save America from a Socialist/Communist revolution by the democrats, or at least that is how it appears. Each time says America is great, the democrats are forced to shout about America being anything but great.
We were always educated to see communism as a danger to human kind, whereas now the Democrats are selling it off as the new American dream, which doesn't make any sense.
Looking after illegal immigrants is perfectly acceptable, but at what point do the democrats look after Americans? And how on earth do these poor illegals survive once they arrive in America? It would appear they're being used as voting fodder only to be forgotten about once they have ticked the box in the voting booth.
I think President Trump is a breath of fresh air, and I think America needed him at this time in their history. We cannot have a Socialist America, that would make all three super powers socialist/communist, and how can that be good for any of us?
3
The Founders had more faith in Americans than you give them credit for. What they didn't know is that they would alternatively be trotted out and used as a cudgel or reduced to a group of "old white men" when politically expedient.
4
The US was born hypocritical, and it still is.
I would ask people to look at the chronology of the cult of Trump.
He became very visible nationally in the mid 1980's with the construction of "Trump Tower."
I'd suggest if you think the values espoused by it and much of the 1980's Reagan Republican period are good for us in the long run, maybe think again.
To me Donald Trump is sort of a cultural wrap up of the 80's. I was a young, out gay man who watched much of his college friends die from AIDS. The black community was ravaged also during the period, as were millions of people who did not fit Reagan's vision of America.
Grow up America. Many of you brought this immaturity upon us with zero thought for the future. Well, the future is now here.
2
Reagan was just a Trump with better manners.
Timothy thank you for putting into words much of what I have felt for so many years regarding the state of affairs we find our country in...
It will not be easy but good Americans need to rise up and push these small sad radical right wingers and " Christian's" back into the dark from where they came. I know their are more good people in this country than those who would laugh at immigrants and children locked in cages or drowned immigrant's on the Rio Grand shore.
1
We have an illiterate man in the White House. His childish sentences, his limited vocabulary, his mangled understanding of history, and devotion to Fox News demonstrate his limited mental abilities. Bernie Sanders lost the election for the Democrats - let’s hope he does not repeat that performance. There is no free this and that. Excessive premiums, review boards that reverse insurance company decisions, fake billing, expensive drugs manufactured in low cost countries, we need to continue what was implemented. Medicare is not free. There are restrictions based on payment. Certain coverages are denied, access to specialists is regulated. We need a sensible alternative to Trump and the Tepublicans! Not an angry swarm of bees.
The United States was founded on genocide, slavery, Jim Crow, lynching, and mass incarceration. We spend a trillion dollars a year on a military industrial complex that gave us Vietnam and Iraq. many parts of the country, especially in the south, don’t have the resources to educate their children.
The Founders would be horrified, justifiably.
1
Riff on the Trumpster
Riff on the Trumpster; there’re no variations
To conduct appalling in all situations;
Still, down to basics, the wealth he created,
Minorities working, illegals vacated
To border confinement, has garnered support,
Mucho kudos , huzzah, newspapers report;
He rides like a cowboy roughshod off to battle
For re-election, riding tall in the saddle.
I agree with what is written but why? Did you think the people didn't already know? Why won't you or any of you in the media cover what is really going on besides Trump and Trump only cover the ongoing damage of our even worse than ever health care system, our out of control police???? This article is NOT news.
1
Best piece I’ve read in a long time. Thanks
1
I agree with almost all of these points and agree these statistics about many Republicans’ views are shocking. However, you should have edited out your description of the South as having ‘the DNA of Civil War traitors still coursing through the region.’ Your venom towards the South did not benefit your piece one iota and it is illogical since the DNA of other Southerners - such as Washington and Jefferson, whom you rightly laud - also courses through the region. Your offensive description undermined the points you were trying to make. Plenty of us who live below the Mason-Dixon line read the Times, you may be interested to learn.
3
Au contraire. The Founding Fathers would gag at the actions of the Democrats starting with their violations of the 1st and 2nd Amendments. And as far as the media goes the Founding Fathers were not included in their fan base. Jefferson is quoted as follows: “As for what is not true you will always find abundance in the newspapers.” How little has changed..........
2
The claim that the US is “under God” is patently ludicrous, and laws that support that spacious lie are unconstitutional.
1
@Mike
and what would those violations be? examples please
1
Smarter pundits would have thought twice about starting their piece with a lazy, sloppy generalization.
It appears you’re still sore about Sanders wrecking things for Hillary when it was Her Turn.
2
Jesus would not recognize most of the people proclaiming this a Christian nation. Sitting in a stadium-sized "church" every Sunday listening to ministers who proudly live like kings and praying that God will also make you rich is about as far from Christ as you can get. There is about as much religiosity in this as playing lotto.
3
Simply unbelievable. Democrats, while doing everything possible to destroy the very ideas that founded this nation, are attempting 1984 speak to blame Republicans.
Democrats defend Nike's pulling pf the Betsy Ross flag because some may be offended, they want to remove George Washington from San Francisco schools, and have continually made fun of conservatives for being patriotic.
Democratic City Councils no longer say the Pledge. Presidential Candidates promote an invasion of illegals that will only hurt American citizens. Yet, and somehow they believe themselves to be so superior to us deplorables.
4
Anyone who supports the Republican party today is a dishonorable disgrace to the United States.
2
They might gag at today’s Republicans but they would dry heave repeatedly at today’s Democrats. At least the Republicans attempt to pretend to uphold the Constitution. Democrats just want to trash it.
3
Trump defiled the Lincoln Memorial by appearing in front of it.
2
The Republicans come across as an aggressive group that is not above lying to attain their ends. By comparison, the Democrats are a bunch of wimps who try to stand above the fray, afraid they might get their hands dirty.
I dont like Trump either, but this juvenile name-calling matches the rhetoric in FoxNews.
1
Sorry, we gagged on Trump already.
Republicans, Trump and his family are all yours, forever.
2
The party polarities shifted after the Civil Rights Act, with the populations indoctrinated in the politics of Southern Resentment (though not JUST southern) shifting to the GOP. So the great overhang of Civil War anger at the defeat of white supremacism, always seeking to Rise Again, was given a rich growth medium to rise anew there. The elders of the party thought they could benefit from these angry energies without being infected. But over time the infection has taken over and now they are the outsiders. The irony of Trumpublicanism being celebrated on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial is not lost on those with eyes to see. The Party of Lincoln is now firmly and forever the Party of Neo-Confederatism.
History may not repeat, but it sure loves it some irony.
3
My father, an elected official, would often make the point that the job of such officials was to do what the people want most, but not all, of the time. He insisted that the job of such elected representatives was not only to follow the peoples' wishes, but to be a Leader when the situation called for going beyond the casual or even virulent wishes of the majority.
Thus, as a moderate Republican (remember those?), he worked hard for civil rights, women's rights. honest government, and environmental conservation. He favored what is today labeled a Progressive agenda. He pointed out that as a top grad of a top law school at age 22, he was much better educated than most folks he represented, and should use what he learned to lead beyond their opinions and biases.
I think of him a great deal these days.
17
@Speakin4Myself He'd be drummed out of the party today. Reminds me of my dad, who held local office as a Republican for 20 yrs, but now at age 88 has not voted Republican in many years and has talked about changing his party affiliation from R as well.
11
Sometimes strict devotion to corporate ideology results in patently inane propaganda, such as fear of the Democrats (if only) "taking away private health insurance from more than 150 million people." Like worrying the invention of the electronic calculator would take away millions of slide rules.
3
No, what the founders would gag at is the outrageous, monstrous, cancerous, perversion of the minimal, limited, federal government they intended.
James Madison was the principal driver of the Constitution. In 1788, in one of the explanatory essays of the Constitution (The Federalist Nr 45), he wrote:
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State."
Federalist Nr 10, also by Madison, is a (somewhat long) defence of diversified government, i.e., that a single, consolidated, national government will, basically, come to reflect only the views of a single "faction"--his word for "party"--and dismiss and ignore the views of anyone else.
Isn't that exactly what we have now?
Thomas Jefferson would be even more disgusted by what we've turned his country into--a lot of his indictments of King George III in his Declaration of Independence are inflicted on us today by our own federal government.
5
Unequally protective law is all we get from your state eat state politics.
1
@Steve Bolger
Then the remedy is to seek redress within your own state legislature.
I would be happier if the political discussion in the media focused more on what can be done to improve the present state of politics rather than on Trump's latest tweets and decisions, on the unconscionable tactics of conservatives, and on how much money has been raised for the next campaigns. I hunger for articles that spell out how Democrats will reverse the disturbing trends that saturate the news. I eagerly await that kind of positive approach in this paper and in the media.
2
We all yearn for better times and political excellence. Unfortunately, these are not those times and we can and must recognize when some, so much more than others, seek to dismantle our democracy. Just wishing the other side would explain their solutions is both not listening to what they say, and similarly a severe case of “whataboutism”.
Eloquent as always, Mr. Egan. Thank you for calling the Republicans and Trump out as anti-American. They are. You give a pass to the "Republicans who remember history"--who nonetheless were complicit in the creation of Trumpism today.
5
And they would be horrified by the socialist big government policies of the DEMS. That is why we need a third party in the US which wants small government and the restoration of individualism and self reliance as the driving principles.
5
Such as Social Security and Medicare? These programs you would willingly give up for what reason?
5
@Just 4 Play no they wouldn’t be horrified, actually. America’s Founders could not possibly envision the modern technological world we live in, so they could oppose, say, regulations of the tech industry only in your imagination. Not being able to envision all the needs of a changing society, they inserted the “necessary and proper” clause into the powers of Congress. The framers can’t imagine a jet aircraft but are you saying they would oppose the FAA? The preamble also contains the “general welfare” clause.
5
Why is universal healthcare & education considered ‘big government’? They are required to keep the US relevant in the 21st century!
3
I believe that E. Roosevelt and FDR would be loving the Left's slide toward identity politics and the central government as the panacea towards solving issues.
A better take on this article would have been how the democrats have been driving their constituents towards more conservative sentiments over the last three election cycles.
Oh, and while you are getting into the "thought process" of one of the greatest men ever, Jefferson, you should take a long hard look on the ideals that founded this nation.
4
@Tony
"the democrats have been driving their constituents towards more conservative sentiments over the last three election cycles."
A more accurate statement would be that the Republicans are dragging the whole country to the right, including the Democrats, who are told they can't win unless they moderate their policy positions. Many of these policies have a long history as centrist positions (e.g. pro-environment, pro-labor, fair tax policies), but are now called "socialist" and "far left" by Republicans. The Republican Noise Machine (title of a book by David Brock, former Reagan Aide) can repeat these characterizations loudly, over and over, but anyone capable of thinking can see that they are false. Unfortunately, 30 - 40% of the country believes these falsehoods. They apparently are not capable of looking back in American history, or, don't care to know the truth if it contradicts what they want to believe. Democrats need to turn out in droves in 2020, in ALL states, to save this country, and, possibly, the planet.
2
and what would the founders say about the current democratic party? Oh, and i thought democrats were denigrating the founders anyway. So his opinion is disingenuous.
In the end, the behaviour of the democrats, their allies in the security departments and their allies in the court, is making Trump act like the tyrant they were afraid he would be.
Of course, his real danger is he is ready, willing and able to tear apart Washington. And that is what is sparking the fear by all who benefit by the old order.
4
I believe that most of us that are not Trump followers are also gagging at today's Republicans. This is not the GOP of previous years. While I disagreed with previous Republican presidents and candidate they at least had platforms that made some sense. A balanced budget, strong military and law and order are all good things, but this party started to change dramatically after the election of President Obama which set the stage for Trump.
I agree with Mr. Egan in that the Democrats need to chose their fights wisely among each other
Arguing over who is the most effective on civil rights is all wrong. The Democratic party has since JFK always been on the right side of civil rights. Has there been mistakes? Yes, but never the obstructionists that the Republican party has been for the last 6t0 plus years.
The Democrats need to take the presidency and the Senate while keeping the house and they better figure how very soon or they may end up blowing the 2020 election too.
4
The link of health insurance to employment has been broken.
