By Arlen Grossman
Really. There is at least one positive outcome of the 2016 election. Now that the Republicans have won the presidency, both houses of Congress, and soon the Supreme Court, they actually have to govern and attempt to solve all the problems they’ve been blaming on Democrats and liberals for years.
And if they can’t, that will open the door to the possibility of big Democratic gains in 2018 and 2020. It’s put up or shut up time. The Democrats are out of power and can no longer be justifiably blamed for what goes wrong in the next four years. Republicans now own the government and are responsible for fixing it.
They say Obamacare is a disaster and must be destroyed? Fine, come up with a better plan. Flooding, drought, heatwaves, etc. resulting from man-made climate change continue to worsen? You can’t blame liberals, so find a solution. The nuclear arms treaty with Iran is the worst treaty ever? Okay, repeal it and find a way to stop them from rebuilding their nuclear program.
Unemployment starts to creep up? Don’t blame Democrats, find a way to produce more jobs. More mass shootings? Nobody’s taking anybody’s guns away, so you can’t blame Obama. More terrorist attacks? Any new wars will be Donald Trump wars.
Inevitably, Donald Trump and the Republicans will fail because their solutions are doomed to fail. Trickle-down economics has never worked, lowering taxes for the rich causes large budget deficits, and eliminating regulations causes health and environmental problems. Foreign policy is more than just talking tough. They’ll find that out quickly enough.
The GOP has always encountered resistance to their solutions, now they’ll have minimal opposition and nobody to blame.When the failure becomes obvious, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party will have its best opportunity to make its case to the American people. Bernie Sanders showed what was possible but he never had much of a chance against the pro-corporate establishment that owns the Democratic Party. But after this election, that brand is tainted.
If ever there were a chance to promote the progressive agenda, these next four years will be that time.
So look on the bright side, Democrats, liberals and progressives. This is our best possible opportunity to shine. President Trump and the GOP will likely make things a lot worse. But they will have nobody to blame. And if we play it right, it will be our turn to show what we can do.
Also published at OpEdNews.com
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There were actually a couple of reasons I was afraid of Clinton winning the election that now become silver linings:
1) We are very likely to have a recession by 2020 – we have never gone more than 10 years without one and we have now been growing for 7+ years. I expect a recession whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat, but now the Republicans will take the blame.
2) there is a census in 2020 which will require redistricting. In 2010, the Republicans were able to take over state legislatures by leveraging the voters’ frustration with Obama, and control redistricting. Hopefully, in 2020 the Democrats will find it easier to do the same thing.
Thanks, Hal. I’m trying to find reason to be optimistic. This will have to do.
Read this through as soon I as received the notification it was posted. Good work as usual Arlen!