"We don't want to work with him": Democrats vow to defy Trump and obstruct his agenda at every turn

[Miles Archer]

‘We don’t want to work with him’: Democrats vow to defy Trump and obstruct his agenda at every turn



http://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/we-dont-want-to-work-with-him-democrats-vow-to-defy-trump-and-obstruct-his-agenda-at-every-turn/

Democrats in Washington are “shifting into full ‘no’ mode” with regards to President Donald Trump and his agenda, according to a Sunday report at Politico.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate along with Democratic governors told Politico this week that they see Trump as weak and not in control of his party. Trump, they say, is personally and politically erratic and not worth the risk of compromising with, especially when their constituents are urging them to block the former reality TV game show host’s ever-shifting agenda.

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) said that Democrats don’t particularly care about who’s up and who’s down in the White House’s internecine battles nor do they feel that anything will spur them to compromise with the floundering executive branch.

“There is zero chance of any of this working out that way, and it doesn’t matter who you’re changing,” said Gallego. “At the end of the day, this is Donald Trump, and we don’t want to work with him.”

[Demsrule86]

1. Good news. RESIST...PERSIST!

I am happy our message is getting through to our elected.

[iluvtennis]

18. +++ agree

[Demsrule86]

36. Hahhaha the budget is not anything that Trump wanted...boo fucking hoo.

[forgotmylogin]

2. The Rs have taught us

Bipartisanship doesn't win you elections. Obama was magnanimous as hell, Rs dragged their feet at every opportunity and now they're in control of everything.

[Phoenix61]

3. Yeah! Finally!

About time.

[FiveGoodMen]

27. Amen!

[femmocrat]

4. It isn't being obstructionist to stand up for what is right.

So far, drumpf's proposals have been batsh*t wingnut and unconstitutional. Not hard to oppose that!

[Sculpin Beauregard]

26. Exactly. Dems need to put the brakes on the bullshit oozing from the WH.

[ancianita]

5. I can't believe I'm reading this. The party welcomes the opposition's hatred? It's unified?

[gfwzig]

6. To cut a deal with him will just open it up to be reneged upon later

[BadGimp]

7. seems some folks a growin a pair

eom

[stage left]

8. Good!

That's exactly what I want to hear from Democrats. That's why I'm in a group that protests in front of Lindsey Graham's upstate SC office every Tuesday. We've been there since just after the women's march. Little war loving Lindsey is definitely not getting the message, but maybe the Democrats are. Any compromise with evil is collusion.

[Ligyron]

43. Good for you!

He may well be getting the message after all and such visible signs of Resistance encourages others to do the same.

[stage left]

44. We get an amazing amount of horn blowing

and thumbs up for a city in a red state. Occasionally passersby join us. We always have extra signs.

[yuiyoshida]

9. Well, its about damn time...

The idea of lets work with this President, was absurd especially in the way they treated Barrack Obama. We should have kicked their asses during his Presidency.

[47of74]

10. About fucking time.

Ideally it should have been years ago that the Democrats said fuck it, no more working with Republicans on anything.

[cilla4progress]

11. Totally

support this.

One of the few criticisms I have of Obama...I feel he was naive in this regard. We missed some opportunities along the way...

[onetexan]

12. Second that!

Dems have been way too polite and considerate for way too long. We need to take the gloves off and return the favor to GOP and the orange idiot.

[cilla4progress]

13. There's a tipping point and

I'm no expert. The trick is to remain civil.

I have a theory that the House and Senate committees and IC investigating the trump admin's many crimes from money laundering to collusion with Russia actually have all the intel they need to make the legal case. I believe right now they are concerned about how to bring the case without destabilizing the US to the point of violent conflict between trump's supporters and the sane people here.

[onetexan]

17. remaining civil was what O did for the past 8 years

look where it got us - screwed by the GOP. The tipping point has already been tipped. It's time to tip it back in our favor. We're dealing with thugs and conmen here, not civilized people.

[cilla4progress]

24. I agree and I mull over this a lot..

where does intolerance lead, however? Civil war?

Maybe balance or sweet spot is a better term for it...there is a proper balance in civilized society for resistance, civil disobedience, vs. provocation that leads to violence.

Not saying that I know...just that I think about it a lot.

[paleotn]

16. Agree. He's a decent, honest man....

And decent, honest people sometimes tend to think everyone acts like them. DC doesn't work that way, going back even before DC, when Jefferson and Hamilton were at each other's throats. It's a nasty business and to be successful, you've got to treat it as such.

[dchill]

14. That's the ticket!

[paleotn]

15. Conventional wisdom...

When a political opponent is destroying themselves, the worst course of action is to help them stop destroying themselves. Just say no and let him crater all by his lonesome. Thank goodness they've finally come to that conclusion. You just can't work with these people. You can't trust agent orange and his merry band of deplorables as far as you could toss their doughy white asses.

