Opinion piece by Christopher Currie
In 2006 and 2008, the Democratic Party had a clear, sound, convincing story to tell as to why American voters should vote for Democrats in general, and together with the screw-ups of the G. W. Bush Administration, the Democratic Party did well at the polls. They passed a lot of good legislation in the two years following 2008, but President Obama began to break many of his campaign promises. Perhaps his worst mistake was his effort to keep a Medicare-For-All Program (which of majority of American voters clearly wanted) “off the table” in order to please our nation’s DEADLY health insurance company CEOs. Instead, Obama offered a massively hodge-podge program (Obamacare) which featured a “public option.” Then (inexplicably), he dropped the “public option”, and a few weeks later the Democrats lost effective control of the Senate in 2010 when Scott Brown won the special election to get Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, because so many Massachusetts voters were so seriously upset with what Obama’s had just done that they decided NOT to show up at the polls. Obama managed to squeak the wounded Obamacare program past the Republican filibuster efforts and get it enacted in June of 2010. Not long thereafter, our nation’s DEADLY health insurance CEOs reneged on their part of the bargain and began sponsoring an effort to get Republicans in Congress to “repeal Obamacare” (i.e. they “stabbed Obama in the back”, so to speak).
In the 2010 elections, unlike the Republican Party which had a somewhat convincing (though highly dishonest) story as to why American voters should vote for Republicans IN GENERAL (which was publicized by the FOX “News Channel” and a nationwide network of right-wing radio talk show hosts), the Democratic Party used an “all politics are local, all Democratic candidates were on their own” strategy which (as usual) proved to be DISASTROUS. Many of the junior “Blue Dog Democrats” lost their seats in Congress (because they were campaigning like Republicans thereby turning off their Democratic base), and (as planned) the Republicans took control of MANY state level governments just in time to use the 2010 census to redistrict (gerrymander) those states to stack the odds to favor the election of Republicans to the House of Representatives. Although President Obama managed to get re-elected in 2012, he “sold his soul to Satan” (so to speak) by dishonestly promoting corporate America’s egregious TPP/TTIP/TiSA “trade agreements” which would have “sold” control of all three levels of our government (for most practical purposes) to a cartel of multinational corporations and foreign investors who don’t really give a damn about how many people they impoverish and/or KILL in order to “increase their bottom line.” Obama also continued the Democratic Party’s disastrous “all politics are local, all Democratic candidates were on their own” campaign strategy. So along with the moral depravity Obama’s egregious TPP/TTIP/TiSA initiatives, the Democratic Party’s tepid campaign strategy proved DISASTROUS in the 2014 elections and DISASTROUS AGAIN in 2016 (especially once Obama announced with great confidence that he would pass the TPP during the “lame session” of Congress this year). Were it not for these predictable recurring mistakes which were made even worse in 2016 by the MASSIVELY BLOODY record of Obama/Hillary’s morally depraved and DISASTROUSLY counter-productive violent “regime change” initiatives in the Middle East, Hillary would probably have won by a margin of 10 to 30 points against a candidate like Donald Trump. To his credit, Donald Trump has relieved us (and the rest of the world) of the VERY REAL and VERY SERIOUS THREAT of a TPP/TTIP/TiSA takeover of the entire United States Government!
The way things are going, it appears that the Democratic Party could easily regain control of BOTH HOUSES of Congress in 2018, BUT ONLY IF THEY LEARN FROM THEIR REPEATEDLY DISASTROUS MISTAKES! Their election of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to lead the Democratic Party makes it appear that they haven’t learned from their mistakes yet. Most American voters DESPISE AND FEAR “Wall Street Banksters”, “Vulture Capitalists”, and “Hedge Fund Managers” FOR VERY GOOD REASONS! President Obama’s policy of NOT criminally prosecuting the “Wall Street Tycoons” who committed MASSIVE FRAUDS against tens of millions of American voters seriously damaged Hillary’s chances of winning as well. The Democratic “establishment” will have to “reinvent itself” in this regard if it really hopes to win elections in the future.
Oh, and by the way, under the rules of our Electoral College System, in order to win, it is not enough to simply win a majority of votes nationwide. In order to win, a Presidential candidate must also avoid “pissing off” large numbers of people in a large number of states across our nation! Ultimately, this feature of our Electoral College System is actually GOOD for our nation. It creates our two-party system and helps ensure the political stability of our government. So use it!