Aside from the large number of fully employed Americans without any health insurance and those who are work below full employment by their employers to avoid healthcare coverage, many Americans have health insurance policies with such high deductibles and co-payments that they dare not use their insurance unless in duress.
Pharmaceuticals are priced at such high levels that prescriptions go unfilled and for many treatable chronic conditions are not renewed.
In cases in which multiple FDA approved drug choices are available for many conditions, physicians must prescribe what their patients' insurance company allows.
All acknowledge that Americans pay much more for their health insurance than do people in the rest of the developed world, yet we don't live as long, and our life expectancy is decreasing.
The common denominator to all of these issues can be summed up in a single word:
Profit
Basic human needs: clean drinkable water, personal security, education, and access to healthcare covered by insurance to share the risk of illness and injury should never be the domain of for-profit corporations. These basic human rights are most glaringly obvious when they are absent or when government fails, as in Flint.
A good "public option" can meet these needs. End US bankruptcy from getting healthcare for Americans. Let for profit insurance companies compete for supplements.
Other countries do better. We can too.
11
Here in the US, the people are captives auctioned to renters.
1
What we are experiencing currently in America is the tyranny of the minority. The Republicans consistently receive fewer votes in national elections.They have won the presidency twice in the last twenty years with fewer votes than their rival. I just don’t see this ending well for America as a whole.
31
One thing our founders believed in strongly is our electoral system. For reasons that are obvious to folks outside California.
6
Independents and democrats can discuss policies such as the nature of health care and education all we want. But the discussion is among ourselves as it does not include those in the Trump cult which seems not to care about policies at all.
If progressive policies are to be implemented no matter the form the nation must have a democratic President and Senate. This is something Republicans in their quest for power over policy have understood for decades now. If we insist on concentrating only on the relatively small points of policy Trump and Republicans will take advantage of our quarreling and once again Democrats will have shot themselves in our version of the circular firing squad.
5
I vote my own interests and am plenty interested in the policies of lower taxes, economic growth, less free stuff, regime change in Iran, and (finally) addressing China’s theft of trade secrets and other economic abuses.
3
@Stephen Gianelli Thank you for sharing your point of view. Perhaps we are talking at cross purposes. While some of your points are valid and need discussion, you fail to mention anything about how we can obtain medical coverage for all or climate change. Your self interest is fine and you may have great health insurance as I do, but tens of millions do not including some in my family. To overlook Trump's use of Russian influence during his election to gain power does not bode well for our society.
3
I'm still amazed at how Trump's enablers don't realize they're being flushed down the toilet along with everybody else.
Encouraging/empowering the worst among us was a short term win for trump, but a long term disaster waiting to happen.
We have not seen the worst of him yet...
6
We don’t see what you see at all because what you see is myth & fantasy.
@Once From Rome. Please explain why you're reading from "the enemy of the people".
1
Mr. Egan - Thank you - the truth is a hard pill to swallow, but once it is your system it is easy to recognize the benefit.Many don't recognize what they see and reject the truth what the liars say are not what they see. And yet although many of our fellow citizens reject it on a national level, but would punish their family, friends, and church goers if they were called the enemy of the town they live in or the church they worship. And they certainly would not deprive their neighbors of a meal, hot shower or a ride to the grocery store....or would they???
1
The intellectual, problem-focused GOP I once knew and was part of has been displaced by a confederacy of single issue grievance-bearers initially assembled by Karl Rove and now shamelessly herded by Fox News and social media silos. Some of the grievances are real – economic stratification has left many stuck at the bottom of the income ladder in futureless jobs, but many of the grievances are manufactured, suitable scapegoats created and then breathlessly fanned, with honest news and often fact-starved opinion blurred beyond recognition.
In this environment, the cynical politician will simply mouth the words, support the meaningless symbolic legislation or make wild promises to win support of the grievance-bearers. Excuse me if I am skeptical about Trump’s “pro-life” claims when children under his watch are forcibly separated from their parents and put in cages.
The GOP has shunned good governance and hard decisions in favor of vote-spurring symbolic acts. And their voters are satisfied to ask nothing more of this sad shell of a party.
9
I agree with the sentiments and facts in this opinion piece...with one exception: today's Republicans have not "adopted the worst pathologies of President Trump." To the contrary, President Trump has freed Republicans to express the long fermenting pathologies that he and they share. Trump is the mirror of the Republican Party. And yes, the Founding Fathers would, like most Americans, abhor the values and beliefs Republicans embrace.
I would suggest that any remnants of the Republican Party who may still believe in the Constitution and America's traditional moral values, should leave the Republican Party if they haven't already done so and declare themselves members of a new political party - the Conservative Party, distinctly different from the vulgar mob led by Donald Trump.
20
@JABarry In this regard, Rep. Justin Amash deserves our respect and our financial support, even though we might not agree with his political beliefs.
2
In that CNN poll that Timothy Egan quotes as claiming that eliminating private insurance is "deeply unpopular" shows that 56% of Americans want the government to offer national healthcare, while only 40% do not.
And if given a chance to have national healthcare through the government before they're in their sixties, it's highly likely that most Americans would ditch their private for-profit health insurance policies.
So this nonsense from the corporate press desperately attempting to save the bacon of for-profit insurance companies.
Americans want Medicare-for-All, just like their cousins to the north in Canada have.
Enough with the head-fakes about saving private health insurance companies.
9
@Sean. The follow up question in the poll is more important: If the cost for socialized medicine means a 70% individual tax rate, supports for Medicare for all drops to less than 15%. Once people know the insane cost, anyone with a job runs from Democrat handout policies.
4
@Cjmesq0 It's unfair to ask about the tax increase without also explaining (because most people don't get it) that if they no longer have insurance through their employers, their take home pay will increase significantly, as they and their employers jointly are paying significant health insurance premiums. And they would no longer be tied to their jobs because they need the benefits, or forced to take a job they may not want because they need the benefits.
5
It is a marginal tax rate on those making over about twelve million. Any income below that is taxed at a much lower rate.
6
" Less than 40 percent of Republicans, in three recent polls, now believe immigrants are a benefit to the country. This could be because of ignorance: Even though the vast majority, 77 percent, of immigrants in this country are legal, a plurality of Republicans believe they are not."
Perhaps this is true, but there's more to it. Some are feigning ignorance. Some are gaslighting their way out of the truth. In my opinion, white, Christian people who have occupied this country for many generations do not want to give up their dominance. They've been allowed to discriminate, say what they want, and do what they want without being held accountable. Even the most mediocre of them could historically be employed for life despite not having any skills.
Now they see their jobs eroding due to automation, and more hard-working immigrants are contributing more to the economy.
This is why the Republican party is what it is today. It's the Preservation of White Privilege party.
8
The Republican Party is merely the reflection of the people who vote for them. For Mr. Egan to condemn the Republicans, he should admit that he is basically pointing his finger at Americans. The historical irony is that the world’s most destructive despots have been elected into office. It appears that we may have done the same. Could our enemy be who we see in the mirror?
1
Timothy Egan may write with clarity elsewhere, but here his opinion piece falls lacking. Whenever we refer to what The Founders would have thought this happens. You cant poll them on our issues they are too different. Ask them about climate change as they slashed and burned forests to open land. The Indians did it too. Ask then about equality, they were slave owners. Ask them about rights and Women didn't get the vote for 150 years. Ask them about gun ownership. Ask then the rights of indigenous people and Trump's favorite President, Andrew Jackson stands out as one of many Ask them about religion as they formed settlements excluding anyone else. It can't be done. We can look back fondly or not at their thoughts, but we can only guess what they would have Poled on our issues.
We can however look forward to the fact that in January 2021 or January 2025, the current president has to move. His lease is up, whether or not he wants to keep the key.
2
Our form of government was designed to thwart the rise of tyrants.
If it weren't for Mitch McConnell, with his sociopath eyes, we'd be rid of Trump now. As it is, we might have Trump for another four and after that, who knows?
Tells you a lot that Trump was surrounded by bullet-proof glass at his re-election ad yesterday.
2
This is an especially persuasive opinion by Timothy Egan which should cause all to reflect on what is happening to our country during the past two years. When I saw the tanks on TV my thought was that the current White House occupant is signaling that he will protect himself from an election loss with our troops.
3
The Democrats need to organize, fast. Too many candidates running for President, losing focus on the house and senate, and too little real action against this regime. We need a focused, strategic, comprehensive plan. We need to be brave enough to stand up to this regime in real terms -- impeachment -- and we need to coordinate to protect the judges and others who do stand up to this regime. Yesterday's parade was an exercise in politicizing the military, a partisan display of power, and a clear signal of times to come if we don't fight this strategically.
We are up against a well oiled well coordinated machine playing by new rules. We need to respond in kind.
1
Tim asks, "But what part of “Congress shall make no law” abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, do these citizens not understand?"
It's not a matter of "understanding" the words of the First Amendment, it is a function of ignorance of what awaits when these words are ignored --no, more than ignored, scorned. The gentlemen who wrote the Constitution, were they here today, would be scorned as well, with the likes of Trump and Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell leading the mob to tar, feather and ride them out of Washington on rails.
We're not dealing with ignorance, we are facing unbelief.
5
Actually it’s not the abolition of private health insurance that scares me—this is a debate should be having—our healthcare system is an unwieldy, expensive disgrace— it’s the seemingly total absence of fresh ideas from the centrist wing of the party to counter those that that both the left and right put out and it’s not just on healthcare.
Take immigration. I agree that open borders and “abolish ICE” are not good policy. We are all outraged by kids in cages but what are you going to do to simultaneously insure that people who are in genuine fear for their lives are given a timely and fair hearing, that economic refugees are made to conform to our laws, that American employers get the labor they need and that American citizens and legal immigrants are not forced to compete with a caste of foreign workers who are not subject to our labor laws in any real way? So far I haven’t heard any real answers from the so called responsible Democrats. Politics abhors a vacuum.
When the so called adult voices are silent for fear of not being all things to all people or jump on a bandwagon because they see an opportunity and then fall over themselves to jump off it when they realize it may not be as popular they seem weak and rather silly.
Weak and silly never win.
3
Fundamentalist Christians seem to be at the heart of Trump's base. They, like all true believers, have a "my way or the highway" mentality. Trump knows this and continues to feed their delusional feelings in order to stay in office. Republicans in the House and Senate do the same. Only in America.
6
The Press must react to this challenge vehemently and accurately. Too many decent, rational citizens and editorial writers are afraid to attack the core of the problem, bigotry. You hint at recognizing the key factors driving the R attacks on freedom- racism, religious fundamentalism and homophobia. The R base will allow leaders to infringe upon any freedom that fosters these evil objectives. Trying to convince them that their positions are fundamentally undemocratic is pointless. Until we can alter their underlying prejudices all Americans will continue to suffer.
3
Yesterday, the NYT ran an interesting story titled:
Southerners, Facing Big Odds, Believe in a Path Out of Poverty
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/04/business/economy/social-mobility-south.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage
A couple of excerpts:
"For moving from the bottom of the income ladder to the top, the South offers the worst odds in the United States. But it’s also the region where people are most optimistic about the prospects."
"Recent research by a Harvard University team found a disparity between the perceived and actual odds that a child born into the bottom fifth of the income ladder in the United States could move to the top fifth. Optimism about mobility is highest in states that, in reality, offer some of the worst prospects."
I dove into the numbers (the statistics shown were for the Lower 48 states), and ranked the states by magnitude of disconnect (% difference) between the reported perception and reality.
Of the 16 states exhibiting the greatest disconnect (those that were the most overly optimistic), 13 were carried by Donald Trump and 3 were carried by Hillary Clinton. The "Top 5" states were all southern states and were carried by Trump. The remaining 32 states were split evenly between the two candidates.
The results show that the magnitude of overly-optimistic self-deception was greatest in states won by Trump, states that are also, by and large, controlled by Republicans.
Proof that the people in those states are being conned.
5
@Larry M Cognitive dissonance. And people whose only view of the world is shaped by Fox news. I think that explains a lot of what you see.
1
"Trump has compared himself to Abraham Lincoln which is like comparing a noxious weed to a redwood tree". Thanks so much for that this morning! Mark Twain couldn't have said it better.
