The suspense is over. Donald J. Trump is impeached. The question is, now what? Deflation is now the enemy that we have got to fight.
It is unlikely that the Senate will remove Donald Trump from the office of the presidency. There are those who are not politically savvy, who do not stay informed, who are likely expecting something substantive to happen out of this impeachment. When the president is acquitted in the Senate, they will feel as if he got away with something unless we move the focus to why it is imperative that we elect a new president who is progressive.
Donald Trump is an unabashed barefaced liar and spinner. He is so blatant that many believe him because they simply cannot believe someone would make statements diametrically opposed to the truth. This is the president who was able to spin the Mueller Report as if it were an exoneration. Most recently he spun the IG Report that exonerated the FBI as “an overthrow of government.”
The report, actually — and especially when you look into it, and the details of the report — are far worse than anything I would have even imagined. … This was an overthrow of government. This was an attempted overthrow. And a lot of people who were in on it, and they got caught. They got caught red-handed.”
— President Trump, remarks to reporters, Dec. 9
Trump sticks with his conspiracy theories. There is nothing in the report that supports “an overthrow of government.” In fact, as we noted, the IG found that political bias did not factor into the start of the probe. He even turned up text messages of FBI agents hoping Trump would beat Hillary Clinton. In many ways, the IG report would have been disappointing to Trump, yet he gamely suggests it’s even worse than he expected.
This is chump change compared to how he will spin his Senate acquittal. Unlike President Clinton who was subdued after his acquittal, Trump will likely go on the attack like a rabid dog attempting to make Americans believe he was targeted to ensure he does not get reelected. He will then pivot to an economy where the stock market is setting record highs and unemployment is very low. While political junkies know this is junk, the narrative can take hold if progressives are not prepared.
It is in that light that we must “Make stock market record highs and low unemployment Trump’s failure” to make his perceived strength be his weakness.
Perspective and narrative are everything. A soaring stock market with full employment and low wages is a failed system, systemic theft. If that is the result of the purported best economy, then one should wrap that reality around the neck of the politicians making that claim. Moreover, it is incumbent on us all to elect politicians with a vision that does not border on the insanity of repeating the same modus operandi over and over again and expecting a different result.
And immediately after tying the stock market and employment/wage report around his neck we go directly into the narrative of what progressives will do to make their lives better effective after voted into office.
Progressives must define their opponents first so that it is they who are on the defensive. Then, tell poor and middle-class America in a district-specific manner, what is in it for them. It must be clear to them what they expect out of voting for Democrats.
- Democrats will fix the health care issue once and for all with a single-payer Medicare for All system.
- Democrats will provide student loan relief.
- Democrats will provide need-based subsidized child care for anyone who wants to work.
- Democrats will decriminalize marijuana and treat drug use as the disease that it is.
- Democrats will make the criminal justice system live up to the “Justice is Blind” motto.
Those five bullet points expressed in different terms will work in every district in America. It appeals to millennials, people of color, all working-class people, parents, and every demographic in between. Most importantly these bullet points afford Americans a path to self-sufficiency It frees them from aberrations in the economy that stunts innovation, the inability to start one’s business, and the dependency and the enslavement to the corporation. One would hope that every Democrat who gets on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, HLN, or any other network would steer every topic to these bullet points.
That President Trump was impeached is very important. It is necessary for the sake of history that Donald J. Trump is marked for the fact that he is likely the most corrupt person to have held the presidency. But progressives must understand that while framing the president for the sake of history is important, it does little to make the lives better for the average American. They must know that there will be bread, butter, healthcare, education, and much more on the menu.