Bill Scher: Democrats Should Do Something & They Are

"Lost in all this handwringing is that Democrats have been doing something and that something is having an impact. 

Congressional Democrats have hammered Trump for failing to lower the price of eggs and siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. They have blistered the House Republican budget resolution as devastating to Medicaid and savaged Elon Musk as an unelected billionaire gutting the federal government and threatening Social Security. State Democratic attorneys general, backed up by governors, are fiercely litigating to stall the Musk wrecking ball, as are progressive legal organizations. 

Not even two months into Trump’s second presidency, his political honeymoon is over. Trump’s net job approval-disapproval number sank from 8.5 points to just one in the Real Clear Politics average. (He went underwater in the FiveThirtyEight average just before the Nate Silver-created site’s parent company, ABC News, laid off its staff and stopped updating the average.) Musk’s numbers are worse. As I wrote last week, “according to the Washington Post-Ipsos poll, the public opposes mass civil service firings, shutdowns of federal agencies, including the foreign aid conduit USAID, banning transgender people from military service, and scrapping diversity programs.” More and more media reports note how Trump’s tariffs have undermined consumer confidence and risk recession...

Source:The Washington Monthly with a look at U.S. Representative Alexandria O. Cortez (Democratic Socialist, Bronx, New York) I guess she's trying to "go viral" here. 

From The Washington Monthly

As my colleague Fred Schneider wrote last week: 

"See, whatever you think of what Leigh McGowan is proposing here, it's the wrong approach, even if you like what she's proposing. At least the politics of it, even if you agree with her ideas. What she's talking about is proposing an alternative to what House Republicans are trying to jam through the House right now, but seem to be short on votes. 

I'm with James Carville on this: 

When you see your arch-enemy is drowning in the ocean. don't throw them a lifeline. Let them drown. 

When you see your arch enemy's house is on fire and no one is there to do anything about it, don't even offer to spit on the fire, let alone dump your own water on it, or call 911. Just let the house burn down... 

From The New Democrat

As Fred wrote last Friday: 

"Look, what do left-wing Democrats expect Chuck Schumer and company to do: 

filibuster every piece of legislation that Republicans try to bring to the floor, just to prevent Republicans from passing anything at all? 

Perhaps threaten government shutdowns unless Trump and company gives the Left everything that they want on every issue on every piece of legislation that is brought up? 

Silly question. Of course the left-wing of the Democratic Party expects the Democratic Leadership to do that. 

Maybe they want Hakeem Jeffries to tell all of his 215 members in the House to walk out every time House Republicans bring a bill up to a floor for vote. No maybe there. That's what the Democrats version of the political escaped mental patients (a phrase that was coined by The New Democrat) expects the Democratic Leadership to do for them.

But, just as Leigh McGowan is wrong about Democrats (who are the minority party both in the House & Senate) need to offer alternatives to the bad legislation that Trump and company are bringing up, so is the rest of the left-wing of the Democratic Party is wrong about how the Democrats should act as the opposition. As the great political humorist P.J. O'Rourke said many times: 

"The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it... 

From The New Democrat

As I wrote on Tuesday: 

"If RJ Eskow and Sam Rosenthal really want to know why they and the rest of the Socialist-Left (not progressive) are always on the outside looking in (including left-wing Democrats) and why mainstream Democrats (the real Liberals and Progressives) are always in charge of the party and why leftists are always trying get the Democratic Party move into a more left direction, they need to look into their own political mirrors.

You want to know why Hakeem Jeffries leads the House Democrats and not Alexandria O. Cortez or Al Green, or some other Democratic Socialist in the House... I'll tell you anyway: because the Democrats aren't a left-wing party in America. They have 215 seats in the House. Maybe 80 of those are Democratic Socialists, whether you are talking about dues paying members of Democratic Socialists of America, or people who are just inline with the Socialists ideologically, but aren't ready to be card-carrying members yet. 

And if you look at Chuck Schumer in the Senate.... the same thing. He's the leader of the Democrats instead of let's say Elizabeth Warren, because the overwhelmingly majority of the Senate Democratic Caucus is center-left and in some cases center-right, like the JFK New Democrats. But they're not Democratic leftists. 

Right now Republicans are proving to the American people that their form of government doesn't work... 