5
The first amendment is only defended by the MSM when it's control of the political narrative is threatened. Stories that don't fit that narrative are suppressed.
For example:
A Google executive has promised to interfere in the 2020 election against president trump. There is a video of her doing this. It has been censored by Google of course and ignored by most established media.
According to the established narrative the investigation into president trumps Russian collusion was initiated when a trump aid expressed interest in dirt on Hillary from a Russian agent. That agent actually worked for western intelligence. So did the people who reported the contact. The whole thing was a setup. Seems like an important story. Not widely reported.
In my 85th year, I fear for my country. Its freedoms are in great danger. May we be protected from hatred and bigotry. May Trumpism be defeated. This I would like to see happen before I depart this earth.
6
As would I. The last prayer of many people in these times: deliver is from evil. Hatred is evil. I don‘t hate these people; they are stupid foolish and above all, ignorant whatever their level of education. But I do not understand how anyone at all can STILL be conned by this total phoney?
1
Even within the supposed preferences of too many so-called freedom-loving defilers of real freedom, there is a problem.
The "fake news" they want to silence is not fake news but honest reporting.
The "Christianity" they espouse would disgust the Jesus of the Gospels. Jesus himself would be treated as a terr'ist and his strictures on moneychangers in the temple, whited sepulchers, casters of first stones, and good samaritans who don't cross the road don't support the self-interested materialism that robs the widow's mite to give to those who already have more than enough.
This is not Christianity, it's a cult.
2
As a student of history, I could not have agreed more with the headline to your article, but in the first paragraph, all I heard was a common scare tactic that often comes from the center right: Democrats will take away private healthcare and Americans don’t want that.
When you talk about Medicare for all, don’t leave out the “free healthcare for everybody” part. I know you are not a fan of the plan, that much is clear, but don’t talk about it in bad faith. When you distort it into such partisan terms, it turns people like me away. I never finished reading your article because I’m frustrated. I was excited to read a historical analysis about Trump’s departure from the philosophical core of our country—a topic near and dear to my heart, but instead I felt like I had accidentally opened a Brett Stephens article.
2
Our “President”, in his active fluent Narcissism, and his easy
propensity for Public and Private Lying, continues to occupy
Center Stage on the American Scene. In deep appreciation to Mr. Egan for his stark candor regarding the most amazing presence of a President I have known in my 82 years. In his grandiosity, Trump would be Proud of that distinction.
Meanwhile, as a along-retired Licensed Family Therapist and
Lutheran pastor, I, once more, repeat that I contend that our
President has, somehow, maintained the highest position in
our great Land despite being a bonafide Sociopathic Personality
Disorder. Mr. Egan actually Reads; the Book “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump”, by 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health
Experts...is good Fodder.
1
Thus spoke a true patriot. That today's republicans prostituted themselves to a 'fifth columnist' named Donald J, Trump, leaves no doubts. We have a most vulgar bully (a coward in disguise) in the Oval Office, convinced he is above the law, capricious to no end, doing as he pleases, with total disregard of the Constitution, and devoid of basic decency, exercising cruelty with 'gusto' just because he can. Actually, he knows no other way; so, in all honesty, how can we ask from a dedicated liar and superb demagogue what he doesn't have, honesty, a sense of justice, the beauty of freedom when the truth is held inviolable? But before we hold Trump responsible for all the current chaos, let's look in the mirror, and do some introspection: if we were not this ignorant ourselves, with it's implied prejudices, would 'we' have elected this beast to begin with?
1
It is a telling commentary on our times that when we hear anything about Thomas Jefferson these days it typically has something to do with Sally Hemmings. Thanks for reminding your readers there was more to the man than that.
2
Yesterday at a parade in a small West MI town, I shared an extra seat with an elderly man in a Trump hat. I was having a nice visit with his family. Eventually, he mentioned “his President” who “we love”. I told him “No Sir, we do not love your President, but today is the 4th and we are all Americans and we love our country.” We remained cordial, but the glee in that 80 year old man’s face, knowing he had a 50% chance of poking some strangers by mentioning Trump’s name, irritated me. Trump is like his football team, but with God and the Supreme Court on his side. His meanness had power and he was enjoying it.
2
Good to see obvious points stated bluntly, by Timothy Egan. The Republican Party of today is firmly anti-American. Ike and Abraham Lincoln would not have considered joining this cult for one moment.
1
One note, I thought it was kind of ironic you mention Jefferson as victim of a biased press (which is true), Jefferson under both Washington and Adams routinely wrote horrible things about them in the press under aliases, a lot of which were vile lies.
And yes, outside perhaps Hamilton (who had dictatorial ambitions himself) or Patrick Henry (who wanted a US theocracy, which is why the GOP loves him so), the founders would gag. The framers of the constitution, the Adams and the Madisons, feared mob rule, they feared what 'the common people could do', it is why we have the system of checks and balances that now is totally wiped out, in large part thanks to the GOP. The courts were one of them, today we have GOP judges on Scotus and elsewhere who believe their duty is to party and a GOP president. Congress has totally let Trump lie and demagogue all over the place, and has refused to stop his bull in a China closet policies, in part because they fear the mob. The irony is the electoral college, once a check and balance on a demagogue, today enables people like Trump, what once was designed to stop mob rule of a majority now enabled mob rule of a minority, and sadly it is a minority that can cheer a Mayday-like event on the 4th of July, that wants some hateful, perverted form of Christianity to rule the nation, and wants basically to return the US to the world of the Antelbellum south, where a rich minority convinced a lot of ignorant, poor yokels that they were 'brothers'.
3
The founding fathers and people of good will the world over are disgusted by all Trump legal, moral and ethical violations. That so-called Christian fundamentalists accept Trump’s behavior speaks volumes about the nature of their hypocrisy. As for George Washington and faith: Isn’t it hypocritical that Stephen Miller, a Jew, with the acquiescence of others, are the architects of the racialization, separation of children from their parents and their caging in the southern border? Not to mention the unsanitary conditions under which they are purposely kept? This policy amounts to crimes against humanity The U.N., World Court and other NGOs should look into these fundamental violations that are nothing more than child abuse and discrimination of the worst kind.
1
Maybe Republican legislators are taking a page from President Donald “It’s-All-About-Me” Trump’s and Senate Majority Leader Mitch “The-Machiavellian-Opportunist” McConnell’s play Book.
The majority of them seem to have learned the following: If you are in politics primarily with a view to amassing power and wealth, the U.S. Constitution is a severe handicap—therefore it is best to ignore it.
Republican politicians should review history.
Remember when a conservative statesman—a Whig—could state the following and be praised by both liberals and conservatives? “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”― Edmund Burke (in a letter addressed to Thomas Mercer).
How many good men are remaining silent in Mitch McConnell’s caucus within the U.S. Senate? And how long will they remain speechless in the face of evil?
Remember when there were conservative statesmen—representatives of the people who spoke the truth, who led those whom they represented by educating them and who were capable of striking a compromise when compromise advanced the common good?
Remember when conservative politicians conserved something other than their own never ending tenure in office, the financial advantages of their donors and the illusions of their base voters?
At least no Republicans other than Trump have resorted to his smirky-smarmy burlesque act and have publicly mugged the American flag. On the Fourth of July they must have found it difficult not to.
1
What the Founding Fathers would think about anything is mostly a matter for historians and scholars.
Many of the Founding Fathers were slave owners.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Founding-Fathers-and-Slavery-1269536
See the list here. It is long.
All of a sudden Mr. Egan you care about what the Founding Fathers would think about modern-day Republicans.
My guess is they would not be too keen on Democrats either.
You want to analyze the Declaration of Independence and Constitution re the Republican party. Fine.
But what the Founding Fathers "would think" is irrelevant.
1
As a transplanted New Yorker living in Trump country I am astounded by a lot of very educated people here fawning at the alter of Trumpism.
3
America’s founding fathers believed in slavery, supported slavery, and were slaveholders themselves.
Are you sure they are the people we should turn to as touchstones for evaluating the Republicans? Or the Democrats, for that matter?
1
Of course you won't find "democracy" mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, nor the Constitution. Given we've just had July 4th, remember what founding father Benjamin Franklin responded when asked "what form of government have you given us?" He replied, "a republic, if you can keep it."
Like the ancient Roman republic before us, we too have challenges maintaining it. Career politicians, a lack of national will to solve problems together instead of fighting each other, and so forth. Now at the apex of this national discontent is Donald J. "little Caesar" Trump who'd love to declare himself "emperor," with phallic tanks attesting to his virility to do and be so. His thinking must run along side that of Mao Zedong's, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Pray he remains in a state of not knowing what he doesn't know, lest the future be dark, and full of terrors. Mostly of our own making.
2
Okay, you're afraid all the people who have employer paid health care would rather vote to continue the trump regime than have to go on a single payer system where all of their countrymen were covered. That's just pitiful. You yourself said you are worried about the Democrats, but terrified of Trump. If you want a better Republican candidate, y'all should come up with one. Stop trying to make the Democratic party hand you a Republican candidate.
The Democrats want single payer, like Canada. Not just taking away private health care with nothing to replace it. Don’t be disingenuous, please.
It’s this kind of hyperbole that is fanning the fires of partisan hatred and distrust that exists among many of our people today.
2
Egan's eloquent, sobering column points to what should be the Democrats' prime message for 2020: "It's the democracy, stupid."
Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is relevant today in a way which almost acts as a premonition, one which should, in fact, serve as a wake up call. Lincoln wrote that "...we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure."
Lincoln was right, and would be right today. We may not be engaged in an actual civil war, but the endurance of our nation, at least as we have known it, is clearly in jeopardy. Now, as Mr. Egan makes frighteningly clear, ignorance is, indeed, widespread and dangerous, but equally dangerous is the purposeful abandonment of the very ideals to which our nation was, as Lincoln wrote, "so dedicated."
Worse is the reality that constitutional “strict constructionism” and originalism are misleading and hypocritical dodges which, in fact, are trotted out by Republicans and conservatives only when it seems cynically convenient to do so. What is really occurring is the intentional, concerted turning of a selective and collective back to the very principles which were, in fact, established in the Constitution. It isn't ignorance, in that case at least, which prompts it.
The result is not only an erosion of the fundamentals that have long been accepted as governing our country, but a perversion of them as well.
The ignorance cited by Mr. Egan is bad enough. The willful trampling of them by people who, in fact, know better but don't care, is equally dangerous.
565
@Quoth The Raven
George Orwell’s selection of animals in “Animal Farm” seems very appropriate for our times.
18
@Quoth The Raven
An articulate and eloquent response. Thank you. And now I will continue reading How Democracies Die and worry.
19
@Quoth The Raven "Willful trampling by people who...know better" ....a perfect description of McConnell, an anti-American if there ever was one. History will not be kind to him.
36
Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater would gag at today’s Republicans.
I am a Progressive Democrat, but for years conservatives have been telling me:
An authentic conservative believes: Character counts; the U.S. Constitution is sacrosanct; fiscal responsibility is a virtue; the rule of law is the foundation of the Republic; and that there are fundamental values to conserve—for principled public servants, conservation of one’s own political power and of the economic advantages of one’s donors is not the be all and end all of politics.
I didn’t believe them, but I thought the sentiments were laudable.
Where in the Trumpublican Party of Donald “It’s-All-About-Me” Trump and Mitch “The-Machiavellian-Manipulator” McConnell could one possibly find an authentic conservative? Or any other principled person?
Wearing a flag pin in one’s lapel and running shoes with a Betsy Ross flag emblazoned on the heels cannot convert a Trumpublican into a patriot.
3
An excellent article. However, I do believe that "Medicare for All" can be sold to people with private insurance. Just explain to people that they will keep their same doctors and service providers as always, but at a lower cost. Pie in the sky? Hardly. Once the rapacious insurance companies are out of the game and the pharmaceutical companies are squeezed like a ripe melon there will be plenty of money to provide everyone with stress-free health care.
