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Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again (Loony Left Reading List Alert)
Vanity ^ | 2/18/2020 | Dan Pfeiffer

Posted on 02/18/2020 1:02:44 AM PST by Oshkalaboomboom

trump

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Yes We (Still) Can and cohost of Pod Save America, a sharp political playbook for how Democrats can take on Trump, McConnell, Fox News, and the rest of the right-wing circus dominating American politics.

There is nothing more important than beating Donald Trump in 2020, but defeating Trump is just the start of this timely book. Un-Trumping America offers readers three critical insights: first, Trump is not an aberration, but rather the logical extension of the modern Republican Party; second, how Democrats can defeat Trump in 2020; and third, preventing the likes of Trump from ever happening again with a plan to fix democracy.

While the catalog of the president's crimes is long and growing, undoing Trumpism -- the political platform of racism, authoritarianism, and plutocracy that gave rise to Trump and defines the Republican Party -- is a long and continuing fight. Through a craven, cynical strategy engineered by Mitch McConnell, funded by the Kochs, and fueled by Fox News propaganda, Republicans have rigged American politics to drown out the voices of the people in favor of the powerful. Without an aggressive response that recognizes who the Republicans are and what they have done, American democracy as we know it won't survive this moment and a conservative, shrinking, mostly white minority will govern the country for decades.

Un-Trumping America dismantles toxic Trumpism and offers a way forward. Dan Pfeiffer worked for nearly twenty years at the center of Democratic politics, from the campaign trail to Capitol Hill to Barack Obama's White House. But it was Trump's victory and Republicans' incessant aiding and abetting of Trumpism that has radicalized his thinking. Here, Pfeiffer urges Democrats to embrace bold solutions -- from fixing the courts to abolishing the electoral college to eliminating the filibuster -- in order to make America more democratic (and Democratic).

Un-Trumping America is a powerful call for Democrats and progressives to get smarter, tougher, and more aggressive without becoming a paler shade of orange.


TOPICS: Books/Literature; Chit/Chat; Humor; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: loonyleft; progressives; tds
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To: Oshkalaboomboom
This brings to mind the parable of the Dog Food Company:
Once upon a time a pet food company created a new variety of dog food and rolled out a massive marketing campaign to introduce the product. Despite hiring a first-rate advertising agency, initial sales were very disappointing. The agency was fired and a new agency and a new campaign was launched. Sales continued to disappoint. If anything, they fell even further. In desperation, the CEO called in all of the top executives for a brainstorming session to analyze what had gone wrong with the two campaigns and how a new campaign might revive sales.

The meeting went on for hours. Sophisticated statistical analysis was brought to bear on the problem. One VP argued that the mix of TV and print ads had been messed up. Another argued that the previous campaigns had been too subtle and had failed to feature the product with sufficient prominence. Another argued that the TV ad campaign had focused too much on spots during sporting events and not enough on regular programming with a broader demographic. Another argued the opposite–not enough sports programming had been targeted. After the debate had raged for hours, the CEO felt they had accomplished very little. He asked if anyone else had any theories that might explain the failure of the new product. Finally, one newly hired employee raised his hand and was recognized.

Maybe the dogs don’t like it, he said.


I use this parable to illustrate the problem the Left has now:

They have all kinds of ideas about how things should be done, the way people should act, the foods we should eat (or not eat, like Bloomberg and his soda ban) the language we should use (or not use) and the list goes on and on. They have focus groups that analyze aspects of what a candidate should be all about, they are running commercials nauseatingly non-stop (which I believe will eventually have a negative impact) and overall, they think they are the smartest, most organized, most moral, most "woke", most environmentally conscious, most tolerant, most democratic, and most American group of people around.

Their problem is a fundamental one:

Their Ideas Suck.

They exist inside a Leftist echo chamber, and they have no understanding of that fact. They think that if they keep saying over and over again what they believe in, inundate America from all sides of the media with their ideas, spray those ideas at us with the firehoses of media and entertainment, scold us, yell at us, tell us how stupid we are not to see them for the geniuses that they are...well, they think that approach, like that of the marketing executives in the Dog Food Parable, that they can somehow fix their "product" composed of ideas.

They can't.

Their Ideas Suck.

And normal people who don't live in that Leftist Echo Chamber have (I hope) begun to see it, especially with the contrast between the eight years of Obama and his ilk, and less than four years of Trump.

And that reality, the simple fact that they on the Left with their sucky ideas can do nothing about it, that they cannot massage their message (because no matter how much you polish a dog turd, it is still a dog turd) is driving them out of their minds.

