It is Republicans Who Have a Religion Problem, Not Democrats

Time and time again we hear about Democrats having a "religion problem" and not being able to connect with religious voters.  In fact, there is yet another op-ed in the New York Times by a history professor in Georgia that suggests that Democrats lost the recent special election because of an inability to connect with "religious voters."  I would argue that in contrast that it is Republicans who have a a religion problem - one that will soon catch up with them as the Millennials begin voting in large numbers and older religious voters finally wake up to the reality that the GOP's religion is one motivated by hatred of others, a betrayal of the social Gospel, and down right meanness. In short, the GOP is becoming synonymous with the Christofascists.  The hideousness of the new Senate GOP's healthcare "reform" bill shows just how little the GOP's religious values have to do with Christ's message.  One third (1/3) of Millennials have left organized religion completely. Nones will soon equal the number of evangelical Christians.  The number of non-Christians of other faiths is growing and many view the GOP/Christofascists with alarm.  Long term, the GOP, not Democrats will have a severe religion problem, notwithstanding the usual whining about Democrats not coddling the "religious" sufficiently.  Here's a sample of the usual whining via the Times op-ed: 

Jon Ossoff’s defeat in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District election on Tuesday wasn’t just a sign that Democrats may have a harder time winning in the Trump era than they had hoped. It is a symptom of a larger problem for the party — a generational and racial divide between a largely secular group of young, white party activists and an older electorate that is more religious and more socially conservative.

Put simply, outside of a few progressive districts, secular-minded young activists in the party are unable to win voters’ trust.

Mr. Ossoff, 30, represented this new wing of the party. . . . Mr. Ossoff’s secularism would have surprised many American liberals of the 1950s and 1960s, who looked to the moral inspiration of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, both of whom saw a religious imperative for social justice. The civil rights movement was grounded so thoroughly in the theology and culture of the African-American church that the historian David L. Chappell has called it a “religious revival.” And the economic views of New Deal and Great Society liberalism echoed the positions of mainline Protestant denominations and the social teachings of 20th-century Catholicism.

[N]ow younger, secular Democrats are attempting to separate their party’s progressive values from those religious traditions. Some may belong to a religious tradition or consider themselves to be spiritual people, but they are not able to speak the language of a communally based faith because it does not inform or shape their political views.

Democratic voters are not as secular as these activists might assume. While only 47 percent of white, college-educated Democrats identify as Christians, Christianity remains the faith of 81 percent of African-American Democrats and 76 percent of Latino Democrats.

The religious differences between generations are just as stark as the differences between racial groups. While 35 percent of millennials report having no religious affiliation, only 17 percent of baby boomers — and fewer than 11 percent of Americans born before 1945 — are religiously unaffiliated.

The party is thus split between a minority of young, educated, secular white activists and a larger group of African-Americans, Hispanics and older whites whose political values are closely tied to their faith. No wonder candidates like Mr. Ossoff struggled to connect with key blocs of the Democratic coalition.

And it’s also no wonder that the Democratic congressional leadership is still dominated by a graying generation of leaders; they are the only ones who can bridge the party’s religious divide.

What can Democrats do to bridge the divide between young, secular party activists and the rest of voters? Oddly, last year’s presidential run by Senator Bernie Sanders, a secular Jew, may suggest a way forward.

Mr. Sanders’s non-Christian background may have hurt him in the South; he did poorly among African-American voters, despite his consistent civil rights record. But he did what few other secular candidates have done: He won a sympathetic hearing from conservative evangelicals with a speech that gave a religious grounding for his economic views, complete with biblical citations. When Mr. Sanders spoke at Liberty University, he did not pretend to share evangelical Christians’ faith, but he showed respect for his audience’s religious tradition.

To do the same, secular Democrats need to study the religious language of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. They need to take the time to learn the religious values of their audience. They need to be honest about their own secularity, but acknowledge their debt to the religious traditions that have shaped their progressive ideology.

Only through a willingness to ground their policy proposals in the religious values of prospective voters will they be able to convince people of faith that they are not a threat to their values but are instead an ally in a common cause.

The author strikes me as one of the many who are still trying to maintain the myth that religion is a positive force for society and that, therefore, it deserves continued deference and respect.  In reality, "people of faith" - or at least evangelical Christians - are among the number one problems with America today.  Let's not forget that 81% of evangelicals voted for Trump and happily embraced his appeals to racism and religious based hatred and bigotry.  Simply put, they are not nice and decent people and rather than follow the suggestions of the author, what Democrats need to do better is educate the public about the ugliness of the religious agenda of the GOP base/Christofascist and that they need to stop being duped into voting against their interest by dishonest appeals to religiosity.  The Senate healthcare bill can be used as a teaching tool for Democrats.  True Christians should find the bill abhorrent.  Liberty University and its leadership represents the antithesis of the Gospel message. 

