Ben Adler at The Guardian says in Want to discredit Donald Trump? Show his base he's part of the elite that Democrats are missing the boat in the manner they are criticizing the president-elect and should shift gears:
Like Karl Rove’s fiendishly brilliant decision to attack John Kerry’s heroic war service during the 2004 campaign, Democrats should go after their opponent’s strength. He won the crucial Rust Belt states by being perceived as an outsider, an agent of change and a friend of blue-collar white people between the coasts.
Democrats must expose Trump for what he really is: a self-dealing political profiteer and a tool of the business and political elite.
Trump is making that job easy by nominating generic establishment Republicans and Wall Street insiders to fill his White House and using his meetings with foreign dignitaries to pressure them for favorable treatment of his businesses. If Democrats are to gain anything from Trump’s abandonment of his campaign promises to oust the establishment and clean up the capital, they need to develop and repeat a negative narrative about Trump.
Robert Borosage at The Nation has a similar point of view in— How to Expose Trump’s Dastardly Bait-and-Switch:
Donald Trump is a masterful con man, and his presidency will be a bait-and-switch of epic proportions. He will, on one hand, appeal to the populist temper of the time—as he did this week with his “thank you tour”—and with stunts, as he did with the Carrier deal or his series of tweets purporting to hold Boeing to account for overcharging the Air Force. [...]
To expose the bait-and-switch on the economy, it will be vital to follow the money, and expose the corruptions and the lies. Challenging Trump’s appointments will provide the first opportunity to pierce the veil.
Fierce opposition is needed, not simply defense. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi claimed, “I don’t think people want a new direction.” That is wrong. The question is: What side are you on? Who will fight for changes that make this economy work for working people? More of the same is not an answer.
The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber III at The Nation writes— North Carolina: A Case Study for Resistance in the Trump Era:
When McCrory became governor-elect four years ago, I sat down with him to discuss the 14-point moral agenda that a broad coalition of justice organizations had committed to pursue together in this state, which went for Barack Obama in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. We knew well that the expansion of voting rights we had won in the 2007 legislative session was under attack by Republican strategists in North Carolina and beyond. They had invested millions in state legislative races in 2010 in order to regain control and gerrymander voting districts to “crack and pack” our coalition of voters. Only by securing all three branches of government could they complete the makeover of North Carolina they had promised (a set of promises that were echoed by the Trump campaign this year).
McCrory’s broad smile echoed his optimism when he talked about getting North Carolina’s economy working again. Celebrated as a moderate mayor in Charlotte, our state’s largest city, McCrory was glad to sit and listen to our concerns. “I’ll meet with you once a month if you will promise not to criticize this administration in public,” McCrory told me. Politics, he believed, was the art of negotiating deals in private. But we had already learned what every American must understand in the coming Trump years: Democracy depends on everyday people standing together in public, refusing to be divided by those who refuse to serve the common good.
Jill Abramson at The Guardian writes—Hillary Clinton conspiracy theories are a generation in the making:
Let’s return to David Bossie, the man who sparked the Harvard “cat-fight.” After Bill Clinton won the presidency, Bossie became one of the biggest floggers of the pseudo scandals that enveloped Bill and Hillary while they were in the White House. In 2008, his anti-Hillary “documentary” sparked the Citizens United case in the US supreme court that gutted the country’s campaign finance laws. Before joining the Trump campaign as Bannon’s deputy, Bossie was head of Citizens United. Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post, who has covered Bossie for as long as I have, calls him “The Captain Ahab of Clinton-haters.” At long last, he killed the whale.
Bossie, of course, couldn’t kill alone. He had a band of co-conspirators from an anti-Clinton machine that has been fortified by hundreds of millions of dollars of dark money over the past generation. As First Lady, Clinton was ridiculed and vilified for calling this “a vast right-wing conspiracy,” but she was right.
