Why I left the Democratic Party

“In terms of public policy and poverty … the research shows us that we’d have about 90 million people in poverty if we didn’t have Social Security, the Earned Income Tax Credit, SNAP, which is food stamps, and so on,” Edelman tells Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer in Part One of an interview on “Scheer Intelligence.”

“So we actually have been doing—and this is very important in the age of Paul Ryan, who says nothing works, and let’s get rid of all of it, which is a total lie,” Edelman continues, “we should understand, it wasn’t as though we stopped shop in 1973 and said we’re not going to help at all. We did.”

Oh, come on! You both see this as entirely organic?


Of course, there are plenty of Democrats who have a big problem with sexual harassment and predation, and there were even a few who had a problem with Bill Clinton's, but are you really trying to tell me that those who were adults at the time of his presidency all simply evolved over the same exact time period?

How to Survive Trump’s Second Year: Engage Politically

By John Cassidy, January 3, 2018, The New Yorker

In addition to lamenting Trump, the more important—and more rewarding—thing is to defeat him at the ballot box in the 2018 midterm elections.

By 10:30 in the morning on the first workday of 2018, the Troll-in-Chief had already used his Twitter account to lash out at Iran, Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, Kim Jong Un, the New York Times, Democrats, and his own Justice Department. He had also claimed credit for the fact that there had been no fatalities anywhere in the world on commercial jets in 2017. (“Since taking office I have been very strict on Commercial Aviation.”) On Tuesday night, he posted what may have been his nuttiest tweet yet, boasting that his “Nuclear Button” was bigger and more effective than the one Kim claimed to have on his desk.

Is Trump ever going to zip it in 2018? Of course not. He lives in his own febrile and self-centered world, where the traditional rules of political discourse don’t apply. Since any thought of him changing is fanciful, we are in for another year of enervating acrimony at home and unnerving jitters on the international front. As the Russia investigation continues, Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill and in the conservative media will step up their efforts to discredit Robert Mueller, the special counsel, and his team. As the controversy about professional football players kneeling during the national anthem fades, Trump will also be on the lookout for new racial issues that he can use to rile up his base. And, as long as he follows the G.O.P. line on policy issues, the Party’s leaders on Capitol Hill will continue to support him and make excuses for his behavior.

That isn’t a complete tour of the 2018 horizon, however. In addition to lamenting Trump, the more important (and more rewarding) thing will be to respond to him politically. Last year, large numbers of Americans did just that—marching in protests, lobbying their elected representatives, making whatever financial contributions they could, and campaigning in local political elections. Come January 20th, many of these Trump antagonists will be back on the streets, taking part in this year’s Women’s March. (More than two hundred and fifty marches and events are planned.)

Although some commentators have lamented the opposition to Trump as evidence of growing political polarization, it actually indicates healthy democratic resistance to a rogue President, who, in the words of Martin Wolf, of the Financial Times, “violates the behaviour and attitudes the world expects of a US president” on a daily basis. And this year, unlike 2017, will provide an opportunity to deliver a rebuke of Trump where it counts most: at the ballot box, in nationwide elections. If Republicans lose control of Congress in November’s midterms, Trump will become a lame duck, and the chances of his being impeached may rise sharply. For Trump’s foes, the prospect of such an outcome should provide sufficient motivation to overcome @realDonaldTrump fatigue.

The possibility of Democrats surging politically in 2018 is real. In the Senate, the Democrats need to pick up two seats—their most hopeful target states seem to be Arizona, Nevada, and Tennessee. In the House, some political experts think that the Democrats will have to win the popular vote by about eight percentage points to gain the twenty-four seats they need, because of Republican gerrymandering. But that also seems possible. According to a CNN poll that was released just before Christmas, the minority party has an eighteen-point lead among registered voters on the generic congressional ballot. The FiveThirtyEight poll average which combines the results of numerous surveys, shows the Democrats with a lead of twelve percentage points. Based on the recent polls, the G.O.P. is “in worse shape right now than any other majority party at this point in the midterm cycle since at least the 1938 election,” Harry Enten, FiveThirtyEight’s senior political writer, pointed out.