Right now, Democrats are doing what Democrats always do: They form into a circular firing squad and snipe at one another to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Currently, the Dems have three viable 2020 candidates – Warren, Sanders, and Biden.  Buttigieg, as great as he is, can’t get out of single digits in national polls, and let’s face it – it’s not his time and he should prepare to run for governor or Senator from Indiana and then come back in 10 years.  His time is in the future.  There have been no votes cast in any primary yet, but the intramural feuding is well underway with Warren supporters smearing Biden and amplifying Trump’s idiotic conspiracy theories, Biden supporters saying Warren is unelectable, and Bernie supporters hating everyone.

Warren is sticking to a Medicare for All plan that doesn’t have the slightest chance of ever seeing the light of day, wants to fund it by taxing billionaires, vows to shut down the US oil industry,  and is threatening businesses that she’s going to jail CEOs.  Sanders vows to also shut down the US oil industry and tax billionaires; he’s more circumspect on healthcare policy.  Biden is staying down the middle, making the electability argument as his main selling  point.

Let’s be blunt here.  As much as you’ll hate to hear it, big sweeping policy changes and turning industries and healthcare on their heads is NOT a winning strategy.  Dems have only one choice, and that is Trump, not Trump.  Period.  Short of him being removed by impeachment (which I believe is a slim to zero chance), or him keeling over from his artery clogging diet, getting him out of office through the ballot box is the only viable chance to rid ourselves from this metastasizing tumor sitting in the Oval Office.

The New York Times published their latest poll this week that pretty much sums up what Real Clear Politics has been reporting for months – Biden is the clear choice for the best chance to beat Trump:

This is the summary of the latest poll.  Sanders is second, Warren a distant third, yet Warren is catching up to Biden in the early primary states, though she is the worst of the front runners to face Trump, and her rhetoric is making it even harder for her to compete.

Before you say it, yeah, yeah, yeah.  I know, I know – Biden is old, failing, sleepy, confused, (insert your insult here _________).  What’s really weird is that none of those adjectives are used on Sanders or Warren even though he is older than Biden and is ACTUALLY suffering from a heart condition, and Warren is only a few years behind both of them.  The issue here, and the ONLY issue here is beating Trump.  Biden, especially if strengthened by a younger vibrant VP candidate is the highest probability candidate to beat Trump.  Warren and Sanders are not.  Period.  Want to lose suburbanites, and middle of the roaders?  Threaten to take away their healthcare and triple the price of gasoline.  It’s stupid, and a losing strategy.

As much as all of us hate it, this is NOT the election for sweeping policy changes.  This is the election of winning.  That is the only goal.  The choice is Trump, not Trump.  If you think things are miserable now, imagine if this SOB got another 4 years.  He has already destroyed the State Department and the Justice Department.  After he packs another 2 or 3 ideologues on the Supreme Court and hundreds of lunatics in the federal court system, he would have virtually destroyed our democracy.  The risk is too great to lose this one – the cost is too high.

The Dems just have to stop the infighting and focus on the only goal for 2020 – beating Trump.  It’s arithmetic.

Sometimes, the New York Times gets it wrong.  Take their unabashed support of GWB’s invasion of Iraq based on the blatant lie about Saddam’s possession of non-existent WMD.  In that case, the error was caused by poor or even dishonest reporting by individuals; in other cases it’s the Times’ effort to show “both sides” of an argument, even when there is actually only one side that is true.  Their problem, though, is that (especially with the current occupant of the White House) when there is no factual “other side” of an argument, they turn to opinion pieces manufactured by paid “analysts” at think tanks to present an alternative opinion, even when that opinion is either a blatant lie or twisted up exaggerations.  Such was the case this week when the Times published a remarkable piece of fiction written by a pair of fine fellows employed by the Hudson Institute, and The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Both of these think tanks claim to be non-partisan, but, just like the Heritage Foundation, nothing could be further from the truth.  Both organizations are part of the billionaire-funded cabal of right wing messaging shops peddling bullshit as scholarship.  The Hudson Institute casts itself as mainstream thought on domestic policy, but is funded by the Kochs and other right wingers; the FDD is a pro-Israel think tank started originally in the ’60s, but transformed after 9/11 into a hawkishly anti-Saudi Arabia/Iran mouthpiece.

The Times piece, published Wednesday, came to the remarkable conclusion that Trump (even though crude) is right on Saudi Arabia, over looking the butchering of Washington Post columnist Jamal Kashoggi because Saudi Arabia is the only thing standing between Iran and WWIII.  The piece is full of nothing but manure and whataboutism, even calling Trump’s defense of Saudi Arabia “clear-eyed and right”.  This piece actually tries to frame Trump’s wild thrashing about as actual foreign policy and strategy.  They go after the Obama administration’s Middle East policy in Iran and Syria and raise the ugly head of an unbridled Iran torching the region while pursuing nuclear weapons (which Trump just unleashed by backing out of the international Iranian nuclear pact).  They try to equate Trump’s political weaving like a drunkard to Obama’s clear policies.  You may disagree with those policies, but they were clearly actual policies based on academic and diplomatic work, not random tweeting while sitting on the toilet.

