- He simply doesn’t care about anyone other than Donald Trump. Everything he does is directed at making himself look good including claiming credit for anything and everything. He will turn on anyone even family if it means saving himself.
- He lives for media attention. He absolutely can’t stand it when the media ignores him or when people don’t like him. This can be used against him.
- His base for the most part won’t leave him no matter what he does or says. Attacking his character has no effect on this group; they are the group with all the fears and insecurities that he both plays to and plays off of. They are afraid of the country becoming more diverse and really believe he is an agent of change. The whole drain the swap, immigrant invasion, whites are the real victims of discrimination nonsense.
- The economy was doing ok not great going into this administration and that has been the Republicans greatest weapon as they can’t claim success anywhere else. The key is that not everyone in America is sharing in this. To say nothing of the damage Trump is doing to it now.
Our Beliefs
- We are the party that cares; we care about the poor, the sick and the elderly. We care about the blue collar workers and the immigrants; the millennials and the boomers, women and children. When Republicans look at the poor and the sick and elderly, they see an opportunity to pay for tax cuts, when we see them we see people that need help.
- We are the party for all Americans; for white, for African Americans, for Hispanics, for Asian Americans, for immigrants; for all colors, all races, all religions -everyone without conditions.
- We believe there is a role for government in helping people, the need for the social safety net is increasing as the population ages and income Inequality increases. This can’t just be kicked back to the states as they don’t have any money to pay for it either, especially since the red states have been continually cutting taxes. Those that are capable of working clearly need to but not everyone can. It’s easy to talk about pulling people up by their bootstraps when you’re a millionaire or billionaire. Try it when you’re starving, cold and hungry.
- We believe all people deserve to be treated with respect; there is no place in our party for racism, bigotry and misogyny. America has never lived up to the ideals we espouse; isn’t it time we really try?
- We believe in equal justice for all and that no one is above the law. Too often it is obvious that with enough money one can be acquitted of any crime in America, even murder. Law enforcement needs to work with and be complementary to society, not be a vehicle to oppress certain groups or reflect fears born of ignorance. Conversely groups and geographies that have clear crime issues need to take responsibility for them and not just blame it on others, cry discrimination or invoke social injustice.
- Trickle down economics don’t help the middle class or the poor, all it does is increase the wealth gap in America.
- We believe everyone should pay their fair share in a progressive tax system and by taxing excessive consumption.
- We believe all workers deserve a livable wage for doing a permanent job. We challenge anyone to live an independent life on $7.50/Hr in America.
- We believe in protecting the environment even if it means holding certain natural resources out of reach. Energy independence will be achieved by using renewable sources and using our innovation to come up with new ideas, not drilling or mining for fossil fuels, a thing of the past.
- We believe government must become more efficient and focus it’s attention on the critical few. It can’t be a social vehicle for over regulating, redistributing income or pursuing ideological agendas.
- We believe fair immigration leads to cultural diversity which is our strength and what separates us from most of the countries in the world. America always has been and still is the land of opportunity for people from the rest of the world.
- We believe the world is changing rapidly and we must change to meet it. We can’t remain anchored in the past; it’s not the 1950’s anymore. This means retraining workers for higher tech jobs, embracing new industries like renewable energy, advocating for strong and fair trade with other countries, embracing our leadership role in the world instead of fostering isolationism and continuing to drive the spirit of innovation that has led to everything from transistors to computers to landing on the moon.
A Twelve Step Platform for all Americans
- Access to and affordability of Quality Health Care should be a right for all American citizens. Access to health care isn’t enough. As Bernie Sanders said you can have access to a $10M house. That doesn’t mean you can afford it. Everyone should have the health care that they need in America. We pay more for health care than anyone in the world and what do we get. Patient centered care won’t work; it assumes all patients will become experts in Health Care. Too much power rests in the hands of Insurance companies, multibillion dollar health care corporations and Pharma companies. Who should be in charge of health care in America? I think it’s doctors and nurses.
- Tax Reform by the Republicans means redistributing wealth to the rich instead of everyone paying their fair share. The system hasn’t gotten simpler (do your taxes on a postcard!) and all the Republicans do is hand big tax cuts to business and the top 1% and increase the deficit. The middle class gets perhaps a thousand or two, for a while. The poor lose ground. The economy doesn’t need a corporate tax cut it was doing fine. Will business get a stimulus from the tax cut? Sure for a while. However, reducing corporate taxes or handing them one time restoring benefits won’t create a zillion more jobs or significantly higher wages. It will go to higher dividends, executive bonuses and stock buybacks. 40% of Americans aren’t in the stock market so that does them no good whatsoever. Who gains in the stock market? Mostly the top 1% again. Why does anyone making under 200% of the poverty level even pay taxes? The worst thing is that the Republicans will turn around after driving up the deficit and try to disassemble the social safety net to pay for it. Robin Hood in reverse.