1
When will we learn that history repeats itself? The “base” that wants a Christian, anti-immigrant, and unjust society is essentially the confederacy. They are easily manipulated by a crass segment of one percenters who’ve bought their loyalty and give life to their grievances. As a life long Democrat, this election cycle is familiar territory. We need turnout. When we turnout, we win. The current GOP is obsessed with suppressing that turnout in any way it can. There is one weapon in the arsenal the Democrats have not fully leveraged yet, and that is anger. By this time next year, we need to stoke people’s anger to the point they will storm the polls, but not riot in the streets. That is how we will remove this aberration and reverse our national decline.
6
Tim Egan misrepresents polling data to take a swipe at progressive Democrats. Egan writes that a national health care plan is "deeply unpopular." But the poll linked to his column indicates that 56% of Americans favor a government run health care plan, even if it requires higher taxes. The poll does report that 37% of respondents believe that this national health care plan should completely replace private insurance, while 57% believe it should not. This is admittedly a significant difference, but the fact than nearly 40% of those polled already support a national health care system is a good foundation on which a skilled candidate with a clear plan could build by making the case that private, for-profit insurance invariably costs more than low-overhead programs such as Medicare.
5
Apart from the obvious bias against people in the south (un-American?), this essay is so far wrong I can’t believe that it was published. Lots of others have picked it apart already, so no need for me to rehash that. My two points are first, Mr. Egan seems to blame conservatives for being willing to trash the first amendment protections on free speech and a free press. It is the Liberals like Egan that basically want to hand power over what speech gets published and what doesn’t to invisible contractors for Facebook, Twitter, instagram and others. As long as those groups are taking down conservative speech, the liberal press is fine with it, and they can continue inflicting their views on the rest of us. Second, Egan says that the founders would gag at today’s republicans. Well, they would actually vomit to see today’s Democrats, and their push for government payment for everything from healthcare (FREE!) to college educations (FREE!). For their tacit approval of open boarders, and for their complete abdication of the second amendment.
Yes, today's GOP has definitely jumped the rails, there is no doubt about that. I am old enough to remember Ike, and he would have no part of or in today's GOP. But I found it disconcerting that you chose to focus on one aspect of some Democratic candidates' proposals to essentially paint the entire Democratic effort off track. The fact is most Americans know little about the healthcare systems of other developed countries that have enabled them to provide better health outcomes for just over half what the US system costs. Whether we must gradually improve our system by way of for-profit insurance or not, we must improve our system if our economy is to remain viable. It would help immensely if voters would listen to the facts, and if media delivered those facts. But for decades now our political system has allowed the GOP to play to irrational fear and paranoia rather than appeal to reason. If that continues our experiment in democracy is in jeopardy.
7
At 74, I ask myself: where is a country I can move to, that espouses the values I was TAUGHT were the Founder’s Values and Lincoln’s values and the values of the New Deal and the values that we preached to other nations, when I was young?
Here I am in old age, feeling stateless at times. With the impulse to FLEE to some nation which espouses what I was TAUGHT and still believe in? Am I the only one?
You young people can more easily contemplate finding jobs abroad, where people still believe in democratic government. But it’s much harder to do that in old age. Even if you have savings, what another country wants is workers. Not retirees. Not people who will soon need medical care and other services, which their own elderly have worked and paid taxes for.
I’m now planning a 3 month long trip outside the country. Mostly to Northern Europe. Where I will, I feel this so strongly, have the desire to seek refuge, to seek “political asylum” as so many others are doing, who are fleeing wars and famines and lack of jobs. But I’ll be fleeing what Eagan has written, making it even clearer to me - in black and white - why I already feel stateless and homeless and voiceless, in a land where I was born. But now fear to die in.
It’s agonizing on a daily basis. To feel trapped here. I’m losing hope. Not hope that life’s worth living. But hope in a land, which is straying further and further from something I can call home. Day by day, it grows worse.
32
@TheraP Sadly, I am sure you are not alone in your thoughts. Having lived for several years in Europe, I doubt that you will find it a panacea. You might consider that your consumption of news media is what ails you. Media companies profit when they can provoke emotional responses from their consumers. They also have a political agenda and want you to feel enraged or unhappy to influence your vote. I have found that I feel much better when I tune out the constant dread of the media by ignoring it. It is a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. Consider also that the reality of the current situation is one of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Imagine living in the great depression or being bombed daily, as in WW2. Counseling is available. Gregg Easterbrook has written several books on the 'progress paradox.' Reasons for optimism in an age of fear. They may offer some comfort and food for thought.
2
@TheraP I am 76 and share your sentiments. In my last years, I am resolved to stay and fight, even though it may well be a losing battle.
3
@JW
There is no panacea.
BUT to do as you suggest is FOLLY! It is insane to live like the proverbial Ostrich, with one’s head in the sand.
Regardless of who may be trying to influence me, I have a head and I can think for myself. To imagine that my concerns have been drummed up by the press is to diminish me, as if I were programmable.
Your words ring hollow.
2
A lifelong Republican until Trump's election, I am done thinking or worrying about the future of the Republican Party.
They are impossible to reform and must be prayed and hounded out of office until the Party is no more.
46
150 million on private insurance: The vast majority get this insurance through their employers, and could never afford it otherwise. A huge reason wages have stagnated for the past 30 years just might be that nobody can leave their job to start a small business simply because of the prohibitive cost of health insurance. Big business has an interest in keeping us all stuck at our poorly paying jobs, so will fight hard - in concert with their bought and paid for Republican lawmakers - to maintain the status quo. The machine of capitalism does not want a system that allows for economic freedom and innovation - supposed bedrocks of the American Dream.
44
Speaking as a person whom “Big Business“ once lobbied on Capitol Hill, I attest “Big Business” would like nothing better than for the government to pay for healthcare. For everyone.
2
After Trump is gone Americans will find out just how corrupt he, his family, and his Cabinet members were during Trump's tenure. They will realize how these people, with the aid and comfort of Republicans and Democrats who only react based on the next election, deeply wounded American ideals and tore at our democracy while capitulating at every turn to their billionaire business friends. Our landscape, air, our water will be fouled. Our infrastructure will be ruined. Good investigative journalists and historians will write of the debacle. We will be civically, socially, economically unbalanced for decades to come.
24
We live in a country where the majority want sensible gun control, and our legislatures deny it. The majority would like to preserve a woman's right to choose, while state legislatures work with our courts to undo that right. We are gerrymandered into controllable voting blocks to ensure who wins. We can give a presidential candidate 2 million more votes, yet her opponent sits in the White House. We have paid a price for not voting locally and nationally for so many cycles, and for not being united when we vote. My hope is that we can put aside our differences and unite around a candidate. It doesn't have to be the ideal candidate, just someone who still believes in democracy.
1182
@edv961
Perhaps "the majority (of urban Americans) want sensible gun control," but the Left keeps trying to impose that on the rest of us as well, and that distinction is true in many other issues. If the Left will quit trying to impose city rules in areas outside city limits, maybe both sides would be happier.
8
@edv961 Humm… So a poll of Democrats would likely reveal support for unlimited abortion, eliminating the electoral college, excessively burdensome taxation and wealth redistribution (the forcible taking of private property). I think I hear the founders gagging.
6
Absolutely CORRECT, thanks.
13
You make great points about the state of the Republican Party. I just hope your own obvious prejudice against a big swath of the country will not impede your message. Your article evidences deep misunderstandings of the South as a whole and in its complexities. The comment that Southerners have the "DNA of traitors" is just about the most prejudiced thing I have ever heard. Do you really mean to say Southerners are biologically inferior due to their lineage?
The South is full of people who love this country. It is now a mix of people from all over the country and world. Southerners, black and white, have proudly served in the American military in all the wars since the civil war and are great patriots.
A Southerner created the Southern Poverty Law Center and it has identified hate groups all over the country. I honestly think the South has dealt with the issues of race in a more open and honest way than cities in the Northeast where prejudice still exists but can be extremely insidious.
Admittedly, Southern evangelicals have been particularly, though not uniquely, susceptible to the con game the Republicans have utilized to tie political party to religion. However, influential intellectual Christian leaders from the South such as the late Rachel Held Evans are beginning to change minds and hearts in Southern churches.
This newspapers' blindness to the complexities of the South and its' willingness to harbor deep prejudice is disappointing.
30
@R. Smith Thank you-- well said.
3
@R. Smith I've lived in the South, and I think Mr. Egan is spot on!!. Sure, there are pockets of rational thought, but the majority of Southerners pride themselves on their Confederate heritage. I was in Charleston when the Confederate flag was removed, which should have happened after the Civil War. The removal brought out an enormous amount of Confederate flags, draped over any possible place. They were removed, of course, but the mindset wasn't. Look at Roy Moore in Alabama. That he even
had a following is telling. Look at the rates of illiteracy, teen pregnancies, welfare recipients. The list goes on, but Jesus remains the biggest part of their lives. The world is 6,000 -years old, and they know, because the Bible tells them so. Home-schooling is rife, with Jesus the main teacher. This is the South you say, that Egan unjustifiably condemns. I say, he's right, and change can only happen by facing the need for change, not sugar-coating it. Some liberals in the South, yes, but it's mainly made up of
bigoted, ignorant, Bible-thumpers, who are Republican and Trump lovers.
9
@Gloria Utopia Thank are due to Bree Newsome who had the courage to climb that flagpole and challenge South Carolina. She resisted injustice with great bravery to to great result. Everybody has different experiences and I respect yours. Mine includes people like Bree who are actively resisting injustice and believe they can make a difference. I'm not suggesting there is not a need for change or sugarcoating the problems of poverty, lack of education, lack of access to medical care, etc., but that there are many, many good people in the South who are working to make it a better place.
4
The Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th century in Europe and then America - liberty, fraternity, equality - laid the groundwork for the American Revolution.
Our founding fathers - Washington and Franklin among others - were Masons (Freemasons) who were not necessarily Christians as many of our current born-again Christian evangelicals seem to believe.
Faith in reason, in scientific principles rather than Christian metaphysics was the driving social and political force during the birth of our democracy.
Washington and Franklin were not Christians. They believed in a supreme being - The Architect of the Universe - who created the world and then - essentially - forgot about it. God left it to men, the Deists, to run things according to their own lights.
96
@L'Etranger
On the other hand the founding statement of the US, "All persons are created equal" is Christian.
We must distinguish between basic ideas and narrow ideology
1
George Washington was always sad that his father's death kept him from getting the same fine education his brothers had. He worked hard at remedying it.
None of our Founding Fathers sneered at education. There's the difference. Today's Americans have no interest in real learning. That kind of willful, deliberate stupidity runs deep in all our demographics.
12
@B.
Faith - first and foremost - then family, down the road a piece, you might get to education and vocation that results from that erudition...
In the past I have heard and read some commentators, or pundits, speak about how candidates, especially Democratic ones, need to understand the Trump supporter in the hopes of making some political gain with that group. My reaction has been to scream, "Why".
A lot of these people wrap themselves in "the flag", or fly the flag from their vehicles, to proclaim themselves as the real patriotic Americans. When the reality, is expressed so well by Mr. Egan's opinion piece. Whatever you want to call these people who proclaim themselves Republican; well they are not Republicans. They are not adhering the ideals of the Constitution and the Founding Fathers, just the opposite. Their hatreds and exclusions make me sick, yet defiant.
838
@SLF Thank you for this response! I agree with you completely. I think I understand Trump supporters very well for what they are; if winning an election means "understanding" their need for racist, sexist, hateful, intolerant beliefs and somehow reaching an accommodation with them so they feel validated in some way, I'd rather find a new country to call home because this one will, at that point, be irretrievably lost.
70
@SLF So your solution is to stop listening and engaging? Hardly seems like the spirit of the Founding Fathers mentioned in this article. If the left would listen more, they might come to understand that many Trump supporters are motivated less by the man than wariness toward progressive policies. Ignoring that message is sure to get trump another four years.
