This article is not going to be about Donald Trump. That would be the stupidity of a monster. This article is about Jimmy Dore.
I watch the Young Turks regularly and I find myself normally in agreement with Cenk Uygur. Dore is a different story altogether though. I find his dishonesty disgusting because the mistake of people like him has helped destroying the lives of thousands of Muslims and Mexicans and this clown doesn’t have at least the honesty of admitting such colossal screwed up. He represents the worst of the Cool Protestors. And his repeated attacks against Rachel Maddow have moved me to write this short entry.
After it was clear that Assange’s October bomb was not going to drain support from Clinton and passed it exclusively to Crazy Stein, that she was not going to jump from 2% to 50%, and that their naughty plan was going to bring us Trump as president, a reincarnation of the worst of the worst of the Far Right, instead, Dore was not even hesitant when asked about infantile scenario. That had been the right thing to do from the very beginning and the Cool Protestors’ little dance was going to give us a Crazy Stein’s administration… somehow.
In debates with Uygur about the fate of immigrants under the administration of this monster, Dore, astonishingly, adamantly insisted that immigrants have been worst under Obama that they were going to be under Trump… somehow. Denying reality was, no surprise, his reaction. Then he mocked Maddow for the two pages of Trump’s tax return that she presented in her show, even though they show how much Trump would have paid without an Alternative Minimum Tax. And then he kept attacking Maddow for her coverage of the connections between Trump’s campaign and Putin. According to this clown, inquiring about this issue made her a war-monger who was calling for war with Russia (!)
Let’s have something clear here. It’s true that Maddow has centered her coverage on the Russia issue. It’s true that Russia is not going to be a winning issue in 2018. And it’s true that we need more debate about health care and income inequality, the way Bernie has done in West Virginia and other states. I am not going to address again the role that different constituencies may play in helping a Bernie-Warren ticket push against the Democratic establishment and reach victory. I am going to address here the importance of the Russia issue.
Trump tapped, as his base, a group (probably 15% of the population) that was so bigoted that even the Republican Party was too soft for them. They had been dormant for a long time. And that’s were Trump found his niche. Of course, to please that group he would have to lose whatever is left of moderate Republicans but that was his base and with them he won the primaries. Yet, as significant as this group could be to win the primaries, it was clearly insufficient to win the general elections. So he tapped mainly to the discontent of the rust belt, neglected by the economic policies of both Republicans and Democrats.
That's how the monster won. Now, so far practically the only Trump’s policies we have seen in 3D are his anti-immigrant policies. Of course, he has to destroy the lives of Muslims and Mexicans by the thousands to please his base, otherwise the Republican establishment would move forward the day when it passed him the bill for his disruptions. But the voters in West Virginia and the Rust Belt states are not motivated by the destruction of Mexicans and Muslims but by the promises of jobs. So as time shows how empty Trump’s promises were, they will begin to abandon him. Right? Not necessarily. The Far Right has mastered for years the art of scapegoating. They will try to show his disappointed followers that Muslims and Mexicans are an imminent threat that only Trump can contain or that only Trump is tough enough to punish, the same way as, for instance, Hitler scapegoated the Jews for the Treaty of Versailles and ended up destroying the Weimar Republic in the process. If this is not enough, he will lose in 2018 and 2020 but, that means thing will get back to what they were before 2016? No. The Far Right (or Alt Right, if you prefer that brand) has already realized that they don’t have to stay dormant, regurgitating their hatred under the effects of cheap beer. They have realized that they can win and they will keep pushing the Republican Party as the Tea Party has done successfully since 2010. Thus, unless Bernie and Warren can capitalize that discontent (Not easy, because the Democratic establishment is not going to yield without a fight. Not impossible either, as FDR’s fight against the establishment showed with the nomination of Henry Wallace in the ticket at the start of his third run for president), the Far Right is going to be a permanent cancer inside the Republican Party that is going to make any possible policy advance, any compromise almost impossible.
And it’s there where the Russia issue comes to play. In 1925 the leader of the KKK, D. C. Stephenson, was convicted for the rape and murder of his mistress, Madge Oberholtzer. This scandal was the beginning of the end for the Second Klan and by the time the IRS liens came, the movement was already crippled and discredited. And the Russia issue (and the obstruction of justice linked to it) is the only thing we have at hand that is good enough to produce a scandal of such magnitude, one from which impeachment could be the result.
Of course, that is not enough. Nixon made back-door deals with the North Koreans as Reagan did with the Iranians and nothing happened to them. And even when a case was investigated by Congress, Iran-Contras, Reagan escaped unharmed. Even Poindexter and Norton escaped justice due to the immunity granted to them by Congress. So you need Bernie and Warren to keep exposing this administration, to make the economic discontent grow among Trump’s followers (Not his base, who, as they have shown repeatedly, as long as Trump’s policies hurt Mexicans and Muslims more than they hurt them, they are happy with that) so, when the case for impeachment is ready, Trump doesn’t escape justice as Reagan did. So, again, the Russia issue is extremely important because we need not to defeat the Far Right (and leave it as a cancer inside the Republican Party, encouraged to get ready for the next election in the realization that they have already won, something they considered impossible before Trump) but to demoralize it to such point that they crawl back under the same rocks where they have been fermenting their hatred all the years they kept themselves out of the electoral system.
We need more talk about income inequality (The Young Turks, for instance), yes, but Maddow’s series could play an important role if we can make a solid case for impeachment and Bernie and Warren create enough disappointment with the policies of the monster in the White House. We need both. Without enough discontent, Republicans won’t support impeachment. Without a solid case, the Russia issue would at most make a dent in the next elections. And we cannot disregard all that just to please dishonest clowns who, far from at least come clean with their screw up of 2016 (which played a heavy role in the election of this monster though, I admit, the heaviest factor was that Clinton was the wrong candidate to face Trump), engage in relentless attacks against those who are doing something useful to free us from the monster, monster their irresponsibility unleashed on us in the first place.