The Right Way to Resist Trump

Like many, I feel physically sickened at the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency and the parade of horrors likely to be unleashed on the country and which will be disproportionately targeted at minorities, including the LGBT community.  So how does one resist other than simply adhering to the mantra of #NotMyPresident?  An op-ed in the New York Times suggests that non-stop obstruction by Democrats could well prove counter productive and looks at the experience of Italy and Silvio Berlusconi, a man cut out of the same cloth as Mr. Trump.  The piece suggest that Democrats need to work where possible with Trump - e.g., rebuilding infrastructure and/or Wall Street regulation - while opposing toxic policies based on principled positions rather than merely attacking Trump personally.  Like Berlusconi, Trump will quickly provide all kinds of scandals for the media to pounce on, but by making arguments on policies that will harm the working and middle classes is how to win over voters.  Here are column highlights:

Five years ago, I warned about the risk of a Donald J. Trump presidency. Most people laughed. They thought it inconceivable.

I was not particularly prescient; I come from Italy, and I had already seen this movie, starring Silvio Berlusconi, who led the Italian government as prime minister for a total of nine years between 1994 and 2011. I knew how it could unfold.

Now that Mr. Trump has been elected president, the Berlusconi parallel could offer an important lesson in how to avoid transforming a razor-thin victory into a two-decade affair. If you think presidential term limits and Mr. Trump’s age could save the country from that fate, think again. His tenure could easily turn into a Trump dynasty.

Mr. Berlusconi was able to govern Italy for as long as he did mostly thanks to the incompetence of his opposition. It was so rabidly obsessed with his personality that any substantive political debate disappeared; it focused only on personal attacks, the effect of which was to increase Mr. Berlusconi’s popularity. His secret was an ability to set off a Pavlovian reaction among his leftist opponents, which engendered instantaneous sympathy in most moderate voters. Mr. Trump is no different.

Unfortunately, the dynamic has not ended with the election. Shortly after Mr. Trump gave his acceptance speech, protests sprang up all over America. What are these people protesting against? Whether we like it or not, Mr. Trump won legitimately.

These protests are also counterproductive. There will be plenty of reasons to complain during the Trump presidency, when really awful decisions are made. Why complain now, when no decision has been made? It delegitimizes the future protests and exposes the bias of the opposition.

Even the petition calling for members of the Electoral College to violate their mandate and not vote for Mr. Trump could play into the president-elect’s hands.

The Italian experience provides a blueprint for how to defeat Mr. Trump. Only two men in Italy have won an electoral competition against Mr. Berlusconi: Romano Prodi and the current prime minister, Matteo Renzi (albeit only in a 2014 European election). Both of them treated Mr. Berlusconi as an ordinary opponent. They focused on the issues, not on his character. In different ways, both of them are seen as outsiders, not as members of what in Italy is defined as the political caste.

The Democratic Party should learn this lesson. It should not do as the Republicans did after President Obama was elected. Their preconceived opposition to any of his initiatives poisoned the Washington well, fueling the anti-establishment reaction (even if it was a successful electoral strategy for the party). There are plenty of Trump proposals that Democrats can agree with, like new infrastructure investments.  . . . . Some details might be different from a Republican plan, but it will add credibility to the Democratic opposition if it tries to find the points in common, not just differences.

And an opposition focused on personality would crown Mr. Trump as the people’s leader of the fight against the Washington caste.

Democrats should also offer Mr. Trump help against the Republican establishment, an offer that would reveal whether his populism is empty language or a real position. For example, with Mr. Trump’s encouragement, the Republican platform called for reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, which would separate investment and commercial banking. The Democrats should declare their support of this separation, a policy that many Republicans oppose.

Finally, the Democratic Party should also find a credible candidate among young leaders, one outside the party’s Brahmins. The news that Chelsea Clinton is considering running for office is the worst possible. If the Democratic Party is turning into a monarchy, how can it fight the autocratic tendencies in Mr. Trump?

USA Today to Sanders: Sorry, Losers Don't Get to Write the Rules.

I have laid off Bernie Sanders lately, but the man is truly annoying me - especially in my irritable post-hand surgery condition.  Despite having NO WAY to secure the nomination, especially in the wake of the FBI and Justice Department decisions that no indictments are to be made in the Clinton e-mail "scandal,"  Sanders just doesn't grasp the concept of losers not getting to set the rules.  I am increasingly coming to believe that Sanders' ego - and level of delusion? - is far worse than that of Donald Trump.  The editorial board at USA Today have apparently reached at state such as my own.  In an editorial, they slay Sanders and make the case that his Kool-Aid drinking followers cannot seem to grasp.  Here are highlights:

Bernie Sanders and the Golden State Warriors have something in common. They both finished second this year. The Warriors lost in the NBA finals to theCleveland Cavaliers, four games to three. And Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries by a tally of 15.8 million votes to 12 million, or 2,220 pledged delegates to 1,831.

But the runners-up are different in one respect. So far as we know, the Warriors have not demanded the firing of NBA CommissionerAdam Silver, or rules changes that would benefit its peerless perimeter shooter,Stephen Curry. (Instead, they worked within the free-agent system and signed superstar Kevin Durant on Monday.)

Sanders, on the other hand, has made a string of demands in the run-up to the Democratic convention later this month in Philadelphia. . . . . he's calling for open primaries and an end to superdelegates.