6
@SLF,
There are indeed many people who seem rabid about Trump. They fit your profile of unconditional (and for some, irrational) Tump support. But please, please don't conflate them with all Trump voters - we ignore a separate voting group at our Democratic peril. These are the people in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and other electorally valuable states who voted Obama 2 cycles, then went Trump (exit polls etc confirmed this). Why? Many are single-issue voters, with main concern US job security. Of course Trump lets them down, but Dems have to motivate them to turn out for Dems in 2020. I say, avoid talk of reparations and anything that smacks of identity politics. Then emphasize what Tim Ryan talks about: a national plan to get most of us a good job, affordable healthcare, quality education for our children, and dignity in retirement. There is a block of less-enthusiastic prior-Trump voters who will respond!
10
As a long time reader of the New York Tiimes, I also gag at the current state of this newspaper. About 75% of the articles seem to be attacks on Trump, with the other 25% being attacks on Republicans. (smile).
While I do not much approve of the Republican party, I do think that along with his bad ideas, Trump also has some good ones. Withdrawing from the Middle East is one of the good ones. "Let us not go to war with Russia" is another good one.
And to balance the problems with the Republican party (of which there are several) there are the problems with the Democrats as well. The Democrats do not say, but act like, they favor open borders. They replace presumption of innocence and the need for evidence by "I believe her". And many of them do not believe that conservatives should be allowed to speak.
So the constitution is under attack from TWO sides and I am afraid the Democrats are more powerful than Trump.
5
@Ludwig I hope so!
1
If Trump wants to withdraw from the Middle East, a lot of us will agree. But then their’s no need to move the embassy to Jerusalem, support a war on Yemen, bomb Syria, or any of the other stuff.
One can only assume that he reacts to the desires of specific campaign donors or other pals.
1
In the July 4th edition of the local paper, the Hobby Lobby company ran a full-page ad promoting the integration of government and Christian religion. The ad contained quotes from famous Americans about religion and God and led with this Bible quote: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance." Its message is that the U.S. is supposed to be an evangelical Christian theocracy, not a democracy.
Funny, but their religious patriotism overlooked one other famous historical quote: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." It's weird how they could ignore that one...it's only the first sentence of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Yes, today's Republicans have entered an alternate universe.
1452
@Dario Bernardini
Not to mention one of the most famous quotes out there, written by James Madison (who wrote the First Amendment) "When you combine church and state, you get a corrupted church and an oppressive state". And of course, Since they are against any kind of learning, the evangelicals don't know that Madison, Jefferson and others who wrote the constitution fought Patrick Henry's attempts to make the Anglican church the official religion of Virginia.
The saddest irony is those droolers, like most conservative Christians, don't understand that the 1st amendment was there to protect them, that evangelicals were routinely harassed and prosecuted by the religious dominant groups of their day. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church has never understood this, in the 1950's a brother wrote a brilliant analysis of how the 1st amendment allowed the RC to flourish here, to become the largest single religious group, despite the strong anti Catholic bias of many people. The Church of course did what you expect, they silenced him and forbade him to speak out on the subject, they argued that of course religion and government had to be tied,that God was responsible for government, etc (it was only later, when the Church's power was declining in US and Europe, that suddenly they saw the light, perhaps because in the uS especially their considerable clout was disappearing).
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@music observer "Droolers"?
Really?
You heathens ought to recognize that without the structure and order of Western Civilization, you'd be in armed conflict with your next door neighbors right now because murder would be just another moral/immoral judgement and property rights would be something you negotiate after you kill your neighbor.
where do you think morality came from?
You don't think we were born this way, do you?
If so..you need to study 300,000,000 years of natural selection where it's a real time conflict between structure/order and sheer chaos.
The fact we choose structure/order over chaos makes us droolers?
God help you, because I don't have time for it.
2
@Dario Bernardini
Disclaimer, I am an evangelical who is appalled by the embrace of Trump by other evangelicals.
The Hobby Lobby people who ran that ad are showing the ignorance of business people and evangelicals as it pertains to government and history. The melding of the government and Christianity is what led to the corruption of the Middle Ages. Imagine all you Christians reading this, fusing the corruption of the government, with your faith. Which will corrupt which. Your Bible says, “Do no be deceived. Evil associations corrupt good manners.”
No where, repeat, no where in the Bible does it tell Christians to take over the government. Jesus said, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament and lived under the Roman Empire corruption never suggested taking over the government or judiciary. He never said we should change the laws to benefit Christians.
The Bible does tell Christians that this is not their home, their home is in heaven. The problem, as I see it, is they are so comfortable here they have forgotten that.
138
A Far Better History Lesson Than the President's Last Night.
Mr.Egan should have added Ronald Reagan who might be more relevant to today's mesmerized Republicans. In his last public remarks before leaving the Presidency, Reagan gracefully lauded immigrants.
My paternal ancestors fled the potato famine and British oppression; today's migrants at the southern border flee climate changed caused famine and criminal oppression. A half century ago, I visited Guatemala's Cuchumatan mountains near where Nicolas Kristoff documented the food shortages that drive the Highland Maya to leave their villages. Back then, they were poor but had village self-government and had not suffered the ravages of civil war.
11
It is the questions asked at the debates that are the real problem...not the answers. These people are running for President, not King. There is a very laborious procedure for a bill to be passed into law. Don't you remember schoolhouse rock. " I'm just a bill.
Yes, I'm only a bill.
And I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill.
Well, it's a long, long journey
To the capital city.
It's a long, long wait
While I'm sitting in committee,
But I know I'll be a law someday
At least I hope and pray that I will,
But today I am still just a bill. "
Presidents can urge a Bill forward, but the Bill will not be written by the President. After committee, votes, re-votes, etc. The President than does his/her part of the operation-sign or veto.
All this assumes that the American people understand this. Schoolhouse rock has been off the air for sometime now, so I doubt it. So when a moderator at one of these debate couches a question as though the candidate would have complete control of the whole proceedings as though they could act unilaterally that leads low information people to run with a false premise.
The candidates themselves could help their cases by explaining that many people would have a hand in shaping health care legislation, which in itself is a game of compromise and give and take.
The best thing for any candidate to remember is: never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Our health care system is broken lets fix it.
9
People don’t love their health insurance. They tolerate it. If we could educate those folks that would fight the switch and show them that we can be completely covered by a Medicare for all type system and that it would actually be less expensive the switch would come quick. The largest obstacle is going to be the republican senators who are in the insurance company pockets if we can overcome that it’s relatively easy to implement but those senators are going to be like taking on a seal team with a bb gun
13
@JD
I am less certain that you are that only Republicans are in the pocket of billionaires. The Democrat elite are dead set against Medicare for All as well. There is a reason for that.
The dilemma of healthcare and insurance: if private schemes are to be phased out, it should be very gradually: this is America, still struggling with the notion of "United" States, still allowing federal elections and electoral districts to be controlled by each individual state, no matter how corrupt. This is far from democracy, and a large part of the population seems unable to understand alternatives. So why not a two-tier insurance system? Because it is two-tier! Some plans will pay more for a procedure, and will be given precedence. Doctors with higher-paying patients will cater to them preferentially. I've seen two-tier systems in Ireland and GB. Ugly! Ooops--this is already happening in America! Some doctors do not serve Medicare patients. So long as greed infests the healthcare system, we have problems.
202
@Des Johnson
Your experience with Medicare is completely different from mine. Our family has never met a physician who refused to see or treat Medicare patients. Never. This includes our primary care physician, cardiologist, neurologist, ophthalmologist, dermatologist, radiologist, general surgeon & cardiac surgeon.
35
@downeast60
The very first doctor I called for an appointment after receiving Medicare refused to see me. I was told he had too many Medicare patients at the time. They pay the doctors much less than the going rate in an area like Connecticut.
19
@downeast60 try living in trump country like Elko Nevada. Only two urgent care facilities take TRICARE the insurance for retired and active duty military. No physicians will so I travel to twin falls Idaho or back to Washington for medical care for myself and my wife
20
The Republicans have shown themselves to be the Party of Intentional Ignorance and worse the Party of Hate.
When you have Leaders in the GOP calling news they don’t like “fake news”, Policies and laws they don’t like not enforced, such as the subpoena rights of Congress, and no longer believe in Separation of Church and State, soon they are going to go down the path of Anarchy.
It is the saddest Indepence Day we have ever had as a Nation.
1043
@Jean
A party of and by big business would inevitably travel down this road, because their only goal is to ensure they continue making money. Fortunately for them, this country has a generous supply of rubes ready to be distracted by bright shiny objects like immigration, abortion, and gun rights, while wretches like Mitch McConnell sell them out time and again.
Recently, VW workers in Tennessee again voted down unionization, and an article in yesterday's Times described the disconnect in the South between people's actual social mobility, which is the lowest in the country, and their perceived chances of moving up the ladder, which is delusionally high. Must be something in the water, like coal runoff.
205
@stan continople
Not just in the South; this is a problem in most places in the U.S. The comedian George Carlin put it very succinctly when he stated that one of the reasons Americans didn't want to require the rich to pay their fair share was because Americans didn't see themselves as poor; they saw themselves as temporarily disadvantaged rich.
62
@stan continople
Want to buy a lottery ticket? It could happen....
5
Thank you Timothy Egan for your harsh characterization of the American South. I so often dream about the kind of nation the U.S. would be but for the outsized influence of southern culture on our government and politics, which has been a counter-force to the realization of the American ideal since the country’s birth. We would more likely resemble Canada or New Zealand.
The Republican Party is now the political reflection of the worst of southern culture. The racism, militarism, paranoia, and anti-intellectualism that animates the Republican Party has a rich history in that region. There is no Trump without the South.
I hate to generalize so broadly, but I am tired of a living in a nation where a senator from Kentucky rules the country. I am tired of being unable to implement sensible policy of the kind found everywhere else in the world because Wyoming has as many senators as New York. I am tired of pandering to uneducated rural voters because the electoral college disenfranchises millions of voters in blue states. I am tired subsidizing red states while they moan about the evils of a government that redistributes resources to them. But mostly, especially on July 4, I am tired of being told that I am the one who is “un-American.”
I just want the Confederacy to go away, once and for all.
2168
@CD In Maine, as someone born and raised in a Southern state, though not with the typical Southern mentality, I couldn't agree more!!
199
@CD In Maine I am from the South and find your comments incorrect. Since I have left Memphis and moved to Vermont, I have seen as much prejudice, hate and racism in the North as I had in Memphis, TN. Not sure why you think this is just a southern thing? But keep up with the self dividing ideological ideas. They are wrong but they are yours to keep.
49
And I’m tired of a state like Wyoming, with a population of 577k, gets 2 senators and 1 congressperson, while the District of Columbia, with a population of 633k gets none.
593
The founders would gag at the two-party system. Which they warned us against. John Adams: "There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution."
20
@Leslie Holbrook
And yet, Mr. Adams was instrumental in creating the 1st Party System which consisted of the Democratic-Republicans (not to be confused with either the Democratic or Republican parties, as those both were started later) and the Federalists. The goals of these 2 have split and merged, split again, and remerged through additional Party Systems. It's generally agreed that we are currently in (though not so much when it started; opinions run from the 60s to the 90s) the 6th Party System in the U.S.
Isn’t it ironic. The Supreme Court is weighted with ‘originalists’ while the Trumpists are eager to shred the protections written in that same Constitution. Those citizens are going to be ecstatic when the tanks are rolling in their own town streets and the evangelicals are writing new Amendments.
17
@ABaron
I have always found it humorous that someone would claim they could divine the thoughts and intents of the founders as though that were some kind of holy writ, all the while ignoring at the same time those very same founders stated, again and again, they expected the Constitution to be a living document to be interpreted over time. It's the reason we can have amendments and our judicial system is based on common law, not civil law, then again, what do I know; I'd probably never be able to be a Justice - after all, I don't like beer.
1
As an American I never before experienced such July 4th as I did yesterday. I sat "Shiva" yesterday. Its the Jewish mourning period of time. Shiva for my country. Shiva for each and every day since he was elected (how long ago was that? Yeah, about 150 years in Trump time!).
As I was sitting and reflecting in my sorrow I had to smile when the memory of the late, great Larry Eisenberg came to me suddenly; really out of nowhere even though I do think of him often. I wondered what would our great poet of The New York Times say about yesterday? What would be the Limmrick which would make my frown turn into a smile, just for a moment, or even longer! Or would there be silence and tears for lines?