And so we get these "books" trying to show us the light, these podcasts of spitting, frothing, Leftists, these ex-DOJ officials and members of a judges union producing media releases talking about what a danger Donald Trump and his ideas are to the very fabric of this country.

And so we are subjected to the spectacle of these foam-mouthed Leftists, hermetically sealed inside their Leftist echo chambers engaging in their increasingly frenetic Leftist circle-jerks telling us how wrong we are and what danger our country is in, while Trump waves his non-existent magic wand, our unemployment rates go down and our wages go up.

It is driving them to both madness and violence, and they are helpless to do anything about it. Because fundamentally...

Their Ideas Suck.

21 posted on 02/18/2020 4:38:30 AM PST by rlmorel (Finding middle ground with tyranny or evil makes you either a tyrant or evil. Often both.)
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To: Greetings_Puny_Humans
"...It’s like they’re using a dictionary of anti-Trump buzzwords..."

That's exactly right. And that is what happens when you immerse yourself in an ideological echo chamber as the Left has done. You don't have any new ideas or introspection, you simply regurgitate everything in the hope that if you say it loud enough and often enough, people will see things the way you do.

I will say this, though...there are a precious few on the Left who have poked their heads out of that Leftist echo chamber, and after looking around, have become alarmed at what they see, and for good reason.

22 posted on 02/18/2020 4:43:39 AM PST by rlmorel (Finding middle ground with tyranny or evil makes you either a tyrant or evil. Often both.)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom
IMAX PROJECTORS


23 posted on 02/18/2020 4:53:34 AM PST by xp38
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

It never was a democracy to begin with.


24 posted on 02/18/2020 6:05:11 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog (Patrick Henry would have been an anti-vaxxer)
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To: fieldmarshaldj
preventing the likes of Trump from ever happening again with a plan to fix democracy.

translation: Rig all future elections in such a way that they cannot be unrigged.


25 posted on 02/18/2020 6:06:05 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog (Patrick Henry would have been an anti-vaxxer)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

I remember this guy. Not fondly.


26 posted on 02/18/2020 6:31:23 AM PST by sauropod (David Horowitz: “Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out.”)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

I.E. Go full California. You never go full California.


27 posted on 02/18/2020 7:26:07 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj (Dear Mr. Kotter, #Epsteindidntkillhimself - Signed, Epstein's Mother)
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To: rlmorel

Their ideas KILL. And for the tens or hundreds of millions that aren’t killed, the remaining billions are oppressed, just waiting for their deaths. Leftism came right from Satan, all the way back to the Garden of Eden.


28 posted on 02/18/2020 7:29:25 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj (Dear Mr. Kotter, #Epsteindidntkillhimself - Signed, Epstein's Mother)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

What you said in your post seems to have been lost on the Left for nearly a full century.

I think of it often when I see what is going on in Red China today with this pandemic. They had no problem murdering tens to hundreds of millions of their own citizens for purely political reasons...

Yes. Their ideas KILL. Well said.


29 posted on 02/18/2020 8:03:51 AM PST by rlmorel (Finding middle ground with tyranny or evil makes you either a tyrant or evil. Often both.)
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To: rlmorel

It’s not lost on the left. They simply don’t care. If they don’t even view the unborn as human beings, they can justify anything to excuse their sick and evil ideas. People are just means to an end.

These are the same folks pushing the “climate change” schtick, which again is about their achieving absolute power over humanity (and, as it should always be said, the issue isn’t the issue - the issue is the revolution).

40 years ago, we were going to freeze to death. A decade later, they changed it to global warming and icebergs melting, etc. Now whatever the weather is, “Climate Change !” Cold in the winter, warm in the summer ? “Climate Change !” Anyone with a brain that listens to a politician talking about wanting to control the weather ought to laugh themselves silly at this lunacy.

No, the scariest part in this is that this “Climate Change” schtick really has to do with the epic genocidal plan to eliminate all but 500 million human beings to bring about their perfect (dystopian) utopia where the remaining humans are like Gods (well, the elites, at least), with the remainder serving their masters. “Nasty” religions like Christianity and Judaism are outlawed. I see that virus thing in China as being a part of what the left will unleash on humanity to eliminate that 95%+ of our population.

Sick and evil aren’t even big enough words to describe their agenda.


30 posted on 02/18/2020 8:30:41 AM PST by fieldmarshaldj (Dear Mr. Kotter, #Epsteindidntkillhimself - Signed, Epstein's Mother)
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To: Oshkalaboomboom

Wouldn’t matter what Republican was in the White House. The left would be just as unhinged and hysterical as they are now.


31 posted on 02/18/2020 11:22:30 AM PST by Windflier (Torches and pitchforks ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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