Has the regeneracy arrived?

[TeacherinExile]

(11-09-2016, 03:45 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(11-09-2016, 02:11 PM)tg63 Wrote:

(05-14-2016, 10:27 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I would say no.  To me, the regeneracy is when the party that cases transforming change upon government and culture gets the power to do so.  I see Congress as still divided and this isn't apt to change in the upcoming elections. ...

Just thought I'd go back to this ... not to call you out for being wrong (most everyone was), but rather to initiate a discussion about the possibility that this is indeed the call for major reform - just not the type of reform that was anticipated.

At this point, we have no idea what a Trump Presidency with an all GOP Federal (and mostly GOP state and local) structure will do with their power.  I'm not sanguine.  I think the troubles will be many and may not be felt for a year or so after the fact, but it's obvious that the Obama years will be reversed in total.  ACA, gone.  Dodd-Frank, ditto.  All International agreements of the last 8 years, overturned or rendered moot.  Of that list, only the climate reversals will be irreversible later, but much harm will be done by the fanciful adherence to the invisible hand too. 

Here's the real question: will the opposition actively oppose, much as the GOP has the last 8 years, or will they try to work with Trump and Company?  If the latter, then failure will tarnish them more than the Trumpistas, because "they knew better and waffled".  If the former, then the next 4 years will be blood sport, and the entire country will suffer.  Nothing good here. 

I don't see this being resolved until the next 2T, and 2T solutions are full of passion but are rarely practical.

David, I am in general agreement with your outlook here, with the exception of your last sentence.  The "legacy" legislation of Obama was never strong enough to begin with--half measures all.  The fiscal stimulus was not big enough to fill the hole that the financial crisis left in GDP (even Paul Krugman said as much), and Obama had a Democratic majority in 2009 that could have backed him to the hilt, even if the vote broke strictly along party line, which of course it did.  The stimulus package can be properly credited as sufficient to arrest the economic freefall and spark a weak recovery, but never more than that.  The ACA was just a clusterfuck, to begin with, a federally-subsidized gift to the for-profit health industry, and did little or nothing to contain medical costs.  There should have been a public option at the very least.  As for Dodd-Frank, well, it will prove to be a Maginot Line when the next financial crisis hits which, according to every credible source that I've read these past eight years, is a matter of when, not if.  What was called for, and this is coming from someone who worked in the financial industry, was restoring Glass-Steagall, breaking up the megabanks, and handcuffing the banksters responsible for creating the financial crisis in the first place.  Bernie Sanders was right: banking has become a fraudulent business, and there is evidence aplenty that some are up to their old tricks again. (Wells Fargo is but one example.)  Obama's legacy will be easily reversed now that the Republicans are firmly in control.    

Lets face facts, Democratic partisans (and I am not one), Obama had the wind at his back in January 2009: swept into office by a wide electoral margin, and with a virtual supermajority to support him for the first two years.  As intelligent and articulate as he is, Obama  simply misplayed his hand from the start, too attuned to professional elites, and apparently too dismissive of "just plain folks" in "flyover country."  If only the DNC had read Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal, prior to putting its thumb on the scale for Hillary Clinton, it would have seen the phenomenon of Trump coming from a mile away, and would have known instinctively that an establishment presidential candidate was at serious odds with the mood of the country.  Hillary, as Elvis Costello might have sung, was quite simply "A Woman Out of Time."  Thomas Frank admits that he voted for Obama the first time, thinking he would be the second coming of FDR, only to be disappointed by the Clintonesque domestic and foreign policy team that Obama assembled. 

I remember something a wise man once said when sizing up political candidates: "Look at the money they take and the company they keep."  It's why I decided to vote for Jill Stein in 2008, rather than Obama, as appealing as his rhetoric was at the time.  Wall Street bankrolled his presidential run way more than John McCain's, and his economic advisers were the "Usual Suspects," Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers... I didn't sense a whole lot of change in the cards, and I was right.  And Democrats have now paid the price, and a heavy price a Trump administration may well turn out to be for our country.      

One pundit yesterday aptly described my post-election assessment of the most stunning political upset in American history: "Democrats Have Only Themselves to Blame for Trump."  Against all odds, Trump not only defeated the Republican establishment, but, by virtue of his improbable victory over Clinton, he defeated the Democratic establishment, too.  Far better if the defeat of the Democratic establishment had been accomplished at the hands of an insurgent candidate on the Left (i.e., Bernie Sanders) rather than on the Right.  Now the Democratic Party is well behind the curve, and has some real catching up to do, if they want to wrest power back from the Republicans.

Now, as you say, David, it is up to Democrats to decide what kind of opposition party they want to be.  Do they try to work with Trump, risking that, if his attempt to "Make America Great Again" backfires, his failure will be hung around their necks, too?  Or do they oppose his agenda at every turn, payback for the Republican obstructionism that thwarted Obama after the 2010 mid-terms?  I think that the future of the Democratic party largely hinges on that very question.