Monday, October 30, 2017

The Clintonites are continuing to destroy the Democratic Party.

I've been puzzling why the Democrats have been going all-in with the campaign to paint Trump as a traitor. (The Dems in general and the Party-friendly Brookings Institution in particular.)

Hillary ran against Trump's personality, leaving the campaign issues open for him. -A disastrous overall strategy during the 2016 election. Normally for a first term President there would be some reaching across the aisle to the other Party to develop new programs. By continuing an all-out attack on the person of Trump the people at the top in control of the Democratic Party prevent any moderates in the Democratic Party who might be willing to work with the Republicans toward less extreme Republican policy positions. They keep control of the party by branding anyone who would vote with Trump's policies as failing to work together to brand the administration as traitors to the country. Even if Hillary doesn't run again in 2020, the Clinton faction will most likely be able to choose one of their own as the candidate. There's a lot of love for alternative candidates outside of the Clinton circle of power but let's face it, that by itself doesn't win political primaries.

The Democrats don't have enough support in Congress to impeach the President, even granting the charges of accepting Russian support and intelligence against Hillary are wholly and entirely true. And even if they are much more than the amount of involvement indicated so far, which is pretty minor compared to regular US involvement in foreign elections of other countries over the last century, including very probably Russia itself. Some history -- Nixon was impeached because (.. considering using all capital letters here....) he made an enemies list that included sitting congressmen and was trying to use the IRS as a political weapon to go after those congressmen (and if memory serves) some of whom were sitting on the very hearings committee to investigate the Watergate break-in. The political campaign 'dirty tricks' of Donald Segretti and others, the break-in at Watergate, the suppression of the Pentagon Papers, were very big deals but even all together it wasn't entirely clear a vote recommending impeachment hearings would have been fowarded to the full Congress.

I grew up as a Democrat. Most of my life I have been a Democrat (though I consider myself an independent now.) It pains me to see what has become of the Democratic Party under the current leadership. (Which to a large degree I think goes back to the 1974 special convention to deal with the aftermath of the 1972 McGovern debacle. The book to read is - The Whole Damn Deal: Robert Strauss and the Art of Politics.)

Most voters didn't think much of the Watergate break-in. Most voters don't think much of the Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign either. Like the Watergate hearings, most congressmen don't think much of the Russian involvement either. They haven't been put on any enemies lists, unless it an enemies list of the Democratic Party leadership.

There's the old idea that if the weather is good then the crops are good and the King is well loved by the people. There are many reasons why the US economy should do well over the next four to twenty years. China's economy is probably over-stretched. The shale oil and gas revolution are likely to keep the US energy independent for a long time. (The video to watch is ... global strategic analysis - Peter Zeihan on “The New President & the World .. ", https://vimeo.com/215078563  .. 68 min.s. Agree with almost all of it, but one big caveat is China's drive already underway to create a major high speed rail network from Beijing to the Baltic.)

Predictions: In the absence of any major changes (a big IF) the Clinton loyalists will remain in power and get one of their own nominated for the 2020 election. The 2018 mid-term elections will largely be a replay of 2016, as will the 2020 elections. (This doesn't make me happy. Trump brings change but he doesn't seem, to me at least, like he has a sense of overall strategy, or even worse, is trying to shoehorn everything about running a presidency into a standard simplified corporate business model.)

harpersnotes

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