Posted on 07/02/2017 7:01:05 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The progressive strategy of investigating President Donald Trump nonstop for Russian collusion or obstruction of justice or witness tampering so far has produced no substantial evidence of wrongdoing.
The alternate strategy of derailing the new administration before it really gets started hasn’t succeeded either, despite serial efforts to sue over election results, alter the Electoral College vote, boycott the inauguration, delay the confirmation of appointments, demand recusals, promise Trump’s impeachment or removal through the 25th Amendment, and file suit under the Emoluments Clause.
A third strategy of portraying Trump as a veritable monster likewise so far has failed in four special elections for House seats.
Apparently progressives have accepted the idea that Barack Obama’s formula of twice winning the Electoral College is not yet transferable to other progressive candidates such as Hillary Clinton. And they probably have concluded that Obama’s progressive political agenda proved unpopular with voters by 2010 and had to be implemented by ad hoc executive orders — presidential prerogatives now utilized by Donald Trump to overturn the ones Obama issued.
A fourth potential pathway to power would be a return to Bill Clinton’s pragmatic agendas of the 1990s. But apparently progressives find that centrist remedy worse than the malady of losing elections — given that during the Obama tenure, more than 1,000 state and local offices were lost to Republicans, in addition to majorities in the House and Senate, and a majority of governorships and legislatures.
What next?
Trump acts as if he is a Nietzschean figure, assuming that anything that does not destroy him only makes him stronger. And now, slowly, his accusers are becoming the accused.
One nagging problem with the progressive case against Trump for purported Russian collusion and obstruction of justice was that members of the Obama administration had more exposure to those allegations than did the political newcomer Trump.
Last year, then-FBI Director James Comey testified that not only did former Attorney General Loretta Lynch improperly meet in secret with Bill Clinton during an investigation of Hillary Clinton, but that Lynch had asked Comey to downplay the investigation into Hillary’s use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. Comey confessed that he had reluctantly agreed to Lynch’s request.
Last month, in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey admitted that he asked a friend to leak notes about Comey’s earlier conversation with Trump in hopes of forcing the nomination of a special investigator to lead the Russia investigation — perhaps a successful gambit, given that Comey’s friend, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, was soon appointed to that role.
Comey also wrongly dismissed Hillary Clinton’s email problems because of a perceived lack of criminal intent — a supposedly mitigating circumstance that legally should have had no bearing on things.
As far as alleged Russian collusion, there had long been conservative accusations that Bill and Hillary Clinton used Hillary’s status as secretary of state to leverage honoraria for Bill and donations to the Clinton Foundation in exchange for concessions to Russian interests.
Moreover, Russian tampering efforts had been going on for months before the 2016 election, but without any retaliatory measures from the Obama administration, which knew about Russia’s meddling.
In an inadvertent hot-mic request in 2012, Obama asked outgoing Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to urge Russian President Vladimir Putin “to give me space” during Obama’s re-election campaign, so that after his assumed success, Obama could reciprocate with “more flexibility” on Russian issues. In the present highly charged climate, would that be seen as a form of Russian collusion?
Meanwhile, the House Intelligence Committee is still investigating whether top Obama administration officials wrongfully used the power of foreign-intelligence collection to conduct surveillance of Americans — particularly members of the Trump campaign.
The point is not whether the Clintons, James Comey, Barack Obama or members of the Obama administration can be proven to have engaged in illegal or unscrupulous behavior.
Rather, the lesson is that progressives should have offered alternative political visions that might have won back the American people rather than attempting to terminate the Trump presidency on charges to which the progressive side was far more vulnerable.
Now that Trump is emerging from successful House special elections and has fended off six months of media attacks, celebrity invective and progressive efforts to abort his tenure, he seems to be going back on the offensive.
Currently, House and Senate investigations are doing to Democrats what has been done Trump. So far these probes seem to have better chances to prove alleged wrongdoing.
What does all this political back-and-forth mean?