I smiled at the memory of him. And just at that moment my smile took form a double rainbow appeared before my front door. I thought that must be Larry, loving Larry!, sending those rainbow lines of his from heaven. What a gift it was. Cause I felt a burst of love through and through and just know it was a message from above more beautiful than any fireworks display could ever be.
I miss him. I'm sure I'm not alone!
41
Taking Healthcare away from 150 million Americans.
If you say you are smart or staying up on a subject then you should already know that the 10k to 20k your company pays for yours or your families insurance has a massive tax built right in. Paying twice as much per capita literally means everyone is paying double. Even if you get your insurance through your employer.
12
And on shutting down media for falsehoods 20% of Democrats also thought the courts should be able to shut them down. It’s important to note that the poll asked about courts, not government, which most people think of as the executive. And of course courts can shut down the media or fine them in certain circumstance like libel. It’s also a poll from 2017. One wonders if the current rage against fake news of a Russian variety wouldn’t change some of these percentages.
Details matter and it doesn’t take a lot of extra space to note ‘2017’ and ‘courts’ not ‘government’.
This is a disingenuous use of sources. Mr Egan can do better as can the Times.
2
“And yet some Democrats are pushing policy positions — such as taking away private health insurance from more than 150 million people — that are deeply unpopular.”
People love their private insurance - until they try to use it. There are very good reasons for barring private insurance from covering the same services as a Medicare for All system. The most important is that it would prevent service providers from refusing to accept government coverage. That means everyone gets to keep their doctor (which *is* popular), and it prevents service providers and insurance companies from undermining government coverage.
18
@Benjamin Hinkley
I see now reason why providers could not be required to accept Medicare while being permitted to accept private insurance.
3
Timid liberal bromides brought us Trump, but this author, who's a prime promoter of those bromides, is terrified actual liberal policy will keep the man in office.
And of course those who agree with him are the "smarter candidates".
Is it not yet clear that Democrats can't run on being virtuous? That they have to stake out actual policies -- and deliver?
And that listening to Timothy Egan, former Hillary Clinton enthusiast, hasn't led to great success in the past?
3
@jrd "is terrified actual liberal policy will keep the man in office."
Since Democrats do not believe in freedom of speech (for conservatives) and do not believe in presumption of innocence (replacing it with "I believe her") they do not seem to have much respect for our bill of rights.
So in what sense are the current Democrats "liberal"?
Call me a skeptic.
4
@jrd How is it likely that the Democrats can "deliver" even after winning the position of POTUS? There has been a move afoot for years to insure continued Republican power; census citizenship question, right leaning Supreme Court justices, gerrymandering, Mitch McConnell. With our undisciplined, self indulgent, ill read, non voting electorate, we get the government we deserve.
2
@jrd
The Russians, Comey and a flawed candidate brought us Trump, not any proposed policies.
It’s probably true that the Founders would gag at today’s Republicans. But in the case of Democrats, they would probably start another revolution. None of them had any use for an all powerful huge behemoth, overpowering and absolute controlling government which is the Democrat party ideal. If I recall correctly, and I do, the entire purpose of that revolution was to separate the United States from just such a government.
8
@Mike Feel free to believe that. No one on the Democratic side does, and we wouldn't want your strawman to be lonely.
Just curious who you think is running the "overpowering and absolute controlling government" we have at the moment: the Republican party, or the corporations they're giving the store away to, via tax cuts and eliminating even sensible regulation meant to protect citizens.
35
@Mike This is why the Democrats wanted to spend $92 million extra on a Fourth of July parade. This is why the GOP of 1981-2019 leads all parties in U.S. history in deficits, shattering the record several times.
Surely you haven't fallen for their main schtick, that they're for smaller government.
(I'm not a Democrat, lest you jump for that hasty conclusion.)
@Mike
Live free or (if you don't have affordable health insurance) die?
Mr. Egan is saying what we all think - the Republicans, largely, are anti-American, from a classical definition of what it means to be American. More theocracy-oriented than democracy, their representatives do not deserve a place in our secular, Constitutionally-driven government.
33
The root of the current anti-democracy flourishing within the GOP lies in a failed public school system. Budgets have not kept up with needs for a diverse student population (non-English speaking, special needs, children spoiled with electronic baby sitters, etc.) and college kids do not want to spend their careers in a low wage job battling disengaged parents of all socioeconomic strata. This is aptly described by the quote on the front of the main library in downtown Boston: “The Commonwealth requires the education of the people as the safeguard of order and liberty.” We are now reaping what we have collectively sown as a society. Repairing this mess will require a dedication which our current crop of legislators at all government levels may not possess.
22
@Djr "Budgets have not kept up with needs for a diverse student population"
Actually the US spends MORE per capita on money devoted to education. The results are not comparable to the money spent.
And of course if you encourage lots of immigration from non-English speaking countries,you are going to need more money. Why not keep such immigration to modest levels - levels where we can actually afford to educate these immigrants in English and other things?
Nothing is more fake about the US than the lie it is “under God”.
1
The retrograde feelings and opinions of a minority, but a substantial minority, of Americans have been with us since the founding. It seems to be characteristic of some fraction of the human personality spectrum to be primitively religious, and fear and hate the 'other'. We see it in all societies. Education can help change it, but it apparently never goes away. Usually it doesn't serve as a basis for intense political activity unless two conditions occur: the first is economic distress and the second is a venal leader who consciously exploits the inclinations of the minority toward anger and hatred. Trump is definitely such a leader, and globalization has provided the economic stress. The majority really needs to acknowledge the problem and it's causes, and make serious attempts to address the problem, because if one third of the electorate is unhappy and bitter, there is not going to be peace in the house.
31
Headline should have read -- The Founders Would Gag at Today's Republicans ..... and Democrats.
We have lost our center and neither party can claim to have one. I have been a lifelong Democrat and have no one to vote for om 2020. In fact, the candidates that are putting themselves forward as Democrats are unrecognizable to me in policy and rhetoric. Yes, we have Trump, but I believe we have Trump as a reaction to Obama's policies. If we go hard left now, we will get hard right next. Neither is a good place to be. This oped pontificates and preaches through the minds and mouths of people from 300 years ago, as if he has some special insight into history. Absurd.
7
@me For starters, Barack Obama was a centrist. As were Clinton, Carter, and JFK. But don't let that interfere with your conclusions.
32
@me Obama was hugely center. The whole political spectrum has been drifting right for decades, for that matter. Was Trump's election a reaction to 8 years of Obama? Only by those (and there are many) that seethed over having a black man in office.
5
@me
We already have hard right.
2
Years ago on some late night television show, perhaps, Leno's, a man with a microphone randomly stopped people on the street and asked them if they believed Americans should have the rights he went on to recite. Nearly all ( at least the ones they showed in that clip) said 'No' . He had just recited the Bill of Rights.
39
The Bill of Rights is actually a list of restrictions on how Congress may use its powers.
4
@Steve Bolger
Not true, Steve, the Bill of Rights is actually a list of rights the government, and that includes all three branches - cannot infringe on. Or is it called the the Bill of Restrictions now?
You'd most certainly would fail the citizenship test, one that I took almost 30 years ago. But you'd be in good company, because the vast majority of US born citizen would as well.
4
@Thomas Those were all Democrats they interviewed on the Leno pieces.
Well, maybe not official Democrats since most 'young and dumb' progressives like to call themselves "Independent" for virtue signalling, but you get my drift.
I didn’t check all the citations but the one for most Republicans would support Christianity as an official state religion struck me as a dodgy.
Sure enough it’s a Democratic pollster (nothing wrong with that per se), has had its methodologies questioner by Nate Silver and sampled only 316 Republican PRIMARY voters. Pew samples about five times that according to their website. And of course the author doesn’t mention the point about sample being primary voters.
Please be more scrupulous about facts if you wish to persuade rather than incite.
6
@Terrence And pollsters are only allowed to call people on their land lines.
Guess who still has their landlines?
10
Small sample size is an issue for certain. But the fact that only primary voters were polled is less so, because primary voters represent a party’s base. They winnow a field of candidates to a few (or one). The GOP has been spectacularly successful in using Big Data to determine voting districts, leaving little two-party competition in many areas. (SCOTUS just deemed such extreme political gerrymandering constitutional.) In uncompetitive districts, candidates of the dominant party take extreme positions to appeal to the party base: primary voters. So while the extreme views of primary voters may not represent the majority of Republicans, their views skew who runs and who wins. And from political gerrymandering to hijacking Supreme Court seats, the GOP’s leadership has shown that even if it doesn’t agree with its most rabid adherents, it’s willing to harness their energy to gain permanent political power. If that isn’t anti-American, I don’t know what is.
3
@Erica Smythe actually they reached out to people who don’t have landlines if you read their press releases.
1
Mr. Egan touches on many concerns I share. As a student of American history, one thing I know is that we have never been perfect as a nation, whether it was slavery, the Alien and Sedution Act, or Prohibition. But as I look back upon our history, I cannot recall a time equal to this current Cult of Personality during which so many people either remained silent in the face of evil or simply adopted the evil policies. Most disappointing is our supine Congress, more interested in its preservation of power than any co-equal role of oversight. As we teeter on the precipice of engaging in war with Iran courtesy of specious reasoning from the Executive branch, I'm terrified about the future of this country. Sadly, it seems that very few of my fellow countrymen or women share these concerns or this awareness of history. Because of this, we will have four more years of the Orange Emperor.
55
@Sarah
“Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.” -Edmund Burke
That so many of today's Americans have so little knowledge of history is just scary. Our education system is sadly lacking, in comparison to what it was when I went through it, way back when.
Even the basics, like how our government works(or is supposed to), what's in the US Constitution, and our Bill of Rights, things immigrants must know to become a naturalized citizen, aren't common knowledge today. Fascism looms in the future.
12
@Sarah It won't be four more years, Sarah. Someone's missiles are going to rain on our heads, or someone's tanks are going to level our houses if we let him stay on.
2
@Sarah
Yes you are right, the Cult of Personality is horrifying. And yesterday’s speech on the Lincoln Memorial reminded me of the Film Triumph of Will -Nazi propaganda-Google it.
3
"such as taking away private health insurance from more than 150 million people"
Taking away private health insurance is like taking away private education.
The problem is, the public education system run by the government was based on a policy that was separate but not equal.
The government's policy today, on healthcare is to prevent a public alternative to the separate-but-not-equal options offered through the private sector that their policy coincidentally benefits. The government sends the citizen to the private sector for healthcare insurance without offering a balanced alternative and that hurts the citizen but benefits the health insurance industry.
Brown v Board of Ed overturned the government's policy of separate education because they were running unequal education systems. Today, the government is running an unequal healthcare insurance system by refusing to consider a public alternative. That is why either the government ends public subsidies for healthcare for all or changes that unequal distribution of the healthcare insurance we are already paying the private sector industry, whom they coddle. The private sector cannot be forced to provide healthcare for all, only for those who can afford it and it is an unacceptable public policy to force citizens to participate in a program of care that only the very poor, the very employed, or the very rich can afford. The whole nation needs it and the private companies aren't giving it away.
6
@Maxine and Max Let me ask you an honest question.
If you have private health insurance today where you've built up equity with your professional career to get these good benefits and have spent 30+ years establishing relationships with your doctors and hospitals...do you want to be thrown in the pool and have to do it all over again?
Because you know that you're not going to be first in line to choose your doctor anymore. That's not how this Socialist healthcare works.
Think of it this way.
You've spent a small fortune on getting your kid into the best private schools...and when that little girl of yours hits 5th grade..the government closes all private schools. You now have to send your little girl on a bus an hour away to a public school in the Bronx.
Would you be angry? Upset?
Or would you say that's merely the price of living in a civilized society where all the inequities in the world can be solved if we just have the right people in charge?
1
Thank you for writing this piece. One of the things that has troubled me most about the Trump presidency is that the GOP has just rolled over and largely capitulated to this petulant child-President.
We would be undone without the press, the courts and the people. But the people are key. We need people to vote and get involved!
Democrats have to stick together and gage the pulse of the nation. They need to put forth reasonable solutions to the problems that the middle class are concerned about: healthcare, gun control, the opioid crisis, student loan debt and the elephant in the room, climate change.