- The problem isn’t a lack of jobs it’s a lack of skills and the realities of geography. There are millions of open jobs in America but no one to fill them. Some people whine that employers need to pay people more but it doesn’t matter if there aren’t qualified candidates. We have 4% unemployment even though we all know that is understated. People don’t have the right technical skills. The jobs aren’t going to come to the unemployed in Ohio or Michigan, people have to go to the jobs. We don’t need handouts to corporations to stimulate the economy; we need job training at all levels and some way to relocate people to the jobs and finally immigrants to fill these jobs so businesses can grow. Or we need to provide federal incentives for companies to put jobs in economically depressed places like the coal mining areas or Detroit. We have to find a way to get young unemployed males off the streets, off the couch and into jobs in America.
- We are a nation of immigrants; if we had the policies the president wants over the last 200 years, almost all of us wouldn’t be here. How many of your ancestorswould have been from an “acceptable” group when they came over? Do we need to screen immigrants, sure, do we need to blatantly discriminate against certain groups, absolutely not. If I’m an Islamic terrorist I come in through Canada. We have four borders not one. The biggest terrorism threats don’t come from the countries on Trump’s list; it’s from homegrown white nationalists and “radicalization” of existing American citizens. The 9-11 bombers came primarily from Saudi Arabia, not the countries on the travel ban.
- Protecting the environment isn’t for you or me, it’s for our children and grandchildren. We owe them clean air, clean water and a clean earth without hazardous wastes in it. We owe them a world where Elephants, Rhinos, Tigers and Giraffes still exist in nature. We don’t need a gold mine in the last wild salmon fishery or oil well drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Climate change is real, just listen to the weather ever night. When you have a hundred year storm every year or every six months, something is wrong.
- Infrastructure is crumbling; we don’t need a wall with Mexico, we need modern roads, bridges, runways, water lines, sewer lines and a better electrical grid. This can be the salvation of the construction industry and be the biggest job generator for craft skill people in the last 50 years. If you want jobs this is where you needed to put tax dollars and run up a deficit.
- Education is the key to our future. We need to have more engineers, scientists and inventors to stay ahead of the very real competitive threat from China and India. Education needs to be affordable and taxing tuition or otherwise making higher education unreachable is fundamentally wrong.
- Fossil fuels came from the time of the dinosaurs and they are headed to the same place as the dinosaurs- extinction. Talking about “clean coal” is a contradiction in terms. We don’t need to pump more oil, we need to keep increasing the MPG ratings of all vehicles and migrating to EVs. The Chinese are already way in front of us on EVs because we continue to live in the 1950’s. Embracing renewable energy not only will free us from foreign oil but it will generate millions of jobs. Solar and wind are competitive on cost now and will only get better with time and effort.
- Affordable housing should be a right just like universal health care. People can’t afford 40 or 50% or more of their income on housing. How can we expect people to have a strong family base without a home? How can people feel safe without a roof over their head? How can children grow up to reach their full potential? Republicans talk incessantly about family values but all of their policies say they don’t care.
- No one should ever go hungry in America. We throw away more food than most countries even have. Yes I feel sorry for all those starving kids you see from all across the world, but there are children right here in America that go hungry every day. Feed them first.
- Freedom of the press, the right of assembly, all of the First Amendment is essential to avoid Tyranny. Waging war on the news media, the courts and trying to silence everyone except those that praise you is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. Sure the media makes mistakes. They also usually confess to it and take corrective action. It’s ironic that the president talks about “fake news”. The man is a pathological liar. The biggest purveyor of “fake news” in America? Donald Trump.
- Republicans have become the party of Donald Trump and Steve Bannon, not Lincoln. When no one stands up tothe divisive rhetoric, the hatred, the bigotry and the misogyny, they are enabling and reinforcing it. They believe when a man denies a sexual allegation from a woman that’s all it takes, there is no truth to what the woman says. They believe white nationalists, the KKK and the Nazis have “some really good people”among them. America was great when we had slavery. Mexicans are drug lords, rapists and murderers. It’s ok to berate the widow of a fallen American serviceman in order to make yourself look “bigger”. Thank god the people of Alabama stood up and said no to Roy Moore, because the GOP and Donald Trump couldn’t. America is supposed to be the land of equality but we have a long ways to go to achieve that. Here’s something to think about Mr. President- people that aren’t racists don’t go on TV constantly saying “I’m the least racist person you’ve ever seen”. Everyone around them already knows that by the way they act, the things they say and the leadership they provide. Trying to erase minority groups history in the military, education institutions or anywhere while admitting white “afrikaners” as refugees to escape “white genocide” or standing idly by while Israel commits genocide and ethic cleansing in Gaza says all you need to know about who the racists are. No one in the Republican Party today stands up against cruelty, ignoring due process, violating the Constitution or the blatant corruption exemplified by accepting luxury jets or conducting memecoin dinners. They are too chicken sh#$ to speak truth to power, and to enamored with power to care.
Metrics to track
Financial (suggest tracking top 50 companies)