So, Samantha Bee calls Ivanka Trump a “feckless c***” for remaining silent while her father directs a policy that tears immigrant families apart and imprisons small children in converted big box stores.  The walls of these big box prisons actually have Soviet style murals of Trump complete with quotes from his book, The Art of the Deal.  Fake outrage over Bee’s verbal attack resulted in her forced apology for being unkind to Princess Ivanka.

Last weekend, Robert DiNiro shouted, “F*ck Trump!” several times during his few moments on stage at the Tony Awards on national television.  Again, que the right wing noise machine that whipped up fake outrage over DiNiro’s denouncement, but luckily, he doesn’t work for anyone and doesn’t care what they think.

Then came Frank Bruni of the NY Times, who did what most progressives, including Michelle and Barack Obama, do, and that’s chant the “when they go low, we go high” mantra.  His article this week tut-tutted, finger wagged, and warned ominously that getting mad and saying so will re-elect Trump and his cronies.  That advice is STUPID and exactly the tactic that got us Al Gore and John Kerry.  I’m sorry, but that is just plain wrong and stupidly puts artificial limits on good people’s ability to get pissed off.  Several of my progressive friends reposted the op-ed on Facebook, imploring all of us to take to the high road, because some mouth breathing, drooling knuckle dragger in Columbia Mississippi won’t like our anger and will decide not to vote for the Democrat.  That’s an idiotic notion.  Said mouth breathing, drooling knuckle dragger will NEVER vote for the Democrat.  Wake up.

Let’s think about what’s actually occurring every day in the United States.  Jeff Sessions, who is a lifelong hater of all people with dark-pigmented skin, has started a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal immigration and is jailing thousands of people.  Because all these people, including mothers of young children fleeing gang violence south of the border, are being jailed, their children are being torn from their parents, and imprisoned.  That should piss you off.  Ivanka Trump?  She’s using her father’s corruption to expand her own brand around the world, often using child labor, to stuff her Gucci purse full of millions.  Foreign dignitaries are pouring millions of dollars into Trump’s pockets through his hotel just down the street from the White House.  As I pointed out this week, Trump is also selling his own likeness on cheesy memorabilia peddled to the public using 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as the address of the business.  Trump’s corrupt cabinet members are working 24/7 to erase all progress made under Barack Obama while enriching themselves on the backs of the taxpayers.  He’s turned US diplomatic policy on its ear, attacking Canada as a “security risk” while French kissing the most evil and murderous dictator on the planet.

For Christ’s sake, Frank, what the hell does it take to piss you off?  Over the last 30 years, Republicans have proven that vicious anger works.  They’ve also proven that outrage over fake issues works like a charm.  That’s why you get gay bashing and racist attacks on right wing media just as election seasons get started.  That’s why the phony “war on Christmas” gins up anger among Fox Noise loyalists every year.  It works.  Keeping people outraged drives them to the polls.  Democrats don’t get that, and never have.  The result?  Republicans control all three branches of the federal government.  They control 33 governors’ mansions, and 66 of 99 legislative chambers.  Radical gerrymandering has cemented in these gains to protect them from changing demographics.

On Thursday, one writer got it right. Drew Magary of GQ Magazine hit Bruni right between the eyes, calling his nonsense nonsense.  He said of Bruni, “…once a wonderful restaurant critic and is now one of the most singularly inane political columnists working today…”.  And his rant was a long drive straight down the middle.  He put it this way:

“Bruni is far from alone in smarmily crying out THIS IS WHY TRUMP WON! every time a liberal gets angry about something they ought to be angry about. It is the laziest, stupidest theory, one that posits that the only possible way to take down Trump from his evildoing is to keep your voice so quiet that everyone else can opt out of hearing it. It’s also a clear case of naked pandering from newspapers that skew liberal but still yearn—whether for financial reasons or out of sheer vanity—to appear fair to both sides. This is how you end up with two sets of rules for each party. Republicans can be openly racist, nationalist, corrupt, and horny. Democrats have to be GOOD, because Americans apparently crave goodness even though 60 million of them voted for Donald Trump.”