[Kentonio]

31. I agree, but we also need to be careful not to give them an excuse to move the blame onto us

[meow2u3]

19. WTG giving tRump and the rethugs a taste of their own medicine

Good for Democrats giving tRump the same respect that repunks gave Obama--zero, zip, and zilch.

I doubt this will teach the rethugs the lesson they really need to learn: if they can't take it, they never should have dished it out in the first place.

[NurseJackie]

20. Good.

I approve. I hope our good Democrats aren't attacked and smeared for this.

[Auggie]

21. Dems just handed Fox News and the GOP talking points for the week and maybe 2018

I'd rather we hyped some pie-in-the-sky legislation that created millions of green jobs and taxed the 1% to pay for them. Let Ryan and Trump kill it and become the obstructionist bad guys.

You know the White House and GOP will spin this "we don't want to work with him" to make us look unpatriotic. We're handing them a gift.

[sharedvalues]

23. When he goes to jail in a few months it won't matter

What's important now is stopping more damage to the country.

[Miles Archer]

29. And all the Democrats need to do is show this clip EVERY TIME Fox & the GOP lets out a peep.

[Auggie]

33. We're lowering our standards to meet theirs ...

and feeding people's hatred of Congress even more. I advocate we be can obstructionists while still promoting our agenda. Tell people what they want to hear -- give them specific job creating programs.

[Texin]

39. Auggie, respectfully, it didn't hurt the party of Trump.

The rethugs sat on their hands and blocked President Obama and the Dems' efforts at every turn for eight fucking years. Everyone knew they were obstructing the President's agenda and it didn't matter in the end. They got stronger and their numbers only increased.

People in this country - and I'm sorry, but it appears that they outnumber liberal Democrats - have collective amnesia when it comes to the rethugs. They should have remembered that a lot of the pain caused by The Great Recession was courtesy of GWB and his robber baron friends, but the fear of pop-up terrorism overruled common sense for a huge swath of the country, as did the hatred of any "other", i.e., anyone not white, not 'Christian', not born in this country by parents of Anglo Saxon descendants.

Obstructionism won't hurt the Dems. But irrational fear and hatred of "the Other" will and I don't know, or more accurately, believe it ever will.

[NewJeffCT]

41. Not just the Great Recession

but, Republicans were in power in the years leading up to the Great Depression (Hoover, preceded by Coolidge and Harding), as well as the original Great Recession of the early 80s. (Reagan)

And, remember during the 1930s, many leading Republicans loved Hitler and Mussolini

[Auggie]

42. Obstructionism had nothing to do with Trump's victory. He promised the midwest jobs ...

and just enough people in Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, etc. bought into that. Democrats can promise the same thing, only better, with solid plans and deliverables. It should be our parties' national platform. We'd win the House easily.

[bluecollar2]

40. we just explain we don't work with Russians

Bigots, racists, and klan members....


Seems pretty straight forward to me....

[sharedvalues]

22. This is entirely on activists!

Keep resisting

[smirkymonkey]

25. Gah! There is a fat, orange, blubbery thing skulking around on the golf course.

Someone do something!

[diane in sf]

28. About time

[LongTomH]

30. It might be different if he were to do something, you know, for the American people..............

.........uh, yeah!!!! Forget it!!!!

[Kentonio]

32. I've no problem with us blocking everything, but we shouldn't openly say we're doing it

Remember how we reacted to the GOP obstructing literally everything? Well if we do the same a lot of moderate but not as politically engaged people are likely to react similarly. We really need to play this one smart, and beat this asshole as often as possible without just looking intransigent.

[haele]

34. Would the truth sound any better this way?

"If he comes up with something we can agree on, we'll work with him - but that probably won't happen, because he's Donald Trump, and a Russian Puppet along with the rest of the GOP predators pretending to be leaders."

Because that's where the truth is.

Haele

[Kentonio]

35. I'd leave out he 'but we probably won't' part

And just say we'll consider any proposal that improves the lives of the American people, but we won't just sign on to meaningless bills for Republican political theatre, and we certainly won't support any measures that make life harder for hardworking American's and their families

[benpollard]

38. Democrats should block everything that's bad for America

Democrats should block everything that's bad for America, which is pretty much everything the GOP wants to accomplish.

And Democrats should be extremely vocal while doing so.

[Kentonio]

45. Completely agree

But we need to be vocal about the reasons we block each thing, not just say we'll block no matter what.

[benpollard]

37. The difference is, Democrats don't agree with Trump's agenda

The difference is, Democrats don't agree with Trump's agenda.

Republicans agreed with a lot of what Obama wanted to accomplish. They blocked him purely for political gain (which turned out to be a successful strategy).

Many Republicans were for the Stimulus and the ACA, but didn't want Obama to have any accomplishments, so they didn't vote for it. Both included a lot of GOP ideas (which is why they weren't as successful as they could have been).