The activists, groups, think tanks and nonprofit “charities” that made hay over the petty controversies that dogged her had already succeeded in driving up her negative trust and honesty numbers well before the 2016 campaign. The garden was already planted; all Donald Trump needed to do is water it with his chants of “Crooked Hillary.”
E.J. Dionne Jr. at The Washington Post writes—America will soon be ruled by a minority:
he first problem is the electoral college. On only three occasions from the first presidential election in 1788 through 1996 did the loser of the popular vote become president. Two were unusual contests: 1824, when four candidates split the electoral votes; and 1876, when the returns from three Southern states were disputed, a special “Electoral Commission” was formed, and a deal was arranged to make Rutherford B. Hayes president. Benjamin Harrison’s election in 1888 was a more standard affair; his popular vote deficit to incumbent Grover Cleveland was modest, 89,293 votes (0.8 percent).
But the pace of anti-democratic outcomes is picking up. Since 2000, the loser of the popular vote has “won” two elections. George W. Bush became president in 2001 after losing the popular vote to Al Gore by 543,895. And this year came what ought to be — but, alas, won’t be — the result that should concentrate everyone’s attention on the dysfunction of our electoral rules. Hillary Clinton leads in the popular vote count by 2.7 million (2 percent), and her advantage is likely to grow. But Donald Trump is becoming our president.
The inherent illogic of our practices, and the fact that they have nothing to do with the founders’ intentions,is underscored by this contradiction: We are supposed to ignore the national popular vote but deeply respect Trump’s narrow 77,000 popular-vote advantage in the three states that will tip the electoral college his way.
Amanda Marcotte at Salon writes—Destroying Roe v. Wade: Ohio’s “unconscionable” Heartbeat Bill is “designed to punish women”
President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail that he would help criminalize abortion. In his postelection interview with Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes,” Trump doubled down, promising to appoint Supreme Court judges who will vote against abortion rights.
Well, Ohio Republicans clearly believe him and are downright excited about it — so much so that state legislators in both houses used the last few days of the lame duck session to pass a bill banning abortion after the embryo begins pumping blood, at about six weeks of pregnancy. It’s called the “Heartbeat Bill,” but that’s a bit of misnomer, since the circulatory system of an embryo that early in a pregnancy hasn’t really developed what most of us recognize as a proper heart.
Now the abortion ban is headed to the desk of John Kasich, Ohio’s governor and former Republican presidential candidate. Kasich is a hard-line opponent of abortion rights and takes a dim view of women’s health care generally. Since 2011, he has waged all-out war on abortion access, using backdoor regulatory schemes to shut down half of the state’s abortion clinics.
Proponents claim that the bill isn’t an outright abortion ban, but for most women, it might as well be.
Charles M. Blow at The New York Times writes—Trump: Madman of the Year:
So, Time magazine, ever in search of buzz, this week named Donald Trump Person of the Year. But they did so with a headline that read, “President of the Divided States of America.”
The demi-fascist of Fifth Avenue wasn’t flattered by that wording.
In an interview with the “Today” show, Trump huffed, “When you say divided states of America, I didn’t divide them. They’re divided now.” He added later, “I think putting divided is snarky, but again, it’s divided. I’m not president yet. So I didn’t do anything to divide.”
Donald, thy name is division. You and your campaign of toxicity and intolerance have not only divided this country but also ripped it to tatters. [...]
That is our challenge: To see clearly what this deceiver wants to obscure; to be resolute about that to which he wants us to be resigned; to understand that Time’s man of the year is, by words and deeds, more of a madman of the year.
Robert Reich at TruthDig writes—The Art of the Trump Deal Is to Use Sticks and Carrots to Get Big Corporations to Do What He Wants:
The art of the Trump deal is to use sticks (public criticism) and carrots (public commendation plus government sweeteners) to get big corporations to do what Trump wants them to do.