Friday, the DNC Rules and Bylaws committee proposed a rules change for the 2020 campaign.  The new rule is directed straight at Bernie Sanders:

The new rule specifically requires that someone running for president must declare in writing his or herself as a member of the Democratic party and that they will run and serve as a Democrat.  Easy, right?  Not so fast.  The two party system in the US is cemented in place by statute, creating an almost impenetrable wall to outsiders.  Party primaries are paid for by the taxpayers, and getting on the ballot in all the states as an independent presidential candidate is virtually impossible.  Because of this, the only realistic path to the presidency is as insurgency in one of the two entrenched  political parties.  You saw that in spades in 2016 where Trump used his television persona to hijack the GOP and Sanders’ grass roots campaign almost uprooted Hillary’s coronation.

This rule seeks to stifle competition for the nomination, all while DNC political operatives are loudly denying that fact, which is as obvious to normal people as a hillbilly at a Newport garden party.  Even while these operatives are all sniffy that outsiders understand their actual intent, Sanders supporters aren’t happy.  Mark Lonabaugh, a senior Sanders advisor, call the new resolution “stunning”.

Someday, establishment Dems will have to face the fact that they are way out of step with their constituents.  The Sanders phenomenon should have shaken these pillars of the party to the core, but it didn’t.  They are ignoring, at their own peril, the 13 million voters, many first time voters, who went for the tottering old candidate from Vermont instead of the tottering old candidate from New York, Chicago, Arkansas (pick your accent).  He brought a message of social justice, equity, and fairness that the Dems abandoned in the 1990s.  And it appears that, rather than learning from that experience, the DNC is trying to keep it from happening again by further rigging the rules in favor of the establishment.

Oh, and one last thing – While the DNC specifically designed a rule to keep out insurgents, there are no adopted rule changes to eliminate or significantly reduce the influence of superdelegates, and no rule that prevents a presidential candidate from controlling the national party until AFTER they are nominated.  It appears the Democratic party is the LEAST democratic organization in US politics, and that should piss you off.

I’ve never been a real Democratic party stalwart.  Though my grandfather, who was a Methodist preacher, described himself as a Texas Democrat when I was a kid, I’ve never thought of myself that way until many years later.  In the recent past, I’ve described myself with the same label, but to be honest, I really think of myself more as a Texas Progressive. And, I think some Democratic leaders are idiots.  Sorry if that offends some sensibilities.

I was never very outspoken or political until the late 90s/early 2000s when I got led (lured?) into party involvement, primarily after I was introduced to Nancy Pelosi when she was growing the DCCC and running for Speaker.  In 2001, at my first fancy Washington dinner with Pelosi for the DCCC, I shocked my table mates declaring that I was not a Democrat, nor really anything in particular, and that I thought for myself.  They looked at me as if I wasn’t wearing any pants or something.  Over the coming years, though, I evolved, and then went all-in for Obama very early.  I was surprised by the vitriol about my decision from Texas Dems I had come to know; one even tsk-tsked me about how stupid I was to support that unqualified “guy” over the real leader, Hillary Clinton.  But I was steadfast in my belief that Obama was the right candidate at the right time for the right reasons.  That worked out pretty well.

During the 2008 primaries, though, my dislike and distrust of party politics was strengthened by the behavior of party loyalists.  The campaign was vicious, as we all know.  Hillary hung on long after she lost until the second night of the convention when she finally caved.  After the convention, though, it got even worse. All the Obama haters poured into the campaign, and elbowed out early Obama supporters like me.  And Obama let it happen, trying desperately to get Clinton loyalists into his camp.  It worked and he won, but many of us who had enthusiastically supported him got steamrolled big time by the establishment Dems.  After the election, it was back to business as usual with the same people doing the same thing in local and state parties, and especially the DNC.  It made me sick.  The resulting disaster in 2016 was easily foreseen by anyone paying attention.

Which brings us to today.  Even with the worst president in US history infesting the White House spewing racist hatred and nonsensical tirades, the Democratic party still can’t find itself.  As I’ve written about before, party leadership is so entrenched and calcified that they think their silly slogan “A Better Deal” is somehow fresh new ground in which to plant a crop of new party loyalists, but it’s simply not.  The party is controlled by east and west coast urban elites and social activists, and has really disengaged from its base of working people, unions, and just regular folks.  A new report by Cheri Bustos, a third term Democrat in the House representing northwest Illinois summarizes the problem.  She points out some pretty grim facts:

“The number of Democrats holding office across the nation is at its lowest point since the 1920s and the decline has been especially severe in rural America.”

