Free Republic

President Trump's shocking victory in November and the tumultuous beginning of his presidency have shattered many assumptions about American politics. For many liberals and progressives, the weeks since Donald Trump’s inauguration have been filled with soul-searching and even confusion about their place in American politics. Trump’s flurry of executive orders, coming in quick succession on matters ranging from federal employment and immigration to reorganizing the National Security Council, have driven deep division within the Democratic party. The reaction to Trump’s action have pitted pragmatic, center-left politicians against protesting activists forming “The Resistance.” Many Democratic disagreements with Trump’s executive orders are...

American leftists see huge gains as anger grows against Donald Trump's anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim policies. The election of far-right President Donald Trump has led to a surge in membership of socialist organisations across the United States. During his first few weeks in office, Trump has already issued a flurry of executive orders targeting Muslims and immigrants, while moving to lift regulations on Wall Street. In response, protests have taken place in cities across the country. Last week, demonstrations against Trump's now frozen ban on travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries were held at airports. The day after his inauguration, millions joined...

Bernie Sanders may have lost the Democratic presidential nomination last year, but it appears he hasn’t lost the ardent support of his fan base. Some people who were “feeling the Bern,” including members of the Vermont senator’s campaign staff, certain delegates and a group of volunteers began a campaign Thursday for Sanders to spearhead his own political party. “Draft Bernie for a People’s Party” is aimed at transforming Sanders’ amorphous, widespread support base into a new, concrete political party. The proposed party said it intends to mobilize opposition to President Donald Trump. “This party will offer new progressive electoral choices...

The word on everyone’s lips in Washington now — in newsrooms and advocacy groups, in congressional offices and embassies — is “firehose.” As in the high-pressure stream of White House orders. The daily deluge of Donald Trump’s tweets blaming “so-called” judges for future terror attacks and assailing Nordstrom for dropping his daughter’s clothing line for poor sales. The tsunami of statements inflating the murder rate and hyping the terrorist threat, while aides mind-bendingly blame the media for not covering massacres in Bowling Green and Atlanta that never happened. With each new volley, drinking from the Trump firehose feels ever more...

House Democrats kicked off their retreat in Baltimore with Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declaring that, while they previously vowed to work with President Trump on areas of agreement, there won't be areas of agreement if the White House doesn't change. "Three weeks in the White House has really revealed that President Trump is exactly who we thought he is -- incompetent, and in some cases, in terms of our national security, dangerous. Perpetuating a massive con on those who he said that he would stand up against powerful interests," Pelosi told reporters Wednesday. "He's out there to Make American Sick...

They are comforting themselves with moral victories, but for Democrats, there have been no concrete wins so far in their showdowns with the Trump administration. The Senate vote Tuesday confirming Betsy DeVos as education secretary was the latest example, with the minority party holding all its own troops and even gaining the support of some Republicans — and still falling short in their bid to thwart President Trump. It’s not for lack of trying. Democrats staged a rally outside the Supreme Court last week to protest Mr. Trump’s executive order for extreme vetting at ports of entry for people from...

The White House on Thursday disputed reports that President Trump is open to considering a sweeping 2013 immigration bill that offered a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Reports emerged Thursday that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) told journalists on Capitol Hill that Trump told a bipartisan gathering of lawmakers he is receptive to the so-called Gang of Eight bill. “He is open to reviewing the piece of legislation. He says, ‘Well, you’ve got to start working on it again.’ And I says, ‘Absolutely, we will,’ ” Manchin said of Trump, according to NBC News. But White House press secretary Sean...

If you think the riots and marches are bad now, wait until President Trump gets a chance at filling a second or even third vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States. The “nastiness,” vulgarities, property damage, and violence we see now are nothing compared to what we will witness if the American left sees the legality of their perverse sexual agenda threatened. With the nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch to fill the seat vacated as the result of the death of Antonin Scalia, liberals at every level of political involvement are already throwing a hissy-fit.

A Real Populist Rebellion is Needed to Challenge the System of Systemic Corruption Why the Trump Protests, Like the Wisconsin Uprising, Will Fail The massive, continuing protests against President Trump, #NotMyPresident, are not a movement and will only benefit Trump. They are an emotional tactic devoid of strategy, and one that has made Trump stronger and stronger since it was first unleashed during the Republican primaries at the beginning of 2016. ‘Trump is a racist narcissist pig, unfit to exist, much less govern,’ or so the meme goes. But despite losing the popular vote he mat slammed Hillary and the...

Is President Trump in the process of imploding? Some see reason to think so. Given the major fallout over his travel ban, ranging from the spontaneous protests that have broken out worldwide to a federal judge ruling that the ban needed to be stopped, it seems as though Trump is struggling. Over the past few days, many commentators have pointed to the president’s abysmally low approval ratings, with 53 percent of Americans unhappy with the way that he has handled the job, as evidence that his power may be vastly limited by his unpopularity. With Trump madly (and impotently) tweeting...

Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison once accused Jewish people of oppressing “minorities all over the world,” Ellison’s former college classmate revealed in an interview. Mother Jones interviewed former classmate Michael Olenick who worked as the opinions editor at the University of Minnesota’s student newspaper, The Minnesota Daily. Olenick said that Ellison, who went by Keith Hakim at the time, argued that “white Jews” were routinely oppressing minority groups. “European white Jews are trying to oppress minorities all over the world,” Olenick remembers Ellison arguing. “Keith would go on all the time about ‘Jewish slave traders,'” according to the Mother Jones...

George Santayana was an immigrant. Born in Spain in 1863, he moved to Boston in 1869 with his mother and siblings. He would eventually attend Harvard College, and then become a professor of philosophy there where he instructed such historic figures as T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost and Gertrude Stein. As a philosopher, Santayana was one among many. But when it comes to his aphorisms, he was unparalleled. His most famous, of course, concerns history: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” He also had this gem: “Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten...

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has warned Democrats they need to "take a chill pill" and realize that they are not going to take back national power anytime soon. "It ain't gonna happen in 2018," Emanuel said Monday at Stanford's Graduate School of Business in California. "Take a chill pill, man. You gotta be in this for the long haul." As he did last month at an event in Washington, D.C., the mayor expanded on what he believes is the road map back to power for his party — putting moderate candidates such as veterans, football players, sheriffs and business people up...

The former Presidential candidate used her first public comments since Trump's inauguration to stress women have a vital role in the future of America Hillary Clinton is back - and she has a message for Donald Trump . In her first public comments since the inauguration, former democratic presidential nominee said women have a vital role in the future of America. In a message at the opening of 'The 2017 MAKERS Conference', Clinton said: "Despite all the challenges we face I remain convinced that yes the future is female. "Just look at the amazing energy we saw last month as...

The price of entry for the 2020 presidential primary is ferocious opposition to the president. The Democratic base is so roiled and enraged after only two weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency that a take-no-prisoners posture toward the White House is emerging as the price of entry for the 2020 primary. An election that could have focused on economic inequality and the excesses of Wall Street — the issues that animate the left’s leading tribunes, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — is already shaping up as a contest about the intensity of the resistance to Trump. “In almost 20 years of...

We're just over two weeks into the Donald Trump administration. So far, the President of the United States has: lied about the size of his inauguration crowd, summoned the director of the National Park Service and pressured him to produce photographs to prove that the attendance was less than sparsely attended, reportedly threatened to send troops into Mexico to take care of 'bad hombres' and hung up on the Australian prime minister. In between, he's gagged scientists at federal agencies from communicating with the public, signed an executive order barring refugees from Muslim-majority country that has been celebrated by jihadist...

A quote that caught my eye from RCP’s analysis of the inevitable confirmation of Neil Gorsuch. The potential political downside could be much greater for the Democratic Party with Gorsuch than it ultimately was for the GOP with Garland — leaving reason to doubt that Democrats would fully obstruct the nominee rather than seek a more favorable fight elsewhere. “I think it’s likely he’ll be confirmed,” said one Democratic Senate campaign operative, “and there will be a larger fight on the next one.” His credentials are impeccable and his character, by seemingly all accounts, is perfectly suited to the job....

Beware anyone who tells you that there is an obvious play for Senate Democrats in handling Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court. There is no such play. There is barely any play at all. It is an awful situation, because being in the minority is awful, and if they botch their next move, it could be more awful still. The most viscerally satisfying play for Senate Democrats would be to disengage completely. As Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer put it, “I encourage my Senate colleagues to give Neil Gorsuch the same courtesy Senate Republicans gave Merrick Garland.” But it...

As House Democrats learned that a federal program countering “violent extremism” was likely to be reframed to target “Islamic extremism,” many were gathering for an unofficial forum on “Trump’s Un-American Muslim and Refugee Ban.” Sponsored by the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), the forum gathered Muslim witnesses and State Department veterans for a 110-minute series of speeches against the president’s executive orders on refugees and travel from seven majority-Muslim nations. “For decades, we have granted safe haven to families fleeing persecution and violence,” said Conyers, who frequently holds “alternative” hearings when Democrats are in...

CNN anchor Jake Tapper and chief political correspondent Dana Bash will moderate a Town Hall Debate with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Texas Senator Ted Cruz on the future of Obamacare at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 7. President Donald Trump has made repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act one of his top priorities while Congressional Democrats are opposed. Sanders, an opponent of repealing Obamacare, and Cruz, a supporter of the President’s healthcare agenda, will join Tapper and Bash to debate the fate of former President Barack Obama's signature legislation and the GOP’s approach to healthcare....