My friend Andrew Wimmer emailed the following to some of us, and gave me permission to share here…
In May 2016, Adam Gopnik wrote in The New Yorker:
“There is a simple formula for descriptions of Donald Trump: add together a qualification, a hyphen, and the word ‘fascist.’ …his personality and his program belong exclusively to the same dark strain of modern politics: an incoherent program of national revenge led by a strongman; a contempt for parliamentary government and procedures; an insistence that the existing, democratically elected government…is in league with evil outsiders and has been secretly trying to undermine the nation; a hysterical militarism designed to no particular end than the sheer spectacle of strength; an equally hysterical sense of beleaguerment and victimization; and a supposed suspicion of big capitalism entirely reconciled to the worship of wealth and ‘success.’… The idea that it can be bounded in by honest conservatives in a Cabinet or restrained by normal constitutional limits is, to put it mildly, unsupported by history.” (Adam Gopnik, “Going There With Donald Trump,” The New Yorker, May 11, 2016)
Alas, history has been borne out by the impeachment process. I believed it was misguided, in its timing first of all, coming too late and too close to the election, and in its choice of Ukraine as the lone focus. Unlike Gopnik, the Democrats believed they could simply put on some nice clothes and prevail. Now we have a Trump, not only unbowed but energized, as he always has been in his life, by attack. The Democrats have created a perfect storm in that they attempted simultaneously to kill Trump and Sanders.
My question as Sanders launched his second bid for president was “what is his plan for taking on the Democratic party?” We have seen the opening act, now we will see the second.
Nina Turner, a national co-chair for Sanders, laid it on the line last night, calling Bloomberg an oligarch, the DNC’s rule changing to allow him to enter the race late an anti-democratic maneuver. This caused the panel on MSNBC to erupt in an apoplectic fit.
Here’s Robert Reich (in his oh-so gentile tone) giving a decent definition of oligarchy, the rule by the few.
Brother Cornell [West] parted ways with the Democrats when he insisted on his own favorite trio: mendacity, plutocracy, oligarchy. You can say “democracy matters,” but you can’t say these other three.
Nina Turner took it to streets. Let’s hope the Sanders campaign doesn’t back down. Take a look.