For example, in 2009, Democrats held 57 percent of the heartland’s seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now: 39 percent. In 2008, Barack Obama won seven of the eight heartland states. In 2012, he won six. In 2016? Trump won six.  Of the 737 counties in the midwest, Trump won all but 63. The party has lost the heartland, at least as a reliable constituency.  Repubs control the statehouses in 32 states.  Even with horrible policies, the Repubs dominate the center of the country.  Why?  Because they push the buttons that appeal to the heartland, but not just God, guns, and gays, but government incompetence, “job killing” regulations, and the plight of working class voters.  The Dems’ problem, even when they talk the opposite, is that the party suffers from serious group think, and demands ideological purity in all issues.  There’s no room in the “big tent party” for those opposed to abortion, those who believe in more conservative fiscal policy, or have concerns different from the coasts and urban areas.  Party leadership talks all about diversity, but allows only certain brands of diversity.

As a result, many traditional voters don’t believe the national party speaks to them.  National leaders give lip service to jobs, but then don’t really do anything about jobs when they are in power.  They talk a lot about wage equality, but don’t talk to the problems of that welder from Ohio or that farmer in Iowa.  And because there are fewer and fewer Dems representing the heartland, the problem becomes a vicious circle where the remaining Dems focus on their constituencies rather than those Dems serving life sentences in Red Land by accident of geography.  That’s how you get lifelong Dems voting for Donald Trump.  His lies and promises speak to them better than platitudes from some “Latte-Sipping Panty Waist” from San Francisco.

I don’t have an answer to the problem more than imploring organizations like the DCCC and local parties to stop raising money from Dems in red states to shore up the base in blue states.  Plus, they’ve GOT to talk about other issues besides marriage equality, abortion, and religious tolerance.  Those issues are certainly important, but they’re not the ONLY issues. They’ve GOT to address infrastructure; they’ve GOT to streamline the bureaucracy for businesses.  Being in business myself, I have to reluctantly admit that the federal bureaucracy for certain businesses in glacially slow.  In one of my companies, it routinely took FOUR YEARS to get a remediation plan for a gas well site on federal land approved.  FOUR YEARS?  And the entrenched bureaucrats would take the maximum time to get anything done.  If the time limit was 30 days for them to respond to a permit, you can bet on the 30th day at 5 pm, you’d get another data request or modification requirement that would stretch the time another 30 days.  This kind of bureaucracy, historically favored by Dems, is intended to improve safety and protect the environment, but it’s used as a weapon by unaccountable bureaucrats to make it as expensive as possible for private industry to operate. And I’m speaking from personal experience.  Like it or not, that kind of policy destroys jobs, pisses people off, and shifts votes to idiots like Trump.

The Dems have a once in a decade chance here to make some progress.  But if they don’t stop doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result, they will be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, á la 2016.  And the country simply can’t afford that result again.

“I’m not a member of any organized political party…. I’m a Democrat.”

“Democrats never agree on anything, that’s why they’re Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they’d be Republicans.” – Will Rogers

I live to stir the pot, so I’m going to stir it again this morning.  Yesterday, I put Oprah at the top of my list for 2020, and the suggestion was met with considerable pushback.  “Amateur” and “celebrity” were some of the pejoratives used by readers to say no to Oprah.  Some people fled to their own corners, decrying outsiders and calling for mainstream politicians to run.  The very same mainstream politicians who have driven the Dems to minority status in DC and in 32 states.  Over the last 20 years, with only a few flashes of hope, the Democrats have SUCKED at what they are supposed to be doing, which is attaining, and keeping, political power.  You can’t govern if you can’t win and keep power in DC and state houses, and the Dems have failed miserably at that for over two decades.  I was active in party politics from about 2001 to 2012, when I threw up my hands in frustration at the incompetence and petty battles between factions (not to mention a lot of my dollars flushed down the toilet).   When Dems would call a meeting, they’d spend 75% of their effort counting noses rather than doing business.  The party structure wasted millions and millions of donor dollars, and the result was that the only ones doing well were the same political consultants that lost every race they managed. It drove me crazy, so I withdrew to hide behind my keyboard and…stir the pot.

Many years ago a wise political sage told me that Dems and Repubs run their parties very differently, especially since the 60s after Goldwater lost to Johnson.  For 20 years after Goldwater, the GOP rebuilt themselves from the bottom up starting at precinct chairs, local school boards, county commissioners and so on.  When they would then get control of the local level, they would go to the next level.  Once they finally controlled a state, they would then immediately gerrymander themselves into what Karl Rove called the “permanent majority”. The GOP has organized itself as a pyramid with a strong base from which leadership grows.  It worked, and worked really well until Trump turned the party on its ear.  What’s comes next is an opportunity for Dems, if they don’t blow it.

