Buck Up, Democrats, and Fight Like Republicans

[kpete]

If you’ve been asking yourself “Where are the Democrats?” you’re not alone.

Since the election, top Democrats have been almost absent on the national stage. Rather, they have been involved largely in internecine warfare about how much to work with Mr. Trump. The Hillary Clinton campaign, trying to encourage a peaceful transition, has gone almost completely dark, with her most notable appearances coming in selfies with strangers. Nobody deserves downtime more than Mrs. Clinton, but while she is decompressing, the country is moving toward its biggest electoral mistake in history.

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Contrast the Democrats’ do-nothingness to what we know the Republicans would have done. If Mr. Trump had lost the Electoral College while winning the popular vote, an army of Republican lawyers would have descended on the courts and local election officials. The best of the Republican establishment would have been filing lawsuits and infusing every public statement with a clear pronouncement that Donald Trump was the real winner. And they would have started on the morning of Nov. 9, using the rhetoric of patriotism and courage.

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Moreover, they didn’t cop to the possibility that their theories might lose or look foolish in retrospect. Take the theory that ultimately succeeded in the Supreme Court. There was no precedent for the idea that the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause required a uniform recount within a state. However, the Republicans pressed that theory and convinced a majority, even though the justices acknowledged that the argument was both unprecedented and not to be used again. It was a win for pure audacity.

Fast forward to 2016, and the Democrats are doing nothing of the sort. Instead, they are leaving the fight to academics and local organizers who seem more horrified by a Trump presidency than Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. The Republicans in 2000 threw everything they could muster against the wall to see if it stuck, with no concern about potential blowback; the Democrats in 2016 are apparently too worried about being called sore losers. Instead of weathering the criticism that comes with fighting an uphill, yet historically important battle, the party is still trying to magic up a plan.

As Monday’s Electoral College vote approaches, Democrats should be fighting tooth and nail. Instead, we are once again left with incontrovertible proof that win or lose, Republicans behave as if they won while Democrats behave as if they lost. What this portends for the next four years is truly terrifying.


MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/opinion/buck-up-democrats-and-fight-like-republicans.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share

[Javaman]

1. I've been saying this for a long time.

it's readily apparent that the "high road" isn't working for us.

time to get dirty, time to take off the gloves, time to throw the shit right back at the repukes.

it's not that we are lacking from ammunition, the Democratic party is lacking nerve and guts.

they are so afraid of "offending" someone, that the Dems become paralyzed with indecision.

[Greybnk48]

2. I am so sick of this shit

I have, for the first time in 62 years, thought of leaving the Democratic Party and filing independent. It feels like it's the only power I have to speak my mind and maybe be heard.