Last Friday, former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau interviewed Marianne Williamson on his podcast, Pod Save America. Among other things, Marianne told him that "there are two kinds of Democrats, aren’t there? And that’s being played out in this campaign. There are two categories here. The two categories is the incrementalist who say we can have it both ways. We can take [corporate] money. We can take tens of thousands from some security investment firms. We can take tens of thousand from Big Pharma. We can take tens or even more thousands from oil companies, but we’re going to go and be an instrument of change. Yeah, right. There’s that, and they’re saying well, we’ll make these incremental changes and then there are those of us who say this has got to stop. We need a fundamental pattern disruption of the American political and economic status quo."A fundamental pattern disruption isn't something you could have a serious talk with candidates like Delaney, Biden or Frackenlooper about. That's not what they're aiming for. Each would like to hold onto a status quo that has worked well for them-- but get it a little better... a very little better. That's why the 3 of them oppose Medicare-For-All and the Green New Deal, for example. It's why the three of them would have opposed the American Revolution and might have suggested that the tax on tea be reduced and that the colonies have a voting member or two sitting in Parliament. And Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Beto, Kirsten Gillibrand, McKinsey Pete, Amy Klobuchar, Tim Ryan... you don't think any of them are agents of change, do you? Fundamental pattern disruptors? No.Last week, Common Dreams published a piece by Thom Hartmann, If Democrats Want to Beat Trump, They Better Not Nominate a ‘Free Trade’ Candidate, warning that nominating a candidate like Biden-- let alone dreck like Delaney or Hickenlooper-- would lead to catastrophe. He reminded his readers that when establishment Democrat, Walter Mondale "was nominated by the Democratic Party to take on Ronald Reagan in 1984, he uttered, in his acceptance speech, a single line that did more than anything else that year to lose him the election. He said, 'Mr. Reagan will raise taxes and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.'"
The Republicans turned it into a campaign ad, and it played over and again, dragging Mondale so far down that he lost every state in the country except his home state of Minnesota.What Mondale said was true, and Reagan did raise taxes on working people-- eleven times-- but that was still the moment when Mondale signed his own political death warrant. Americans had been bitten badly in the previous decade by inflation and the Reagan Recession, and were in no mood to give more of their hard-earned money to the government or anybody else.In 2020, trade will be as potent an issue as taxes were in 1984.This election cycle, it’s starting to look like Democrats are about to make the same mistake of not defending the paychecks of working people. Only this time, the Democratic quote will be, “Trump won’t succeed in bringing home your jobs, but neither will I because I support all of the trade agreements that took your jobs in the first place.”
Again, Status Quo Joe Biden, Frackenlooper, Delaney are all for the kinds of horrendous free trade deals that have been so destructive. And they're not the only ones. In 2015, the Senate passed the Trade Act of 2015, which included Trade Promotion Authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership with 48 Republicans and 14 Democrats. Among the current candidates for president, Michael Bennet voted yes and Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand voted no. It passed the House very narrowly-- 219-211-- with 191 Republicans and 28 Democrats voting for it. Delaney and Beto voted yes. Swalwell, Ryan, Tulsi and Moulton voted against it. There was another vote-- which failed-- on TAA, for which just 40 corporate Dems, lead by Hoyer, voted. The culprits included the two ardent "free" traders running for president today who were in the House then, Delaney and Bonnie Beto. biden, of course, has been for almost every bad trade bill ever written, especially favored nation status for China, NAFTA and TPP.Hartmann concluded by writing that "Progressive Democrats have been pushing for a return to Jefferson-until-Carter protectionist policies ever since Bill Clinton split apart the party over the issue with his advocacy of NAFTA in the 1992 election. If the Democrats want to beat Trump, they need to get with the progressives’ trade program in a big, strong, and fast way. Democrats must point out that Trump is doing protectionism wrong because he’s doing his tariffs by executive order, which only last as long as his administration does; no company is going to build a factory based on that thin assurance. (And the anti-tariff Republican Party will never pass such a policy; Trump is screwed in that regard.) Congress should be negotiating our trade agreements in the open and passing them as solid, long-lasting legislation, so companies have multi-decade horizons of tariff protections; Democrats need to return the party to its past mission of putting American workers and the environment first. But if the Democrats promote 'free trade' in 2020, get ready for four more years of Donald Trump gloating at us all from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 'I’m for free trade,' if it becomes the party’s mantra, will be the 2020 version of Mondale’s 'I’m going to raise your taxes.'"Meanwhile, there's another piece to fundamental pattern disruption that we need to keep foremost in our minds this cycle-- Congress. Electing more New Dems and more Blue Dogs, like electing more Republicans, makes things worse, not better. We've talked endlessly about how Cheri Bustos, Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi are fighting like mad dogs to protect Dan Lipinski who is anti-immigrant, anti-Choice, anti-LGBTQ, anti-worker and pro-NRA. That's your Democratic Establishment. Don't trust them, don't believe them, don't support them and don't give them any money. A contribution to someone like Dan Lipinski is going to do you as much good as a contribution to McTurtle would. Which reminds me... On Sunday, Will Bunch penned an important McTurtle piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Mitch McConnell’s Democracy-Crushing Smirk Is Why Just Getting Rid Of Trump Isn’t Enough. Biden never talks about why getting rid of Trump isn't enough-- because it might make someone wonder what he stands for-- but both Bernie and Elizabeth Warren are basing their campaigns on it.What Bunch was writing about is completely in line with hat Blue America is all about. "It’s pointless to ask 'why' about Mitch McConnell," he wrote. "The only question that matters going into 2020 is 'how'-- How can McConnell be stopped? In the long term, his rise and his unholy reign pose hard questions about the very nature of American democracy and its foundation-- whether the constitutional checks and balances of a Senate that gives citizens in Wyoming so much more power than their fellow Americans in California makes sense in today’s world. But McConnell’s assault on democracy can also be stopped in the short run. For starters, the Senate majority leader is up for reelection in 2020, and even if you don’t live or vote in Kentucky, any American can donate or volunteer to help his election opponents. But even if that falls short, Democrats can end McConnell’s reign as leader-- and make sure he’s not thwarting the replacements for aging Supreme Court justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Stephen Breyer-- with a net gain of three or four Senate seats."
For anyone who cares about keeping liberty alive, beating McConnell next year is every bit as important as beating Trump. That’s why it’s so frustrating that the elites of the Democratic Party don’t seem to get it. Rather than making a reclamation of the Senate the national moral crusade that it needs to be, the allure of the Trumpian reality show has sucked the top tier of potential candidates-- Beto O’Rourke and Julian Castro of Texas, Steve Bullock of Montana and Stacey Abrams of Georgia-- into the presidential race or related pursuits. Vanity and shortsightedness could leave a President Warren or Harris or Biden one vote short in 2021 of the progress that their voters demanded.The only good news is that the 2020 general election is still 16 months away-- plenty of time for the Democrats and concerned voters to shift gears, make the Senate a priority, keep liberty alive... and wipe the smirk off Mitch McConnell’s face.