Dems, on the other hand, have relied on traditional constituencies – unions, working class, minorities, and machine politicians.  When they would win office, though, the lip service to their constituencies would go silent and it would be business as usual.  They, too, have relied on gerrymandering, but not to the art form it has been raised to by the GOP.  Dems are generally far less organized between elections and then scramble to rally around a presidential candidate who rises to prominence.  Barack Obama is the textbook example of this characteristic.  The Dems are organized in a pyramid, too, but an inverted one where the entire organization stands on the shoulders of the presidential candidate.  It worked for Obama, but failed miserably with Hillary as the standard bearer.  The party needs to change, but it won’t, especially with its calcified leadership parodied by Saturday Night Live last fall:

The textbook example of this calcification?  It’s the Dems idiotic program it rolled out last year dubbed “A Better Deal”.  “A Better Deal?” What moron thought that slogan was a good idea?  How about, “We Don’t Have Cavities”, or “Make America Just OK Again”?  Here’s a good one – “We Didn’t Get a Flat this Morning”.  Stupid.  This kind of silly sloganeering and message massage is what kills momentum. Trump has provided the biggest opportunity for Dems to grab control since Bush/Cheney, but they’re doing everything they can to blow it.  Again.

That’s why I say Oprah.  In the general election, you have to get a good portion of the middle 6% who doesn’t pay attention until the end of October when they tear themselves away from The Voice or Dancing with the Stars long enough to drag themselves to the polls.  Turnout is key.  Obama won twice because of turnout.  Hillary lost because of turnout.  Turnout is everything.  I look at Oprah as that turnout machine.  Because the Dems SUCK at GOTV, the candidate has to pull the vote.  Oprah will do that, hands down.  The base of the right wing will hate her as they do all Dems; no Dem will get that vote.  So, turnout of the base and the majority of the middle is required to take it.  Oprah can accomplish that like no other Dem on the bench.  Period.  AND, Oprah is a super successful business person as well as a television personality with gigantic recognition numbers.

People say she’s an amateur and inexperienced.  I say hogwash.  Obama announced for president 23 months after he took office in the Senate.  Was he perfect?  No, but he was a hell of a lot better than McCain or Romney would have been.  Oprah can inspire, she’s successful, she’ll pull the middle vote, and she’ll have her pick of the best and brightest for her advisors who will readily serve.  And, the big bonus is that she’s not nuts.  She’s not a malfunctioning narcissist.  She’s not lazy or self obsessed.  The key, though, is that after she took the White House, the Dems would have to stand on their hind legs, get themselves organized and raise money (and candidates) as fast as possible during that first term.  New leadership and a fresh bench are the only assets that will help cement a longer term influence on national politics.

You purists out there who want to keep doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result knock yourselves out.  Me, I want to win 2020, and I damn sure don’t want that task in the hands of the same good folks who got us in this mess in the first place.

Oprah Winfrey’s speech last night at the Golden Globes was inspirational and motivating.  It was as good as it gets, and sounded to me more like a campaign kickoff speech than a gold-statue award thank you.  And, of course, social media lit up with Oprah 2020 memes.  I have to say I like the idea; she’s nationally known with super high recognition; she’s a successful television and movie star; she has high approval ratings; she’s started and run several very successful businesses; and she’s been involved in politics for years.  She’s a great choice in my book, and brings many of the positives that Obama did, with fewer negatives.  I would say if she’s game, I think she would be the perfect counterpoint to that thing currently infesting the White House.

Speaking of movie stars, what about Tom Hanks?  He would also be good, though not as strong as Oprah, but I could get behind that candidacy, too.  So lets look at the others considered by the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago when they provided their ranking of 15 possible candidates, starting with number 15 (with my own reaction):

15. Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson – B grade movie star, former pro wrestler. Uh, NO.

14. Terry McCauliffe – Gov. of Virginia.  Clinton attack dog.  NO.

13. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz – Good businessman, no recognition, no political base.  NO.

12. Deval Patrick – Former Gov. of Massachusetts – Highly qualified, good political base.  POSSIBLE.

11.  Oprah – See above.  A definite YES.

10. Andrew Quomo – Gov. of New York.  Waffled on sexual harassment.  Good record as governor, but not very inspiring.  MAYBE

9.  Sherrod Brown – Sen. from Ohio.  Firebrand, strong progressive voice.  Good with labor.  Good political base.  YES.

8.  Jerry Brown – Gov. of California.  Great progressive voice.  Turned California around.  Great governor.  Too old.  NO.

