I’ll admit it: I’m an extremist. If I had my druthers, I’d dismantle the capitalist system. It’s morally indefensible. But I’m also a practical guy. So I’m more than willing to accept the Democratic Party. But I want to push it in the right direction. It’s hilarious that Bernie Sanders goes around calling himself a socialist and people don’t slap him. Do words no longer have any meaning?!

But I’m definitely part of the “Sanders wing” of the Democratic Party. I’m willing to accept a party that supports unions and takes care of the poor and doesn’t apologize for the fact that, yes, we have to pay taxes for that. And just to prove it, I just paid over 22 percent of my income last year to the federal government. And I’m proud to do it, even though I don’t make that much money. I assure you that Donald Trump and Mitt Romney both paid a far smaller percentage of their incomes.

Allies Who Disagree

So what I’m saying is that as a practical matter, I’m a good old fashioned New Deal and Great Society Democrat. But I understand that the New Democrats still have enormous power in the party. And I understand that the party is still wedded to neoliberal ideas. It’s always a better idea to give money to the rich so they can give a job to the poor than to just give the money (Or the job!) to the poor. Everything has to be complicated because — Damnit! — Ezra Klein and Bill Clinton are both really smart guys and they don’t cotton to no simple answers!

But I get it. Somethings things are complicated. I’m not against that. But just as Republicans approach every problem with a long list of things they absolutely can’t do because of their ideology, the New Democrat side of the Democratic Party approaches every problem by assuming that simple answers won’t work. I think they’re wrong. And I will argue with them. But I understand that they are on my side.

The problem is: I don’t think they understand that I’m on their side. I think they are like the The People’s Front of Judea:

Intra-Fighting Trumps (!) Inter-Fighting

It seems to be worse in the United Kingdom, where the establishment of the Labour Party (You know: the ones who kept losing elections!) seem happier to see the Tories in control of the government than Labour if scary old Jeremy Corbyn leads the party. And this was always my single biggest concern about Bernie Sanders during the last Democratic primary. For all the bellyaching about Sanders supporters not supporting Clinton in the general election, we did — in a big way.

But I feel certain that had Sanders won the primary, the establishment would have treated him the way they treated George McGovern in 1972. “The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People’s Front!”

Democratic Party: Too Big a Tent

And actually, there’s a reason for this. The United States is a one-party country. The Republicans aren’t a political party. They’re just a group of nuts. The only people who are actually interested in how the government is run are now in the Democratic Party. And in that way the New Democrats and the New Deal Democrats really are two parties. But hey: we’re stuck together for right now. We are on the same side: the side that thinks the government should actually work for the people.

Sure, you would think the Republicans would be for that too, but they aren’t. And that’s the reason that the Democratic Party with its far too big a tent needs to stick together. And that is why I was a strong supporter of Hilary Clinton. Because on the issues that are open for discussion in our deeply troubled country, I agreed with her the vast majority of the time.

We’ve Got to Get Along — for Now

My question to the New Democrats is whether they can see that. I got into a big fight with an old friend over Glenn Greenwald, even though I have little doubt that my friend not only agrees with me the vast majority of the time but that he agrees with Greenwald the vast majority of the time.

The only way we save this country is if we hate the “Romans” more than the “fucking Judean People’s Front!” And if we do, we can destroy the Republicans. Then we can dig deeper and disagree enough to have two different political parties. (Actually, all the New Democrats would just become Republicans. Or we would. What’s in a name?) But if the New Democrats think that’s going to happen by brushing the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party aside, they are sadly mistaken, and we might all just give up now.

Afterword

That phrase “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” is most known from Howard Dean. Other than his stance on the Iraq War, I’m not much of a fan of the man. He is a New Democrat. Dean took the phrase from Paul Wellstone and so I claim it as ours: the people who want more Great Society and less welfare “reform” and education “reform” — the people who want more equality and less of the false promise of “equality of opportunity.”

Another Afterword

And don’t go complaining that there is a tiny group of liberals who won’t vote for the Democratic Party. This has been true my entire life. Just because they liked Bernie Sanders doesn’t mean anything. The vast majority of Sanders supporters voted for Clinton — about the same as the number of Clinton supporters who voted for Obama in 2008. I have one thing to say to anything anyone wants to say on this issue: all Indians walk in single-file, at least the only one I ever saw did.

Learn statistics, folks!

Final Afterword

I’ve more or less changed my mind about who gets to be a dick around here.

I’m rather fond of The American Conservative — there is much that I admire about what I consider real conservatism as opposed to the proto-fascism that passes itself off as conservatism in this country. Just the same, I think they are mostly wrong. But I feel like I can have a conversation with this kind of conservative. Or at least until I read Scott McConnell’s Vox article, I Voted for Trump. After the Syria Strikes, I’m Second-Guessing My Choice. Maybe it says something that this ridiculous article didn’t run in The American Conservative.