What gives me hope is that we have been here before (but perhaps not to this extent), and that the American ideals and institutions that we cherish will hold.
18
@Lourdes Brown
Unfortunately, Democrats don't seem to be able to do "reasonable" any more when it comes to solutions. Hubris is an equal opportunity failing.
3
@Lourdes Brown We didn't roll over. Most of us who voted for Trump did so vs. voting for Satan.
Most of us who voted for Trump did so while holding our noses.
You Democrats made voting for Trump a Faustian Bargain.
We put up 15 other candidates, 1/2 dozen of them very strong and we'll put up Nikki Haley (a woman of color) in 2024 when Trump is gone.
The bigger question is when are Democrats going to finally reconcile their complicity in getting Trump elected in 2016? I mean, how do you give a man who we didn't want as our candidate nearly $2 billion in free media coverage in the NYT, WaPo, MSNBC and elsewhere and not be held accountable for drowning every other candidate?
When people say the system is rigged, it is.
Your party thought you'd use Russian sourced intel to frame Trump...use the power of the CIA/NSA/FBI/DOJ to frame Trump...and use the Power of the Special Counsel to frame Trump...and you've still not accepted your culpability for any of this.
Unless and until you do...we'll keep holding our noses and support Trump.
You arguments hold no sway here.
The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can move on with your life and get beyond the grief you're still managing post 11/9/16.
Mr. Egan, your second paragraph is breathtakingly dishonest. What a disappointment!
Yes, most of the Democratic candidates are proposing deep changes in our dysfunctional healthcare system that will make it fairer, more efficient and universally available to all citizens regardless of wealth, as it already is in most developed countries, some far less wealthy than ours. Healthcare will become a right, as it is here in Italy.
Several of these proposals involve explicitly ending private health insurance at the same time a much better system (often called "medicare for all") is put in place. But most of the proposals involve a period of transition based on a "public option" that will offer better insurance than most existing private plans and at a much lower cost. So presumably, the current profit-based insurance system will be unable to compete with a non-profit system and will eventually wither away due to normal market forces. The most "moderate" of the Democratic proposals is to improve and expand Obama's ACA, no doubt involving heavy regulation of the private insurance industry. You make no mention of this. Why?
No Dem proposes simply "taking away private health insurance from more than 150 million people", as if it were Dem policy to make life hellish for Americans. All the Dems are trying to explain why universal healthcare would be much better than any profit-making insurance company can provide, while costing far less.
I'm sure you know all this. Shame on you.
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@David in Le Marche Doctors in Italy make about $140,000 a year.
Less than US Congressman/woman.
Most of the doctors in the U.S. have nearly $300,000 in student loan debt.
Your VAT and income taxes are sky high.
If we had 70% income taxes on everyone who paid income taxes, we could have free healthcare too.
Problem is..over 50% of Americans pay not a dime in Federal Income Tax.
We have more takers than makers, though factually many of those not paying taxes are retireees.
If we have poor people who need health insurance or healthcare, there are programs in place they can get healthcare. If we have states that haven't expanded Medicaid, we have programs in place (the interstate highway system and U-Haul) where people are free to move to another state where they can get free or subsidized healthcare.
If Italy would stop shipping over millions of barrels of fake olive oil..perhaps Americans could also begin to lose weight..which will drop our health care expenses by 20%.
You can take care of that..right?
2
@David in Le Marche
Well, what is Bernie Sanders proposing then if not to get rid of all private health insurance companies. Who's being dishonest here?
1
@David in Le Marche Did you watch the debates? There are a few democrats who propose doing away with all private health insurance. And, virtually all want to cover illegal immigrants, when millions of American still do not have coverage. This is a losing strategy for democrats and will only handle Trump and 4 years.
5
Tim Egan, will a political gut check about the awful presidency of Donald Trump make any difference in the outcome of the 2020 elections next year? Isn't a president who calls the press "the enemy of the people" worthy of impeachment?
Isn't the merging of church and state by the Republicans another indication of the clear and present danger in our trumpian times? Isn't a reality TV 4th of July show -- made by the President for his people -- another example of bread and circuses in the American empire?
Isn't it too late for the epicenter of American democracy to fall away from the Republicans and their stranglehold on our country?
E pluribus unum, or are all men not created equal? The answers to these questions may decide our future.
27
@Nan Socolow Most, if not all, of the founding fathers could read Latin, and many of them could read Greek and Hebrew. Those languages were part of the Liberal Arts curriculum as recently as my grandparents' college days, before 1910. The Founding Fathers' acquaintance with classics gave them a perspective on history that few if any modern politicians have. I'll bet you can't find a single Republican who has read Herodotus or Thucydides in translation, much less in the original.
5
@Nan Socolow Merging of church and state?
Why can't you just leave Christians alone?
why do you have to sue them?
They just want to live their lives as they want to live them..and as protected by the Bill of Rights? Why is that evil?
Used to be the Democrat Party had morality and values and integrity.
What happened?
@William Burgess Leavenworth
Correct, Mr. Leavenworth, about Liberal Arts Curricula in colleges last century and early in the 21st. Those of us who have been blessed with excellent educations in the classics, languages, history, literature and art, who have read Herodotus and Thucydides (in translation!), Pascal and Voltaire and Rousseau in the original, understand what is happening in our country today under a president who had no education and has no perspective on America and our experiment in Democracy. Perhaps there are Republicans who have read Herodotus in translation, but they're not in Congress and they're rare as hens' teeth. A fine education is the only thing that can't be taken away from us.
The fragility of democracy stems in part from the tension between it and our competitive culture. Americans love to win and tend to regard lack of success as a sign of personal weakness. But the survival of a free society requires the acceptance of electoral defeat as a verdict on one's political views, not one's character.
Americans also yearn to excel, to stand out from the crowd. Commitment to democracy, however, entails a belief that all citizens should enjoy equality before the law and the right to have their vote count the same as that of everybody else.
These ideals never entirely reflect reality, but our way of life could not survive in their absence. Yet powerful people have always faced the temptation to undermine these restraints on their political dominance. Trump and his minions differ from earlier skeptics of democracy primarily in the openness of their contempt for our system.
But their defiance of democratic norms would accomplish little if millions of Americans were not willing to endorse their authoritarian behavior in exchange for the illusion of dominance over vulnerable minorities. It is not simply the elites who chafe at the limitations imposed by a belief in freedom and equality for all.
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@James Lee We live in a Republic not a Democracy
Spot on, Mr. Egan. While President (shudder) Trump is the source of my new daily malaise, he is just the personification of his disturbingly large base. His ascension to the presidency vindicates and normalizes the beliefs of a swath of citizens that have eschewed the bedrock principles of our democracy, as you mention. However, we blame Mr. Trump because he is a single, simple target. These sentiments, shared by nearly half the populace, are the true menace to our ongoing survival. They are not something that can be voted out or impeached from office. When citizens do not share such fundamental principles, they no longer share a nation, despite geographical borders.
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@Michael Sapko
My statement to trump supporters:
We do not share a country;
we simply share a space.
You have lost the idea of America,
if you ever had it in the first place.
Don't tell me you want your country back.
That place of yours,
it never did exist;
I hope it never will.
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Keep in mind the cages were built during the Obama Presidency.
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@Joe Paper
They were built to deal short term with unaccompanied minors- teenagers. Toddlers were not taken from their mothers and locked up indefinitely.
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@Joe Pape But I thought Trump was the only one doing anything about the border? Which is it?
It’s time to leave
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We need writers and speakers who can make the value of our freedoms come alive. Who can speak in positives for the tough concepts of shared rights? Condemning currents trends is necessary, but not enough.
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Blame the 'USA!, USA!' - 'LOCK HER UP' - 'FINISH THE WALL' crowd.
Lots of people whose 'philosophy' needs to be reduced to jingoisms.
People who are too lazy to think.
If we've learned anything over the past three years, we've learned that no amount of nuttiness by this occupant of the White House will force them to reconsider their allegiance to him.
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I gag at today's Republican's, too (as say this as a former registered Republican).
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@mja Me too. I was a member of the Young Republicans in college. Now they promote nothing that used to be the Republican party, except perhaps low taxes. They are for sure the "No Nothing" party of the 21st century.
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Republican voters usually have these opinions because of ignorance & misinformation by right wing media. Politicians & media figures, on the other hand, have these opinions because it earns them money & power. They are not, in case you haven’t noticed, susceptible to argument or discussion. And they are very close to arranging it so that they aren’t susceptible to democratic oversight.
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The smoke is so thick I can’t see a thing. Oh, that’s the plan! While we sit around kvetching about how horrible these people are the wealthy and powerful continue to manipulate a corrupt, and growing more so, system to benefit themselves. There are no immigration camps in Malibu or Aspen. Can’t see the camps from my mansion...As John Perry Barlow wrote “and the rich man in his summer home, singing just leave well enough alone” we must become more diligent and action oriented in our response to this terrifying mess playing out in the darkest of dark places. Get involved. Make some noise and challenge the new normal that we are all growing much to used to.
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It is so ironic, the contradictions that these 21st century “Know Nothings” and their narcissist boy king espouse on a daily basis.
-They claim to love the Constitution yet trample on the 1st Amendment and misread the very first sentence of the 2nd.
-The create laws defending the fetus as a sacred human life, yet literally laugh at the sight of babies and children being imprisoned and mistreated at our borders.
-They cheer and get in a frenzy over signs of our military might, yet support isolationist policies that have virtually surrendered our role as global leader of the free world.
-They drape themselves in flag attire and sing songs about freedom, yet cheer on a president who openly cavorts with dictators including the one who illegally interferes in our elections.
I could go on for pages but suffice to say that history will be no more kind to this group of know nothing’s than it has been to the party of that name from the 1850’s. I just hope we do not need to go through the same type of tragic struggle as we did back then to end this current political nightmare.
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Yes. Today's Know Nothing Republicans remind me more of the Romans than the Christians in the big arena. Cold to the touch they seek some TV reality that never existed outside of Ozzie and Harriet. White bread with mayonnaise is their steady diet cooked up by Fox News and ginned up by Trump "news". Honestly, has anyone ever seen a bigger non-Christian than Mike Pence? Whomever wants his America wants noting American at all.
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Good to know columnists like Mr. Egan are doing their part to sharpen the hyper-partisan spears now carried by many Americans. As Southerner whose uncles helped liberate Europe and whose relatives fought in the Gulf wars, I was stunned to see this sentence actually appear in a newspaper of this caliber: "Southerners, the deepest, most anti-American part of Trump’s base, with the DNA of Civil War traitors still coursing through the region ..." Is the writer unaware that he is exhibiting -- in a very powerful publication -- the same sort of Anti-Americanism of which he accuses his fellow Americans?
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@John Jabo
The writer is describing a divided America, in which both sides of the old North/South conflict continue to regard their vision of America in opposition to the other side's.
In other words Americans on either side of our conflicted history feel the other side is "anti-American". Republicans began exploiting racist fears with their "Southern Strategy" in the Goldwater and Nixon campaigns of the middle 1960's, which has lead to the current hyper-partisan social and political climate.
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@Reed Erskine All fair points and fine to be critical of the South and the continuing ideology of the Confederacy and white supremacy but ‘the DNA of Civil War traitors coursing through the region’ is inflammatory, offensive, and undermines the piece. Like @JohnJabo, generations of my Southern family have fought - and died - for this country, including in WWI, WWII, and Vietnam. Egan’s turn-of-phrase does nothing except cause Trump-loathing liberals such as my self to waste time trying to explain why this offensive in no way helps his argument.
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@John Jabo
What do you think, though, that the Confederate flag symbolizes when embraced by a certain type of Trump voter? Egan overgeneralized, granted. But there is something to what he says in that sentence.
3
Do Trump and his band of sycophants hold nothing sacred? Republicans are as scared to death of Trump as he is of Putin. If Trump is destroying the fabric of this country in the 2+ years he's in office, if he's reelected we will become a barren wasteland of greed and corruption.
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@nzierler We already seem to be that wasteland of greed and corruption. See it every day. We are under its tyranny.