7.  Chris Murphy – Sen. of Connecticut.  Tim Kaine-like.  Great senator, progressive voice.  Not strong enough. NO.

6.  Cory Booker – Sen. of New Jersey.  New Jersey; ’nuff said.  He’d be compared continuously to Obama to the negative.  Weak MAYBE.

5.  Kamala Harris – Sen. of California.  Great candidate, highly qualified, well spoken, inspirational.  But can she carry the middle working class whites?  Give her the benefit of the doubt.  YES.

4.  Kirsten Gillibrand – Sen. of New York.  Great possibility until she kneecapped Al Franken for her own benefit.  NO.

3.  Elizabeth Warren – Sen. of Massachusetts.  Great progressive voice, highly qualified.  It would be hard for her to carry the center.  MAYBE.

2.  Joe Biden – Love me some Joe Biden, but he’ll be 75 in 2020.  He should have run in 2016.  Too old.  He should go back to the Senate. NO.

1.  Bernie Sanders – Great progressive voice, inspirational to millions.  Too old, unelectable.  NO.

The other one missing from the list here is Hillary.  That’s good, since her time is done, she’s a two time loser, and will be too old.  Oh, and the Castro brothers don’t have enough seasoning yet. One of them needs to be governor, the other senator. And what about Sally Yates?  She’s a former US attorney, former Deputy Attorney General.  She needs to run for US Senate from Georgia in 2020 and knock out David Perdue.  Better yet, she could run for  governor, knock off Nathan Deal THIS YEAR, then run for president.  Having said all that, here’s my ranking, and I would like to know what you think, or if you have other candidate ideas:

1. Oprah ★
2. Kamala Harris
3. Sherrod Brown
4. Deval Patrick
5. Elizabeth Warren
6. Cory Booker
7. Andrew Cuomo

And then there’s always Tom Hanks, right?

“A shockingly large percentage of these Obama-Trump voters said Democrats’ economic policies will favor the wealthy — twice the percentage that said the same about Trump.”

Greg Sargent, writing in the Washington Post, revealed results of polls and focus groups taken by Democratic pollsters since the election, and the above quote is the over-arching theme; many people who voted for Obama in 2012 switched to Trump in 2016 because they either believed Trump better represented their interests, or opposed Hillary as a candidate.  The studies found that over and over, it was clear that the Democrats have lost serious ground with working class whites.  I believe there are several reasons for this: First, working class wage growth has been stagnated since the Reagan years, virtually destroying the American dream of a home, a car, and higher education.  Second, the Republican noise machine has successfully targeted this group since the early 90’s, blaming Democrats and liberal policies for the working class’s woes.

What’s happened?  Well, for one, starting with Bill Clinton, the Democrats have allowed themselves to be dragged farther and farther to the right.  As staunch liberals died off, the new generation of Democrats, lead by Clinton, adopted more conservative policies including limiting welfare, don’t ask don’t tell, and DOMA.  He took one stab at healthcare reform with Hillary leading that effort which ended in failure.  For the rest of his White House days, he was embroiled in scandals, some manufactured but some stupidly self-inflicted.

During those years, the Democrats, rather than being staunch supporters of workers and US industry, tried to walk the fine lines between liberal-moderate-conservative to avoid being labeled by opponents, and stopped defending labor and the Working Joe as Republican policies to push industry and money offshore seriously damaged US workers.

The inexorable slide was slowed a little by the rise of Barack Obama and his populist/social justice agenda.  He spoke clearly to the working class, and they came to him by the millions. However, after he was elected, he was effectively stymied in many of his initiatives because of Great Recession as well as the weakness of the Dems and pervasive stonewalling by Repubs.  The only significant legislative legacy for Obama was the ACA, which is now threatened with repeal after the Dems were swept out of office in 2016.  Now they are thrashing around trying to make sense of the shocking loss in November.

The Democrats ignore these findings at their own peril.  The opportunity to make huge gains in 2018 and 2020 are there; all the Dems need do is grasp the message and policies that propelled the party to dominance for the 40 years begun by FDR.  They need to reclaim their legacy of being the party of the middle and working class.  Until they do that, they will continue to flounder.

It’s time to stop licking wounds.  It’s time to acknowledge the mistakes and poor leadership in recent years and get to work.