McConnell drags us through the history of his thinking, as if anyone cares. That’s knock number one. But eventually, he lands at the “neoconservatism is bad” position. He’s an “America first” guy. Well, that’s pathetic anyway. I’m not for keeping America out of foreign wars because I care so much about America. I’m for staying home because it’s good for the world. So there’s knock number two against McConnell: he believes the myth that we have the biggest empire in the history of world because we’re just such nice guys. I understand that my uneducated 84-year-old father falls for this. But the co-founding editor of The American Conservative? Geez.

Scott McConnell’s Greatest Sin

But those were nothing compared to what he really wants to talk about, “When Trump announced his candidacy for president in 2016 [Close! -FM], I found myself surprised by how bold and, often, how cogent his foreign policy perspectives seemed.” Oh yeah. He said: let’s not get into wars; it’s stupid. I agree. But that’s hardly the result of deep thinking. And McConnell admits that.

Here is a presidential candidate who isn’t even smart enough to be an anti-intellectual. Trump makes Pat Buchanan look like Noam Chomsky. But Scott McConnell was willing to roll the dice! Why not?! How could he have known that once newly elected presidents get to town, all the institutional pressure is brought to bear. “You don’t want another 9/11 or Pearl Harbor, do you?!” Oh, I just had a thought: Scott McConnell could have known that by watching literally every president during either of our lifetimes.

McConnell also claims, “Hillary Clinton would likely seek confrontations everywhere.” Really?! I don’t think anyone imagined her getting us into a nuclear war (give him time). I don’t think anyone imaged her making tensions with North Korea worse. Sure, from my perspective, Clinton is a hawk. I know that because she’s been a politician for a long time and so I know what she stands for. But the co-founding editor of The American Conservative picked his president in the same way that a high school boy picks his girlfriend: he knew nothing of Trump, so therefore, he must be great!

McConnell Voted for Trump Because He Would Have Voted for Any Republican

But I’ll tell you what really went on. McConnell is a conservative in the regular American sense of the word. Sure: on international issues, he’s more liberal. But all the toxic waste that is the conservative mind is there in McConnell’s mind. His cerebral cortex might have told him that he was voting for a non-interventionist president. But the drums were beating in his lower brain: tribe, tribe, tribe!

It’s not even 100 days into Trump’s administration and Scott McConnell is already “second-guessing” his choice. Has he not noticed that Trump has got the little good press of his presidency for bombing Syria? Imagine what 4 or 8 years will bring.

I really don’t care that McConnell voted for Trump. Like almost all conservatives I’m sure he would vote for a little yellow dog if it had a “(R)” after its name. But why can’t he shut up? Nothing Trump has done has been a surprise to me. And it shouldn’t have been a surprise for McConnell. All his Vox article does is give him the ultimately get out of jail free card. If Trump turns out to be what Trump will turn out to be, McConnell will claim that early on he said Trump was no good. And should fairies descend on Earth and make Trump a non-interventionist, then McConnell can say, “Well, I just said I was concerned.”

Here’s my note to McConnell and all Trump voters: I blame you for everything and nothing you say will change that because nothing Trump does is surprising. McConnell is in a particularly bad place in this regard, because he doesn’t have the excuse of being an idiot.

An article at Vox got me thinking, Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy Is Becoming Everything He Said He Hated. And of course: Donald Trump is an establishment Republican, and he always has been. He claimed not to be. But so does every Republican who ever runs for president.

The Export-Import Bank

Of particular interest to me is his reversal on the Export-Import Bank. That’s one of these things that conservatives and neoliberals alike just love. It’s really just corporate welfare. But you will hear otherwise reasonable liberals make claims like “80 percent of its loans are to small businesses.” In case that claim isn’t obviously ridiculous to you, just image if you gave out $10,000 loans to 8 small businesses, and then $50 billion each to Boeing and General electric. That would be 80 percent of its loans going to small businesses, yet no one would think the Export-Import Bank was a boon for small businesses.

Trump is now in favor of the Export-Import Bank. It’s one of many supposed reversals that Trump has made that have turned him from a populist into an entirely typical establishment Republican.

Trump on Afghanistan

Another example of this came yesterday with the dropping of the “mother of all bombs” on Afghanistan. In the reporting in The New York Times, it said, “The statement [from the Pentagon] did not say how many militants were killed, or whether the bombing caused any civilian casualties.” Yeah, like the government can be trusted to tell us this; the US media is more of a government lapdog than Pravda ever was.

But what bugs me is to think back during the general election campaign for president and how many fellow Democrats — and my kind of Democrats — liberal or leftist Democrats — claimed that Hillary Clinton would be the hawk. I remember a friend of mine asking me with some fear about a report she had heard on (very liberal) KPFA claiming that Clinton would start Word War III.