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Well written all around. Trump is the greatest threat to our democracy since the Civil War, albeit not nearly as grave as what Lincoln faced.
So far we don't have a shooting Civil War with 600,000+ dead with slavery.
However, also we don't have a Lincoln to lead us out of the situation we are in now.
The democrats who should lead us out are a circular firing squad, debating which one is more pure on identity obsession, social engineering, zealotry on liberal issues etc. etc.
As the old starkist ad went, sorry Charlie people want tunas that taste good not tunas with good taste.
In other words the people want leaders who can give them moderate progressive answers to issues that Trump demagogued like immigration, health insurance, trade, etc.
A perfect example of this and number one on the list is a national, universal, affordable health care system that the rest of our peer countries have, not a totally socialist one without private insurance. When done right gov't and private industry can work together. It is the most efficient way on issues involving life and death.
Another would be spirit of Roe not abortion on demand etc. etc.
So far the leader is Biden, but it could be anybody white, black, male, female, young, old who follows in his moderate progressive path.
If we nominate somebody like him we have an excellent chance of taking all three branches, if we nominate another Hillary type, we could lose everything again.
4
Well done. The Founders would hate this government and would not only hate Trump but also the GOP toadies that refuse to think for themselves. We are in a thoroughly depressing time in American politics, yet people are constantly forced to look for the bright side of Trumpism because there seems to be no way to get rid of this fool. The Democrats refuse to govern from the center and Fox News refuses to use evidence-based reporting, brainwashing 40% of the electorate that is too stupid to understand they are getting played. Worst of all, the GOP refuses to have a collective conscious and the guts to knock the dictator from his perch.
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I think it is a sure bet that new immigrants to this country know more about our constitution than the rural voters that form the core of Trump supporters. If you gave the citizenship test to the screaming and yelling Trump supporters decked out in red, white, and blue at a Trump rally they would fail miserably. These FOX watchers of people like Hannity and Levin, who claim to carry copies of the Constitution in their pockets, and who babble on endlessly about its virtues seem to a preaching to a completely clueless and ignorant crowd. Just like Trump's 4th celebration it is all pomp and circumstances with no understanding of the virtues of this country and its Constitution.
19
I think you are correct, Mr Egan, to ascribe most of these characteristics to “the cult of Trump”.
The anti-immigrant sentiment was growing in the GOP only since the early 2000s, but only Trump stoked it into a kind of blind hate, with clear tones of racism.
The religious nationalism had been growing since the merging of the GOP and white Christian evangelicalism (especially in the South, as you point out) since 1980. But only Trump had the arrogance to offer himself as a Savior at the very moment the religious nationalists were looking for a divine Strongman.
Once sealed, this identity of Trump with the ethno-religious nationalism of the current GOP/white conservative evangelicalism is complete. There is no distinction between them.
The cult-like bond is complete and was on show, for example last night. Religious imagery in music, national power and identity, a white (predominant) audience, were there to stand to attention before the power and might of Trump and his mighty armed forces, so great he blocks out even Lincoln in the shadows, using the marble of his Lincoln’s memorial for Trump’s glory.
Martin Luther said: your god is what you fear, love, and trust above all things. His point of course was that, for persons of faith, only GOD is God.
I see fear, love, and trust, and it is aimed at Trump—above all things. It really is a cult.
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Current Occupant is riding roughshod over the Constitution simply because he doesn’t know what’s in it, not does he care. The millions who believe he walks on water are in the same boat, which is precisely why he was elected.
When the garden isn’t tended, weeds take over. The noxious weed of Constitutional ignorance infecting the trump party will be with us long after he’s gone. If we are to regain our democracy, if we truly believe in the rule of law and the essence of a democratic republic created by our founders, we must begin again teaching it in our schools. It should be our instruction manual for citizenship. We wouldn’t dare let someone behind the wheel of a car on the road without the proper training. And yet tens of millions are allowed to vote without a clue as to what exactly they’re voting for. That certainly was the case in 2016.
19
Democracy is gone and has been gone for a while now. Reagan at fault so is W. and his cronies. Just listen to Steve Carell depicting Don Rumsfeld in the movie Vice when the young Cheney asked his protege: what do we believe in.
So long democracy. Hello autocracy.
7
Let‘s not let film or movies depict our Constitution or it’s current officeholders for us...perhaps reading the Constitution rather than watching film should be a priority amongst concerned Americans? I do not mean this sarcastically. No one except a few lawyers and most immigrants seem to know what is in it at this point. Who is standing up to the rest of the GOP? The son of an immigrant. I am not endorsing the man, but that in these times is a profile in courage.
It was the New York Daily News a couple of years ago that addressed his malignant narcissism personality disorder mental illness. From what I've read, he exhibits every symptom, and it's an incurable disease. There's far too much reporting and hand wringing over his actions and those of his willing enablers and not enough about his mental instability that threatens our nation and the world.
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The Founding Fathers were against Christianity, or any religion, becoming embedded in the nation's character. So, they were rather speciic and fought for religious freedom and the separation of church and state. They had seen the history of Christian governments and the pain and havoc wrought by warring factions of Christianity. So, God, Jesus Christ, and Christianity are not stated once in the Constitution and "it is clearly done so on purpose."
John Adams: "The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." Paine considered the Bible, the "word of a demon." Washington mostly avoided Protestant services, and spoke in the language of the Deists. Jefferson is famous for his own bible, tearing out pages from the 2nd Testament, discarding some and using others. He disdained Christianity. No, the Fathers were definitely against a national religion.
Go tell that to my Trump- advocate, evangelical, white, male friend. When asked about guns, he touts the 2nd Amendment. But, we're not carrying muskets and where is the "well regulated militia" I ask? and receive silence. Also add that we do have a National Guard, just not carrying muskets. Well, what about the electoral college, why don't you want to see a president elected by the popular vote, I continue. Because the FF's didn't want that, is his return. Yeah, you just can't win with a Trump lover. Really!!
56
A well regulated militia referred to regulation of private militias in the context of the time.
Yes, all those negatives and more, but one thing they are good at is how to win elections even though a minority.
11
@eclectico Thanks to Citizens United and gerrymandering now approved by the Supreme Court.
@eclectico more like good at stealing elections through voter suppression, gerrymandering and possibly worse - through Russian assistance. The word "good" does not describe these people in any way.
Why weren't there many, many, millions of Americans demonstrating their resistance on the 4th of July? What are we waiting for?
12
Funny, I thought of the very same quote from Lincoln on the Know-Nothings, and the next sentence follows Mr. Egan's:
"When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy."
And here we have our very own Russia loving despot, home grown on American soil, but made possible by an actual Russian despot, and cheered on madly by the Know-Nothing party, circa 2019. And again, a country torn apart, teetering on another un-civil war.
Oh the sad, sad, sickening irony.
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@Deb
Thank you so much for that quote from Abraham Lincoln.
We need wisdom and contact with great minds from our nation‘s history during this confusing and dark chapter.
1
Trump's policies toward immigrants, people of color especially, are cruel.(Cages, CBP personnel mocking those seeking asylum, etc.). The cruelty is the point. Cruelty is the deterrent to future asylum seekers. No toothpaste, no soap, no running water, no safe drinking water, no comfortable spaces. Trump's supporters get some satisfaction when learning of these conditions, I suspect.
6
Maybe it’s the feeling that “if it’s good enough for them (having none or little toothpaste, soap, running water, or safe drinking water) it’s good enough for THEM (the other....)
I agree that some positions taken by some republicans are dodgy. I will even admit that Mr. Trump is a crass fellow. You would think that in this environment the Democrats would go back to basics and give us a candidate that appeals to all of "we the people".
So what have we got from this party for whom power is there for the taking? Open borders. Open ended promises of support for people who are here illegally. Ever encroaching spread of the central government's intrusion into our lives. No end to the size of government. Disarmament of the people. Ignoring the intrusions into our privacy by NSA/CIA and may I add Google and Facebook. A party bought and paid for by business and big donors. Candidates that quote murderers like Che and mouth socialist platitudes. Nary a mention of the threat that China poses. Nary a mention of policies that have driven jobs off shore. Nary a mention of the opioid epidemic or the final dissolution of the Black nuclear family with the attendant crime and poverty that that engenders. No, they talk of restitution and the terrible oppression of the trans community while America watches their antics slack jawed, hoping against vain hope that an adult will enter the room.
Candidates that mouth leftist platitudes without qualm or question. The most elite of our society talking about things that they have no knowledge of. Whose children go to the most elite schools.
And you wonder if Trump is going to get reelected?
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I would disagree with much of what you say. many of the democratic candidates are supporting things like universal health care which seems to be defined as a celebration of socialism. well how do you get to universal health care. it takes the support of government to get there. clearly what we have now has not succeeded. so define it as socialism and demonizes. This is also true with Human Rights. Democrats believe we should see all people as human beings with needs and dignity, but that gets turned into open borders. Another misrepresentation. And on the environment it will take government intervention to act on dealing with climate change call this the growth of government if you wish but who else is going to act on this. Trump who denies it exists. The Republicans who deny that it exists. Climate change is the biggest legacy we will leave and we are failing in dealing with this, but suggest regulations to deal with it and then we are socialists and killers of jobs. So frame your arguement how you want but intervention and actions by governments do not have to be or by definition bad.It is time to look beyond thin definitions to see what is being said. Happy 4th.
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Democrats are not suggesting open borders, they are suggesting an economy that works for everyone and not just the chosen few; universal healthcare; a legal path to immigration; a plan to save the planet. For heaven sake, listen to what these Democratic candidates are saying.
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@Michael James Cobb, you say "A party bought and paid for by business and big donors." Yes, the GOP with Koch money and Mercer money, and billions from sources we can't trace due to Citizens United, brought to you by our Republican Supreme Court.
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"Embrace foreign allies and entanglements that will keep thousands of Americans protecting the freedoms of foreigners indefinitely, at Americans expense"
-NOT George Washington, who counseled the exact opposite of the foreign policy "elite" who have led Americans into decades-long wars that Trump has rightly shunned.
And what did Lincoln implement once the free-trade Southerners had left? Oh, right, implement tariffs to benefit American industry and raise revenue. Also, please provide a source for Hamilton's (non-existent) open-borders pronouncements.
These comically hysterical and utterly predictable pronouncements by inevitably liberal writers who accuse entire regions of being "anti-American" while espousing the opposite of what the founding fathers stood for are as stale as last years hot dog buns. All of the founders, and Lincoln, believed in the sovereignty of the nation-state.
It would be nice if a single 2020 Democrat did.
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The purity test instituted by Sanders -- universal health care while taking away private health insurance -- will fade just as Sanders himself is fading.
Buttigieg has been speaking more reasonably on this from the start, and at this point we can be confident that he will continue to do so. Other Democratic candidates in the top tier should be listening. 'Smart' is its own kind of exciting.
The problem lies with the idea that trump has to be met with someone "strong" enough to face him -- putting it on the level of an over-the-top wresting match with the bad boy himself.
trump is NOT "strong," except for those who think this is about mud-wrestling and trash talk.
Talk sense, and don't fade in the face of trump's childishness.
The benefit of Harris' "moment" in the last debate was that she took an obvious shot that Biden should have anticipated, and he wobbled badly.
It was a revealing moment, and not about busing (Harris is already recalibrating).
The better part of America remembers what America is about.
8
Trump has wreaked so much havoc domestically and with our allies that it has become embarrassing to say I'm an American. I fear for the worst if Trump wins a second term, because he would then have a carte blanche to destroy what's left of our country.
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Taking healthcare away from 150 million Americans.
How can anything in your piece be believed when you start it with a lie?
Getting rid of the Greed filled insurance industry is not taking healthcare away .
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By pointedly calling out the South and its traitorous heritage based on white supremacy, the author follows the time honored concept of Occam’s Razor. As a proud descendant of those who fought in the Union Army to eradicate the noxious weed that sapped our country’s strength from the beginning, I believe it is time to once again stand up against bigotry, plutocracy and unearned privilege in all its malevolent forms. Has the country evolved enough to do it non-violently? Time will tell.
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