This isn’t public policy making. It’s not about changing market incentives. It has nothing to do with lawmaking. It’s a drop in the bucket in terms of jobs.
In reality, it’s the arbitrary and capricious use of personal power – hitting stock prices and turning public opinion against companies Trump doesn’t like, and raising stock prices and public opinion toward companies Trump does like.
Don’t be fooled into thinking Trump is being guided by anything other than his own random, autocratic whims. He could have attacked or lauded any one of thousands of big companies that are creating American jobs, or creating jobs abroad, or charging the government too much for their products.
This is the work of a despot who wants corporate America (and everyone else) to kiss his derriere.
Brian Beutler at The New Republic writes—Democrats, Don’t Repeat Obama’s Biggest Mistake:
In the early days of their House majority, Republicans set arbitrary terms for raising the debt limit that Obama was under no obligation to accept. With the so-called “Boehner Rule,” named after then–House Speaker John Boehner, Republicans insisted they would only increase the debt limit by as much as Obama agreed to cut in federal spending. Obama could have told House Republicans to stuff it—that he would not negotiate with hostage takers, especially over something as solemn as the validity of U.S. debt. He also could have rejected their terms, but countered with new ones: that the debt limit gets raised no matter what, but he’d happily use mutually agreeable legislation as a vehicle for increasing it.
Instead, he let the Republican terms stand basically unchallenged, and they mugged him.
We are still living through the repercussions of that horrible decision, but at least Obama learned from it. [...]
Republicans reportedly are coalescing around a plan to streamline legislation that would defund the Affordable Care Act in two or three years’ time—creating a cliff, past which millions of Americans will fall back into the ranks of the uninsured. If this is true, it will be vital for Democrats to remember the lessons of 2011. Indeed, as Democrats transition into a national opposition party and attempt to save Obama’s signature achievement, it will be more important than ever not to repeat his original mistake.
David Moberg at In These Times writes—More Than 6 Million Americans Who Want Full-Time Jobs Are Stuck Working Part-Time:
The recovery from the Great Recession has been long, slow and steady. But it has also contributed unexpectedly to an increase in involuntary part-time work, which needs new regulation to protect workers from abuse, according to a new study released this week by the Economic Policy Institute.
Author Lonnie Golden finds that voluntary part-time work has remained more or less stable since 2007, around the start of the recession. But involuntary part-time work has increased by about 18 times the rate of growth of all work, and five times faster than part-time work. Currently, some 6.4 million Americans who want full-time jobs are stuck working part-time hours, according to Golden.
“The increase is almost entirely due to the inability of workers to find full-time jobs, leaving many workers to take or keep lower-paying jobs with less consistent hours to make ends meet,” he says. “In several industries, relying more on part-time work seems to have become the ‘new normal.’”
Martin Longman at the Washington Monthly writes—The Right’s War on Unions Will Finish Us Off:
The Republicans never have been a friend to miners, and they’re only perceived that way right now because the entire industry is collapsing and the GOP says that they can do something about it. At some point, it’s going to become clear that destroying unions and devouring pensions is what’s really on the Trump menu.
But disillusionment will only go so far if these communities perceive that the Democratic Party has written them off, doesn’t care about or even like them, and doesn’t respect their culture or way of life. Unions have traditionally been the way that the Democratic Party has been wedded to these communities politically and culturally, and when they collapse, a lot more collapses with it.
This is a political problem that progressives need to see as existential. And the neoliberal or New Democrat or academic Democrats who serve in affluent lightly unionized suburbs and college towns needs to understand that they can’t afford to treat the Labor Movement as some intellectual policy debate.
It seems to me like the Republicans knew exactly what they hoped to achieve by weakening unions, and it went far beyond making the industrial bosses happy. It was how they planned to destroy the left.
Somehow, we allowed ourselves to ignore what was happening and instead have debates about the bureaucratic smugness of public sector unions or the rigidness of education unions or the supposedly unreasonable demands of auto workers.