Taibbi on Trump, with a message for Dems

[Proud Public Servant]

Last edited Sat May 21, 2016, 10:24 AM - Edit history (1)

Great piece on the GOP implosion, but these paragraphs near the end bear posting:

Democrats who might be tempted to gloat over all of this should check themselves. If the Hillary Clintons and Harry Reids and Gene Sperlings of the world don't look at what just happened to the Republicans as a terrible object lesson in the perils of prioritizing billionaire funders over voters, then they too will soon enough be tossed in the trash like a tick.

It almost happened this year, when the supporters of Bernie Sanders nearly made it over the wall. Totally different politicians with completely different ideas about civility and democracy, Sanders and Trump nonetheless keyed in on the same widespread disgust over the greed and cynicism of the American political class.

From the Walter Mondale years on, Democrats have eaten from the same trough as Republicans. They've grown fat off cash from behemoths like Cisco, Pfizer, Exxon Mobil, Citigroup, Goldman and countless others, companies that moved jobs overseas, offshored profits, helped finance the construction of factories in rival states like China and India, and sometimes all of the above.

The basic critique of both the Trump and Sanders campaigns is that you can't continually take that money and also be on the side of working people. Money is important in politics, but in democracy, people ultimately still count more.

The Democrats survived this time, but Republicans allowed their voters to see the numerical weakness of our major parties. It should take an awful lot to break up 60 million unified people. But a few hundred lawyers, a pile of money and a sales pitch can be replaced in a heartbeat, even by someone as dumb as Donald Trump.

Regardless of whom we support, it's a message we must heed.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/r-i-p-gop-how-trump-is-killing-the-republican-party-20160518#ixzz49IORoNN7

[JRLeft]

1. It's coming. Both parties are relatively the same. Besides the social issues there is very little

daylight between the 2 parties.

[pinebox]

2. 100% agreed

[JRLeft]

3. 2 corrupt organizations begging billionaires and corporations for money.

If you ask Hillary supporters it only impacts republicans.

[EL34x4]

4. "even by someone as dumb as Donald Trump."

Taibbi, as always, makes a lot of great points, but framing Donald Trump as "dumb" is going to result in Democrats standing around wondering WTF happened come election day.

Trump is not Dubya. Billionaires by definition are not stupid. This guy routed 16 other professional politicians and now stands toe to toe against Hillary Clinton. Trump may talk like a cab driver from Queens but he's no idiot. Every word he says (and the way he says it) is deliberate and thought out.

I can say it until I'm blue in the face, it would behoove Democrats to treat Donald Trump as a formidable opponent who knows what he's doing.

[EL34x4]

5. Reading the rest of the article...

...with tears running down my face at Taibbi's narrative about the end days of Ted Cruz's campaign.