The most remarkable argument they make is that Trump’s tweet storms and ranting on television are somehow some thoughtful set of principles and policies.  That notion is simply laughable; Trump’s Train Wreck is as random as the weather, with the only common thread being his hyper focus on his own ego and financial gain.  NOTHING else matters, not Saudi Arabia, troops deployed around the world, healthcare, human rights, constitutional rights, or security.  NOTHING.  Trump’s support of MBS and Saudi Arabia has nothing to do with Iran or Middle East tensions any more than it has to do with the price of bagels in Brooklyn or wildfires in California.  Trump’s “policies”, if you want to call them that, are all about filling his ego and wallet and shoring up his base so he can keep filling his ego and wallet.

Along that vein, the authors of the Times piece fail to even mention Trump’s financial ties to the Saudi royal family, including it buying millions of dollars of apartments from the Trump Organization, pouring millions into Trump hotels, or even prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bailing Trump out in the mid-90s by buying a 51% interest in the Plaza Hotel making a debt restructuring possible, saving Trump’s financial ass.

Think tanks like the Hudson Institute and the FDD are nothing but propaganda outlets using the likes of Newt Gingrich and other right wing talking heads to peddle manure as filet mignon.  The Times does no good by giving such manure a megaphone just to project “balance” where no true balance actually exists.  The Times should be ashamed of itself.

Bret Stephens, a loudmouth Neo-Con who regularly pollutes the opinion pages of the New York Times and right wing media, gave the Dems some very important advice Friday with the ominous warning, “Democrats are Blowing it, Again”.  Stephens, known as a vehement climate denier, Kavanaugh defender, torture supporter, and Trump apologist, believes he has the answer to all of the Dems woes, and that is, don’t be so mean.  Using the odd metaphor of becoming unattractive by piercing your tongue, Stepehens goes through a long litany of offenses the Dems have committed in his view:

1. Hillary said you can’t be civil with someone trying to destroy everything you stand for.
2. House Rep. Jerry Nadler dared to say that he would start an investigation of Kavanaugh and the whitewashed FBI “investigation” should the Dems take control of the House.
3. Cory Booker and Kamala Harris really blew it when the spoke out against the Kavanaugh nomination with “histrionics” and turning the hearings into “audition tapes” for the presidential bids.
4. Chuck Schumer chose to turn the Kavanaugh catastrophe into a campaign issue.
5. The New Yorker really blew it by publishing Deborah Ramirez’s account of Kavanaugh’s sexual assault.  Never mind that the FBI refused to follow up on that account and that of dozens of others who tried to testify to the veracity of her account.
6. Dems denounced Susan Collins, calling her a “gender traitor” in a a NYT op-ed.  Shame on the NYT, his employer.

Now here’s a guy who thought invading Iraq was a great idea, discrimination against Muslims is just dandy, and that Israel should strike against the Palestinians.  I know he has a depth of wisdom about all things Democratic (that’s sarcasm, folks), but perhaps his time would be better spent reviewing the truckloads of bullshit that he’s been peddling for years.  I know the NYT has him as a columnist for “balance”, but Jesus – there’s no one else?

One gratifying shift we’ve seen in the chaos since January 20th is the rejuvenation of the Fourth Estate – the press.  In the last 20 years we’ve seen the press devolve into the 24 hour news cycle, infotainment, and simply blatant partisanship which willfully misinforms the electorate.  At the same time, that same electorate has become less and less engaged, seemingly divorced from reality and facts.  American Idol and The Voice get higher participation than elections that actually matter.  The election of the worst candidate for the presidency in US history has changed that.  His withering attacks on facts, truth, decency, compassion, AND the press have finally awoken a sleeping giant.  Major news outlets have geared up and are actually digging for the facts, digging for the dirt, going after lies and the liars who speak them, and aggressively fact checking.

My response to this?  It’s about goddam time (sorry Momma).  Where the hell have you all been (besides working on your SEO and re-marketing strategy)?  To demonstrate this awakening, The Washington Post recently altered their longstanding logo, to wit:

During the Oscars broadcast, The New York Times aired its The Truth is Hard ad, which is powerful:

Even Fox Noise has backed off of at least some of its perpetual GOP cheerleading.

The result of the press waking up is that our system of government has begun to actually function again.  Cheeto Jesus stupidly accuses President Obama of wiretapping him (on Twitter), and the press relentless pursues the story until even HE admitted he got that BS story from Brett Baier of Fox Noise.  He claims that busloads of fraudulent Massachusetts voters went to New Hampshire to commit voter fraud, and the press runs down the facts exposing that as false.  Now, I’m not naive; even an army of reporters would be hard pressed to run down every one of CJ’s lies since he spews a bushel basket full on a daily basis, but with a functioning press, his big lies are quickly debunked, or at least vigorously challenged.  So, instead of spewing more lies and misinformation at the daily press brief, all of Sean Spicer’s time is spent answering a barrage of questions about his boss’s most recent incendiary lie.

As ugly as this is, our republic is still hanging together.  And it’s critical to our survival.  With the rise of the alt-right propaganda machine, the actual Fourth Estate must continue to beat back lies with truth.