Democrats struck preemptively to take out Trump before he unwound the Obama legacy. That effort has probably been stalled.
The return volley is being launched at a time when an energized Trump is gaining momentum on health care and tax reform, and an improving economy.
In sum, to thwart a new president’s policies, it is probably wiser to offer alternative agendas instead of trying to destroy him before he has even entered office.
Saw the Farmer/Scholar speak on this topic at the Hillsdale Kirby Center in D.C. Mrs. jimfree and I got to talk with him a bit after his seminar. Great time indeed!
The progressive can’t understand and can’t get over how Trump beat the rigged system they made they thought it would be another JFK skate to win.
Now they fight the voter fraud investigation their guilt is glowing new game coming to town and about time.
A big part of that formula is relying on mass voter fraud, and Hillary certainly tried it. She likely would've succeeded had the GOP nominee been anyone but Trump.
Trump’s twitter responses are relatively benign. Once the President of the United States learns the levers of power, it won’t be pleasant for those who slander and libel him. Just the way it has always been.
Hanson is a deep thinker, and also a clear speaker.
An uncommon duality with politically based writers.
I don’t say this just because I happen to agree with his findings. There are times when liberal Nate Silver is equally effective in his conclusive statements.
In sum, to thwart a new president’s policies, it is probably wiser to offer alternative agendas instead of trying to destroy him before he has even entered office.
++++
Sound advice. But, unfortunately, it is advice that is not really usable by Marxists.
VDH nails it.
“VDH nails it.”
He generally does.
Trumps Twitter responses are mild compared to what’s dished out against him by Crazy Joe and Low IQ Mika and Johhny Douch and the rest of MSNBC and CNN. Those people are totally unhinged and filled with so much hatred that they have become mentally unstable and they try to say Trump is the nut. LOL!
Fixed it.
This article spells it out so well, the Republicans should demand Muller recuse himself from this expensive search for a crime when there is no crime....the radical left is and has been given a free pass long enough...investigate Obama, Loretta Lynch, Valerie Jarrett, John Podesta, Bill and Hillary for starters....pleaty of crime there.
“Rather, the lesson is that progressives should have offered alternative political visions”
Progressives don’t allow “alternative political visions” other than the ones rejected in the Presidential and special elections.
That’s why they don’t even argue policy, they just call people names. They know their “policies” are rejected by the people and must be imposed by mob rule and violence.
Of course they are backfiring. He sets them up then when they get going on all 8 cylinders they find out the road ended a mile back and the cliff was fifty feet astern.
A big part of that formula is relying on mass voter fraud, and Hillary certainly tried it. She likely would’ve succeeded had the GOP nominee been anyone but Trump.
____________
They didn’t factor in the number of states that passed Voter ID or the surveillance operations that caught backroom vote fraud on tape or the whistleblowers who signed affidavits that specific instances of vote fraud happened/were happening or O’Keefe’s exposes showing vote and voter manipulation as something coming from the top of the DNC or.....
We deplorables are not supposed to be allowed to use the term ‘woke’, so we call it being redpilled. No cultural appropriation BS bullying applies to a term from a movie. Enough people see behind the curtain now. There is still fraud and cheating and desperation to continue same, but there is less, we are watching for it and we point it out when possible.
That changed the percentages.
Also, both sides think their fine-sieved, data-mined voter databases allow them to control the electorate. But we have adblockers, we’ve turned away from mass-media, and data is no more reality than is manipulated perception. Show me all the ads you want. Manipulate my searches. Ostracize me from a social construct I don’t care about. You don’t know my soul or my thoughts, even if you think that you do.
Another way of saying if you set out to kill the king you better make sure he’s dead.
“When you hang a man, you better look at him.”
All stop. VDH thinks Bill Clinton is a pragmatic centrist. LOL.
So you agree with VDH that Bubba was a centrist? Really?
Many lefties consider Bill and Hillary pseudo Republicans.
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