From The New Democrat

As my colleague Kire Schneider wrote on Wednesday: 

"Senator Elissa Slotkin laid out the game plan last night for how Democrats, not just in Congress, but at the DNC level, the state level, as well as the activist level. need to act as the opposition party. 

What Senator Slotkin (Democrat, Michigan) said last night is inline with what Fred was talking about last week: 

The Democratic Party shouldn't be acting like some shadow opposition party where they offer their own alternatives to every piece of bad legislation that Congressional Republicans bring up, or an unlawful, unconstitutional executive order that President Trump signs. 

Or, instead to go to what James Carville was talking about last week: Democrats shouldn't become the obstructionist party (which is basically what the left-wing of the party wants them to be) but instead let the people see who bad Republicans are at governing, especially when they have all the power... 

From The New Democrat

Before any leftist who sees this and tries to argue that Bill Scher is just some mushy-middle centrist, or corporate Democrat, or moderate Republican, or tries to go racial on this and be more insulting and argue that he's just some centrist "white man of privilege", here's some background on his own political career: 

"Bill Scher founded LiberalOasis.com in 2002.[citation needed] In 2004, he became a regular commentator for Air America Radio's The Majority Report hosted by Sam Seder and Janeane Garofalo.[citation needed] In 2006, he contributed a chapter to the book Proud To Be Liberal[3] and published his own book Wait! Don't Move To Canada!: A Stay-and-Fight Strategy to Win Back America (Rodale, 2006).[4] He later became an editor and writer for the Campaign for America's Future website OurFuture.or. 

Scher has been known to take positions that are controversial within liberal circles. In 2012, he published an op-ed in The New York Times titled "How Liberals Win"[6] which argued that liberals should treat "corporate power as a force to bargain with, not an enemy to vanquish". After the Edward Snowden leaks, he defended the record of the National Security Agency from a liberal perspective in essays for The Week[7] and POLITICO Magazine.[8] He defended his position in an appearance on MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell[9] and later in a debate with Snowden's attorney Ben Wizner on MSNBC's Up with Steve Kornacki.[10] He wrote articles critical of Bernie Sanders throughout the 2016 presidential primaries... 

From Wikipedia

My point for leftists who claim Bill Sher is not 1 of you... if you are someone who "rolls with The Squad", or has supported Ralph Nader, Jill Stein, Dennis Kusinich, or Bernie Sanders in the past... Bill Sher is an ideological brother of yours. I guess the difference here is that Mr. Sher sees Donald Trump and MAGA as the threat to our country that they are and he actually wants them defeated. Not just talk about how bad they are and try to raise money off of them and promote themselves, and try to "go viral" because of them, and prove to the country that Democratic Socialists are still the Democrats at the kiddy table and don't deserve to eat with the grownups. 

If you are a left-winger today, you probably see yourself as the people who are fighting for the American people and trying to defeat MAGA. That you are the teal "adults in the room" and the mainstream politicians and political activists and its everyone else (which is about 70% of the country) are the real fringe, who are trying to destroy America. But the Democrats lost "bigly" in 2024 because they're seen as a far-left, out-of-touch, snobbish political party. And they believed that Donald Trump either represents their values, or at least someone who would break up the establishment in Washington and bring down the cost of living. 

So why the left-wing of the Democratic Party is trying to make themselves the issue and trying to start some new political revolution against the Trump Administration, the Democratic Leadership which represents a solid majority of the Democratic Party, is going to let MAGA and company crash and burn. And while they're doing that, they are explaining to voters who even voted for Donald Trump and MAGA, that under MAGA's leadership, life for average Americans is getting a lot worst. And that it's the Democrats who represent ordinary, Americans of all backgrounds and they're here for them. 

The Democratic Leadership approach is the right way forward here: 

Let Donald Trump and MAGA crash and burn by themselves. 

Don't do anything to help them, other than help keep the government open, but without giving them anything politically to do that.

And prevent the government from defaulting, but not give them anything politically to do that and even argue in favor of fiscal responsibility, while the Trump Administration and Republican Congress tries to borrow 4 trillion-dollars for their spending priorities. 

And that Democrats have a much better approach, that's a lot more popular, that represents the priorities of average Americans.

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