I never have been a big Clinton booster, but I think everyone understoond that for all her faults — real and imagined — she wasn’t a liar. She is, by my standards, a hawk. But she isn’t an establishment Republican. And Trump is and was.

Trump’s 2020 Campaign Will Look Different

Yes, I suppose that a lot of us were hopeful (after Trump won) that the total chaos of his brain might make him more liberal than he appeared. But as Alfie Kohn has noted, his conservative beliefs are determined by his psychological dysfunction and are “far from accidental.” It seems that day by day Trump becomes more and more simply a typical Republican. Any pretense that Trump is the savior of the white working man is all gone.

In discussing Trump’s children, one insider said, “The fundamental assessment is that if they want to win the White House in 2020, they’re not going to do it the way they did in 2016, because the family brand would not sustain the collateral damage.” And what does that mean? In 2020, hopefully the economy will be doing well and Trump will run as Romney did in 2012. Because other than being mentally unstable, there really is no difference between Trump and Romney. That’s because Trump is an establishment Republican.

And that brings up the lie that we worker bees are going to be saved by some kind-hearted billionaire. That’s always been a joke. Remember when Trump came out with his big tax plan back in September 2015 and it was far more regressive than even establishment Republican Jeb Bush’s? Well, the other night, he told Fox News, “We haven’t failed [with Trumpcare] — we’re negotiating, and we continue to negotiate, and we will save perhaps $900 billion … we have to do health care first to pick up additional money so that we get great tax reform.” Great tax reform for him.

The Establishment Republican Tactics

For most of my life, the Republican Party has been based on tricking lower income people to vote for them on social issues, and then passing economic legislation that harmed the very people who voted for them.[1] All Trump has done is to be more upfront and vulgar about it. His was just a variation on the establishment Republican con. And part of that is claiming each of your opponents is an establishment Republican.

Trump’s trick was that he didn’t specifically pick on black Americans. That’s the one minority group in the US that explicitly attacking really is a bridge too far for middle-of-the-road voters. (Being against them, as Trump is in his embrace of Blue Lives Matter, is totally fine.) So Trump came up with the brilliant idea of being blunt with regard to Latinos and Muslims. But that’s tactics. Just tactics.

Otherwise, it’s all the same: just another establishment Republican trying to get elected. Trump promised that his policies would be great for working people — just like Romney, McCain, and Bush. And just like them, he was lying. Thus far, Trump’s administration has been one after another giveaway to the rich. Republicans claim that they hate redistribution of wealth, but that’s not true. As Trump (and every other Republican president in recent history) shows, they are all for redistributing money from the poor and middle-class to the rich.

Trump’s Agenda: Tax Cuts for the Rich

So when Trump was told that the biggest losers under Trumpcare would be his own voters, his answer was a shrug and, “Oh, I know.” The fact that 24 million people would lose healthcare meant nothing compared to “great tax reform.” And this is what that great tax reform looks like:

Like every other establishment Republican, this is what it comes down to. Poor people die, but that doesn’t matter because rich people will be even more rich!

Trump’s Tricks Work — Just Like the Republican Establishment’s

What’s so concerning about all of this is that Trump has been so politically crude. He really did reinvent politics. He showed that you don’t have to even have a pretense at a plan. Just say that you are going to come up with something “terrific” and the people will buy it. Sure, 80 percent of the people who voted for Trump don’t have to worry. But there were some really important poor and middle-class voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania who voted for their own destruction based on absolute fairy tales. But this is only different from an establishment Republican in the most trivial ways.

And nothing will change in 2020. This has been a winning formula for Republicans for the last 4 decades. The only thing that has changed is the demographics. And I do hope that they will save us. But I’ve come to see the Republicans as being very good at winning elections. And the Democrats as being very good at losing them. So who knows?

But no one should be surprised that Donald Trump sounds less like a populist every day. It is more surprising that he still maintains the pretense. Because his kids are right: 2020 will be different. I can see the basic campaign strategy right now and it is totally establishment Republican: “1. The economy is good [or improving — one or the other will most likely be true]; 2. Trump didn’t get into a nuclear war and so is just like any other Republican.” If the economy is good, we’ll get a repeat of Reagan’s “Morning in America” ad. And nothing else will matter.

Trump Is an Establishment Republican President

The Republican establishment would have won no matter what because they couldn’t possibly lose. If Trump had been a real populist — even a racist one — he wouldn’t have gotten the nomination. The only sense in which he wasn’t an establishment Republican was that he was new to politics. And the establishment push against him was anemic. There are more people with more political activity at Frankly Curious than there ever was with #NeverTrump. Just look at the graph above. They knew they had their man. And they knew when he said he was going to drain the swamp, what he meant was that he was going to drain it of any nutrients that were left in it.

[1] I know the data on this. The richer you are, the more likely you are to vote Republican. But without the 10, maybe 20, percent of the poor who vote for them, the Republican Party would not be competitive.