Hillary should staff a Shadow Government

[NightWatcher]

I wish Hillary would begin staffing a "Shadow Government" consisting of members designated for every Cabinet agency.

These members can meet in private and maintain secrecy. They should examine every move, be it criminal or incompetent of their alter ego, and be ready to step into position, should a dire emergency demand the replacement of every remnant of the Orange One and his Comedy of Failures.

This Shadow Government could also step in once it has been learned the extent to which this election was the result of criminal fraud from domestic and foreign actors.

When armed insurrection rises up to topple this criminal regime, we're going to want to have a team that can swoop in to make transition back to normalcy as quickly and painlessly as possible.

[yeoman6987]

1. Who pays for this? Hillary? I mean she has personal funds but it'd be expensive

[Kingofalldems]

4. Doesn't matter. Trump is a traitor as are many of his supporters.

[DURHAM D]

2. I would rather see a Voter Registration drive

staring right now coupled with public service ads on tv explaining How Trump is Screwing You.

Also hire an army of Real News posters based in the US to push back against Fake News posters in Eastern Europe.

[ZoomBubba]

3. It's time to move on ...

... Hillary's gone. She's not coming back. The Democratic Party has a chance to break away from the Clintons and re-define itself without them. That's one good thing that came out of this mess.

[earthside]

5. A 'Shadow Cabinet' is a good idea.

But I have to agree that the Democratic Party needs non-Washington fresh faces and new progressive-populist leadership now.

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

9. She literally issued a request to make all information pertaining to the Russian hacks

available to electors 2 days ago. Obviously she still thinks she's got a chance. Your post reeks of Bernie or Bust.

[ZoomBubba]

12. Please do not make accusations ...

... I was not a Berniebot. I voted for Hillary.

That said, I just think we'd benefit in moving past her. Even if the presidential election is shown to be fraud, she has very little chance of becoming president ... that honor would probably go to Pence or whatever candidate was compromised on.

Like it or not, the Clintons have been larger than the Democratic party for years. Whatever has been thrown at them sticks to us. We have a chance to separate ourselves from that now and redefine our image. I just think that's an opportunity we should take coming out of this election.

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

15. Save it for January 7th

Until congress' confirmation locks Hillary out. Tired of the defeatism tbh, we need to keep fighting for a "perfect scenario " rather than a "rational one". If this election taught us one thing it's that excessive rationality is a deterrent. Focus your energy on flipping electors and dredging up Trump's Russian ties.

On January 7th we can talk about how to prepare the democratic party for 2018

[ZoomBubba]

17. No thanks ...

... I'd rather not gamble on something that could put us in a bigger hole than we're already in. We have to assume this is the way things are going to be and act accordingly. Putting all our energy and focus on something very unlikely (flipping electors) is just going to distract from that. We need to be ready for the most likely situation and that is a Trump presidency.

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

19. How could we get in a bigger hole than we are now?

It's a zero sum game. We either do or die. By your logic voting itself is a gamble. I think it wouldn't hurt to spend 2 weeks making an effort to tank opinion of him among his base (in hopes to flip electors).

[ZoomBubba]

20. We can be in a bigger hole ...

... by not being ready. We have to be strategic in the next two years, especially since 2018 could be the worst year ever for us. Not thinking about how we are going to keep from going below 40 seats in the Senate should be the top priority.

The electors are not going to flip. It's just not going to happen.

[PoliticAverse]

26. Actually it was Podesta who did that. I haven't seen any comment on this matter by Clinton

herself.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/electoral-college-members-request-intelligence-briefing-171751746--election.html

[MichMary]

6. Presidential succession

is in the Constitution, and it makes no provision for including the loser of the Electoral College vote and her "shadow government." If Trump is impeached, Pence will be president. If Pence resigns or is impeached, then Trump gets to nominate another VP. If they would both go simultaneously, then it would be Ryan.

There is not going to be an armed insurrection.

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

10. t. he doesn't know what a shadow government is

[hughee99]

7. This sounds like the sort of thing many DUers would call "treason" if a republican were doing it. nt

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

11. false equivalency

Core republicanism has become a delusional entity of mass-hysteria and fear based in alternate reality. At this point being a republican isn't political affinity, it's masochism of the highest order.

[ZoomBubba]

13. They also ...

... control all levels of the federal government and majority of state governments. They're the ones who have the ball right now, not us, and the people have passed it to them again. We cannot act like they're some fringe, they are the mainstream at the moment.

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

16. I'm not acting like they're the fringe

Hence "mass"-hysteria.

[jabbothedog]

23. Problem is, GOP and swing voters don't think they're the ones being hysterical;

they think they are saving America and the hysteria is on the part of Democrats. And the more "hysterical" Democrats act, the more that swing voters who sided with the GOP have their presumption confirmed.

[SubjectiveLife78]

14. Which doesn't negate the point you're replying to

[Jean-Jacques Roussea]

18. true but only in the literal sense

Because your post was clearly intended to draw a line of hypocrisy.

[hughee99]

25. Exactly. It's different when THEY do it because they're bad people and wrong. nt

[brooklynite]

8. Since Hillary isn't the head of the Democratic Party, why her?

[msongs]

21. agreed and it should NOT be secret. not to interfere but to be an alternative for ideas/solutions

[karynnj]

22. A shadow government works best in a parlimentary form of government

In countries from the UK to Israel with Parliments, all members of the cabinet are members of the Parliment. This explains the leader being the PRIME minister. The US government has a completely seperate Executive branch, where the President nominates cabinet secretaries that are confirmed by the Senate. An adhoc shaddow government would - for the most part - not be part of the government. They would not head anything, would not get all the information needed for many NS positions. I think if HRC spoke of doing this, it would not help either her or us.

However, the Senate itself has a "shaddow" government. Every committee has a ranking member heading the minority side. Prominence is partly from that status and the status granted the member by the media.

Another problem is that there is no real pattern for who the media treats as head of the party when it does not hold the Presidency. Neither party treats its defeated nominees as the sole leader of the party. Neither Mitt Romney or John McCain were the go to leader after 2008 and 2012 respectively. Gore intentionally lleft the country for a year, but when he returned, he was not considered the leader of the party - even though he actually should have won both the EC and popular vote. The strongest voices in 2001-2003 were Bill and Hillary Clinton. In 2005, there was a whisper campaign against Kerry suggesting that he was acting as if he was a leader. After Trump is inagugerated, there will be many Democratic voices - just as there were many Republican ones over the last 8 years. There is no real precedent for Hillary to retain the position she had as nominee. However, as many of us said in 2005, the nominee does remain one of the leaders of the party and if HRC wants to speak out, so much the better - we need strong voices. I would suggest that the strongest voice of the Democrats - at least initially - will be OBAMA.

In Obama, we have a young, vigourous former President, who leaves office with a spectacular set of accomplishments and a very clean reputation. Add to that the fact that Obama is incredibly charming, dignified and able to speak eloquently on virtually anything. Neither Obama or Clinton will be the nominee we chose in 2020. Therefore as 2017 moves towards 2020, I would expect that we will hear voices of new leadership ... and hopefully someone will emerge with the ability to both win the election and to repair the damage almost certainly to be done.

[MBS]

24. good analysis.

I can only hope that our country (and the planet) will survive this nightmare in enough pieces for those "new voices" even to be able to repair the damage.

[treestar]

27. I like this idea in that every thing

that happens, they can say what they would have done.