Crisis in Democratville

Neither anger nor insults is an effective strategy. We had dinner last night in a place filled with Trump supporters. The vilification, or more correctly the attempt at vilification by the talking heads on TV is having a counter effect.

If the democrat party has any hope of salvaging itself and its movement (personally I think it cannot), it must take Trump and his supporters seriously, abandon its policy of petulant resistance, forsake its reliance on insults and slander, and offer something to counter the Trump message of prosperity and pride. Reagan was far more eloquent and a much more politically adept player than is Trump, but the principle and the dynamic is the same.

They both came along at a time of intense internal discomfort within the country, a blindness in the ruling party to see and feel what was really happening, and a time when the country had been made to feel uneasy about itself by politicians. A candidate appeared who was not an insider, who spoke to the nationalistic pride of the heartland, and who called forth the country to something greater than it knew or had known in recent memory.

The opposition must accept that it lost, that is was not the Russians who stole the election from them, and accept that there is a very large body of voters who like Trump. The first step in winning over an opponent is to take them seriously. Trash talk might sound tough but it won’t win the fight. The country wants to move forward, wants to fix its problems and address its ills.

The dems looked childish and foolish at the State of the Union Speech. If change is not forthcoming, the party is doomed to continue its losing streak.