This is not an endorsement of any one particular candidate, unless you figure that this amounts to an endorsement of whomever ends up running against cadet bone spurs. This includes anyone who may run against him in the republican primaries.
There has been a lost of gnashing of teeth already over positions taken by the announced candidates on the left for president, which includes just about every registered democrat in the country, with the possible exception of Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, the guy at the deli counter down the street, my mother and me. I would note that I would highly endorse my mother over me in case you are thinking of drafting somebody to run. Come to think of it, I would endorse the guy at the deli counter, Captain Kangeroo and either of my cats over me. But I digress...
Some of the positions taken by the democratic candidates to date are nice, such as universal healthcare, forgiveness of student debt, easing of immigration imposed by this administration, etc. They are not, however, the kinds of positions that are going to play well with moderate republicans, if there are any left, and independents, the very core group needed to overcome the possibility of a second term. Tom Friedman noted in his column in the Times last week that the democrats need to nominate somebody sane, who can rationally set forth a reasonable platform that can appeal not just to a majority of voters, but a majority of voters in the strategic states needed to achieve an electoral majority.
And as we are all too painfully aware, it is an electoral majority that counts. We know there are a number of states that he knows he cannot win, and will therefore ignore or simply insult as the election approaches. California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington and Connecticut will not be in his radar during the next election cycle, if only to invoke the cry of sanctuary cities and democrat socialists run amok. Throw in Oregon, New Jersey and Rhode Island, and you have 139 electoral votes. That leaves the democrats just a tad more than halfway there. NBC News and the New York Times have both noted recently that the strategy being evoked by the administration could further polarize the country to the extent of allowing him to lose the popular vote by more than five million this time, but still come away with the electoral majority, and thereby the election. For the good of this country; heck, for the good of mankind in general, we cannot allow this to happen. I cannot stress this enough.
WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN.
So how do we go about doing this, getting the other 131 electoral votes needed and ending this nightmare?
1. As Tom Friedman and others have said, we must start by having the democrats nominate somebody sane, who can articulate reasonable policies in reasonable terms, without alienating all but the most hardcore MAGA, whose vote nobody else is getting, even if cadet bone spurs were to kidnap their first born and sell the child into slavery. So don't worry about alienating a hardcore MAGA anyway. They are not going to vote for your candidate regardless of what you, he or anyone else says or doees.
But in the process do not alienate a MAGA in such a way that alienates a moderate, who did not like him in 2016, but did so anyway because he/she could not bring him/herself to vote for her. That's the vote we need.
2. He is going to try to drag this through the mud, even worse than the last election, because frankly, he really does not have much of anything else. By the time this one is over, we are all going to need to shower for a month. So...
a. The nominated candidate must stay above the fray, if only to the extent of pointing out that he has no positions, just mudslinging. The candidate has to come across as sane and level headed. The candidate has to be the one who does not stoop to his level. This does not mean we do not have attack dogs, simply that the candidate and his slate are not those dogs. We already know who the attack dogs are. He has chosen them for us, and they will do a great job attacking him, mostly because they are ready, willing and able to do it, and do it better than he can. Since he has chosen to attack "The Squad", let him. Let him go after four freshman congresswomen, minorities all, one of whom will actually be on the ticket. Let him continue to be distracted by these four women, all of whom are smarter than he is, and who are willing to attack back, and keep him from going after the actual candidate. As he attacks the four women, feel free to come to their defense and point out the he is concentrating on attacking four minority woman, simply because they are minority women, and ignoring important issues of the day. But keep the candidate out of it.
b. This means the candidate has to stick to issues that matter, where cadet bone spurs has no inkling how to talk, let alone set forth what he stands for. For nearly four years now, he has told us he is going to introduce grand and glorious initiatives. The best health care. The best intrastructure. The best farm bill. The best trade policy. The details never come out. Nobody ever asks him what the details are or how he intends to propose and pass anything. When he is pressed, he falls back on "you will see the details when it comes out, and believe me, you will love it". Only the details almost never come out. When they sometimes do, the details are always a variation of tax cuts for the rich. Want great health care? Tax cuts for the rich. Want tax reform? Tax cuts for the rich. Infrastructure? Privatize infrastructure, and then cut taxes on the rich folks who get the contracts. The candidate must have reasonable proposals, perhaps not going as far as universal health care, which I personally would love to see, but know will not get passed at this time. I'll settle for now for a strengthening of Obamacare and further expansion of medicaid as called for under the ACA. Stress the policies and make him debate the policies, not the junk. If he tries to put the junk out there in the debates, leave him stranded out there with his garbage.
c. About the only real issue he will talk about, one that does not involve trashing everybody else, is the economy. Yes, on the surface the economy is doing fine, at least if all you look at in the economy is the Dow Jones average and the unemployment rate. We can concede the Dow and the unemployment rate, while noting that when he was sworn in, the economy was doing fine, and he has really done nothing to spur anything further. Tax cuts for billionaires has a bill coming due that is going to drag everyone else down soon, and there will be nobody to blame when that happens. So let him crow about the Dow and the unemployment rate. Point out that poor paying jobs may make for a low unemployment rate, but do not put sufficient food on the table. Point out the fact that real wages are not going up, that farmers are going under due to his trade polices, that he has fostered class warfare through his tax policies. Let him talk about his economy -- and then talk about the economy effecting real people. You know, everybody else.
3. We know that he will try to find a way to at least pit the country against itself. White against Black. Straight against LBGTQ. Hispanics, Muslims, anyone he does not like or does not consider worthy of his efforts, such as they are, will all be in the cross hairs. This considered, either the candidate or the candidate's running mate must be a member of one of the target communities. It might even be nice if both the candidate and the running mate are one of the target communities. A candidate on the ticket who appeals to communities that he has deliberately alienated will solve the problem from the last election of these communities not liking him, but feeling alienated or taken for granted by Hilary or by the way she campaigned. I have frequently asked people what they believe the result of the election would have been in 2016 if Hilary had picked Cory Booker for her running mate, rather than rewarding Tom Kaine for a lifetime of political loyalty to the Clintons. A Black man or woman on the ticket, either on top or in support, could effectively blunt a portion of his racist slime, while at the same time, bringing out the minority vote.
4. Do not get distracted by the fact that your candidate does not end up being the nominee. A major reason he is now the president is that Bernie and his supporters thought they were cheated by the process the last time around, and therefore, would not support her. Then there were those who would not support Hilary under any circumstances, even as they knew that any vote that was not for her in the last election was a vote for him, so they wrote in Joe Biden, even though he was not running and could not win. Or Bernie. Or Mickey Mouse. I can already see the lines forming again, once again in a circular firing squad, as the Bernie supporters vow not to support any other candidate, the progressives vow not to support a candidate who does not hew to every progressive issue -- as they see it. Those of you doing this must stop. You are only paving the way for four more years of him. As I said here on November 4, 2018:
"There is no perfect candidate.
"There is no perfect cause.
"If you are waiting for either before you head to the polls, you will never vote.
"And that is why he is president today".
We have already seen what two and a half years of him have brought. We are stuck holding our breath that he does not do more in the next one and a half years of his term, regardless of election results.
Pull together.
WE SIMPLY CANNOT HAVE ANOTHER FOUR YEARS OF THIS.
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