Sanders should not be dismissed out of hand, but nor should the Democratic Party bend over backward to accommodate him. He has little standing to make his case, having spent a lifetime in politics as an independent. He is asking for what previous second-place finishers did not. And, having lost the nomination, he will have decreasing sway over his supporters, many of whom are growing increasingly edgy about the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency.

What’s more, his list of demands on the platform could push the party too far to the left for its own good. A national $15 minimum wage could be devastating to rural areas. And his call for opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership would put the party at odds with President Obama.

Moreover, Sanders' demands on the mechanics of elections are selective, incomplete and self-serving. Take his call for open primaries, which allow people to ask for any party's ballot, no matter how they are registered. These play to Sanders' strengths because his anti-establishment views appealed to many independents. But they might not be in the best interest of the party. While Sanders did well with independent voters, so did Trump, suggesting that it might not always be progressives like the senator from Vermont who take advantage of open primaries.

Noticeably absent from Sanders’ list is a call for Democrats to replace their caucuses in 13 states, three territories and the District of Columbia with primary elections. Caucuses are by far the most undemocratic element of the nomination process. They disenfranchise people who work at night, have small children or otherwise can’t take a couple hours out of their schedules. . . . And he won big in caucus states he would have won narrowly in a primary.

Ultimately, Democrats should act in ways they think will help their candidates in the future, not let the second-place guy call the shots.

Bernie Sanders' Legacy

With the math more or less insurmountably against him, Bernie Sander's campaign is struggling to go on after yesterdays drubbing in four out of five states. Indeed, there are reports that he is cutting staff as he tries to find a path forward. So where does that leave Sanders and his supporters?  A piece in te New York Times makes the case that Sanders has set a large part of the agenda for Democrat party going forward. Sanders may have lost the nomination fight, but his ideas and the issues he championed will likely live on.  Here are column highlights: 

At this point, Bernie Sanders is the figurehead of a living idea and a zombie campaign. The issues his campaign has raised are likely to resonate with the progressive left for decades, if not forever, but his path to becoming the Democratic nominee is now narrower than a cat’s hair.

It’s over. He knows it and we know it. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Sanders “is planning to lay off ‘hundreds’ of campaign staffers across the country and focus much of his remaining effort on winning California.”

And yet he continues to carry the torch and keep the flame alive so that his supporters — or more appropriately, the supporters of the causes he has advanced — have an opportunity to cast protest votes in the few remaining contests. He has gone from leading a revolution to leading a wake.

I think people have mischaracterized the choice being made between Sanders and Clinton. It is not necessarily a clean choice between idealism and pragmatism, between principle and politics, between dynamism and incrementalism — though all those things are at play to some degree. But to me, it is more about where we peg the horizon and how we get from here to there.

The ideals are not in dispute. What’s in dispute is whether our ideals can be reasonably accomplished by a single administration or a generation. Sometimes you have to cut deals to reach ideals. That’s politics.

Now, you could argue that our politics are broken, as Sanders has, and you would be right. Moneyed interests — that of industries and individuals — have far too much influence. Our two-party system is heavily skewed to favor establishment candidates, although Sanders’s success and Donald Trump’s offer strong evidence that the party apparatuses are not inviolable.

What requires less debate is the often-repeated refrain that Sanders’s supporters are the future of the Democratic Party. In state after state, often whether he won it or not, he carried youth vote by wide margins. [

P]art of it is what Harry Enten pointed out on Friday: The Democratic electorate turning out in 2016 has been a lot more liberal than it was in the last competitive Democratic primary, in 2008.”

Enten explained:

It wouldn’t be surprising to see the moderate/conservative portion of the Democratic primary electorate become a minority in the next 10 years. It’s the youngest Democrats who are more to identify as “very liberal.” It could very well be that someone matching Sanders’s ideological outlook will be more successful down the road.

First we have to see what comes of the general election, in a contest that at this point seems to pit Clinton against Trump. Although current polling shows Clinton with an overwhelming edge, making political predictions seven months in advance is a fool’s errand.

[W]hile current polling favors Clinton, history does not. The last time a Democratic president succeeded a multi-term Democratic president was when Harry Truman succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1945.

However the election breaks in November, the Sanders coalition — largely young, liberal and white — will not likely be satisfied. Either Clinton will win, and it will simply feel like a lesser of two evils, a subsuming of a righteous cause into a waffling contrivance; or Clinton will lose, and the Sanders coalition will feel vindicated that the wrong Democratic candidate won the nomination.

Either way, the cause lives. Universal health care becomes no less attractive. Neither does free public college, or campaign finance reform, or a more pacifist foreign policy.

The Democratic Party, for better or worse, is likely to move further toward progressive purity in Sanders’s wake. This may backfire, and encourage a nominating process that pushes otherwise moderate and widely attractive candidates to adopt increasingly extreme policies that make them nearly un-electable, as has happened with the Republican Party.

That, to me, seems to be at least part of the Democratic Party’s future. Whether that is a utopian or dystopian future, only time will tell, but the reckoning is coming. This, I believe, will be a fixture of the Sanders legacy: Drag a center-left party further left — whether one calls that True Left or Extreme Left.