The Party of Evil, Three Tips for Democrats

Democrats, Listen!

Democrats should NOT be elated by the results of recent victories in Virginia and Alabama and be lulled into thinking that the stigma of being associated with Donald Trump will bring out enough voters to defeat those Republican candidates who still will have the support of the President’s unwavering base, the ones would follow him 

to and through the gates of Hell.

Remember, Hillary Clinton received more votes nationwide than did Donald Trump and he, not she, is in the White House.  The Brookings Institute reported that even though the sum total of all votes for members of the House of Representatives in all States in 2016 split 49.9% for the Republicans and 47.3% for the Democrats, the resulting make-up of the 115^th Congress gives the Republicans 55.2% of the seats and Democrats, only 44.8%, a far greater margin than the nationwide balloting would suggest. Just as the Electoral College result is more important than the popular vote in determining who sits in the White House, the boundaries of Congressional Districts are more important than the total national voting results in determining the make-up of Congress.  If we had “proportional representation” in Congress, which we do not, the Democrats would have more seats than they do.  But we do not!   

Therefore, the polls which suggest a nationwide disenchantment with Donald Trump do not mean that the Democrats can automatically turn this into a Congressional majority.  Just as the Electoral College determines the Presidency, the demographics of Congressional districting determine who controls the House of Representatives.  Enormous nationwide Democratic support in places like New York, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington and Illinois, perhaps even approaching a national majority, does not mean that the nation will give the Democrats a majority in the 116^th Congress which we will elect in 2018.

Once Democrats recognize this, there are three things they must do. 

(1) They must work to elect more Democrats to State legislatures so that Congressional districts can be redrawn so as not to continue to permit Republican dominance in States which actually have Democratic majorities.  There is no reason why States with Democratic majorities should have mostly Republican Representatives in the House.  This is long term, decades-long project.   (Wealthy supporters of the G.O.P. have for years funded a group called ALEC which works in all 50 states to arm and support Republican majorities in State legislatures. Read more about ALEC by Clicking Here .  Democrats must figure out a way to counter ALEC in State Legislatures throughout the nation, regardless of which party controls them.)

(2)  Every effort should be made to get out the voters who can be counted on to vote Democratic in Congressional and local races across the nation.  This demands great attention to Women’s issues, Black issues and Latino issues with the aim of getting people who prioritize them to the polls.  This is where the money should be spent, rather than in local campaigns for local Democratic Representatives who won in 2016 by sizable margins and can be expected to do so again in 2018. Coordination of this effort cannot be local or state-wide.  It must be a national program for Democrats, keyed to Republican districts nationwide which can be “flipped” because of anti-Trump sentiment as well as the issues.

(3)   All Democratic candidates, from those running for the Senate down to the most insignificant-appearing local position, must demand that their opponent make their position clear as to whether or not they support President Trump.  Regardless of how they respond, it will emphasize the split over Trump in the G.O.P. and lose some Republican voters for that candidate, and resultingly, create a ballot box benefit for Democrats.  Remember, a recount just confirmed that the Democrats took away Republican control of the Virginia House of Delegates (their State Legislature) by just one vote in one district.  Learn how it happened BY CLICKING RIGHT HERE!

This is what is important.  Being misled by polls which show that the nation is turning Democratic can be the downfall of the Democratic Party in 2018.

Jack Lippman

Evil Personified

Let’s get something straight.  I am not talking about the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln, of Theodore Roosevelt, of Dwight Eisenhower, of Ronald Reagan, of both Bush presidencies, nor of Mitt Romney nor of Bob Dole.  I am talking about the Republican Party of today, and without a shred of doubt .....

today’s Republican Party is the Party of Evil.

 

There is no other way to say it.  They represent evil ideas, are supported by the financial resources of evil people with evil objectives and are thoroughly evil in every evil thing they do.  There is no other way to describe them.  And people who vote for them, knowingly or not, are infected with their evilness and become themselves, evil.

Now that I’ve gotten that off of my chest, let’s get on to the tax reform bill being passed by the Party of Evil, which was put into power by the gullibility of the American voters, exercising their Constitutional rights to perpetrate an evil miscarriage of democracy.

Hello!  I do believe that by and large, most Americans will be satisfied with the tax reform bill!  Wow!  

Up front, in its first few years, lower income and middle income Americans will experience reductions in their taxes.  They will be happy, just as they are with NFL football on TV, cheap beer, fast food and unlimited take-out pizza, none of which are any good for them in the long run.

This will blind them to the generous benefits the bill provides to the wealthy, to  businesses, corporations and investors.  They won’t even notice them. 

They will miss the fact that some of the tax reductions benefits for businesses are permanent, contrary to the personal reductions which are only temporary and will morph into tax increases in a few years for lower and middle income tax payers, not to mention the tremendous burden on the national debt, a problem kicked forward for future generations, which the tax reductions for businesses and the wealthy will bring about.  But they will be happy, just as they were gullible in electing Republicans in the first place, at least until the truth dawns on some of them. 

And something else these happy folks will not immediately notice (until it hurts them personally) are decreases in funding for social safety net and environmental programs to which they have become accustomed over the past half century.  

And all that money going to the wealthy and to corporations which is supposed to "trickle down" to create more jobs at higher pay, that will benefit the economy only when pigs fly! 

That has always been the case when the Party of Evil has made that claim, and this time it will be no different.  Don't be surprised if corporations use their newly found resources to repurchase their own stock ... and continue to develop job-destroying robotics, aiming at creating an employee-less economy except in the service areas like making beds in hotels and filling the messier (and lower paying) health care jobs. 

The Republicans couldn’t repeal the Affordable Care Act, but they are managing to cripple it, probably fatally, by a provision of the tax reform bill.  They are doing away with the ACA’s mandate that everyone buy insurance (or pay a tax penalty) with the obvious result that more healthy young people will not participate, leaving the insurance companies with just older and sicker people to insure.  This will result in rate increases causing the ACA’s private insurance (it is “private” insurance, not a “government” plan like Medicare) to become prohibitively expensive.  Many, probably about 13 million presently insured, will have no alternative but to become uninsured.  But that’s a small number compared with the millions of dullards who will be happy with the tax reform bill.

Oh, yes.  There were a few Republicans who saw through all of the smoke and mirrors and initially opposed the tax reform bill.  But each one of these was bought off by the inclusion of something in the bill which they liked.  Senators Murkowski and Collins, who voted against repealing the ACA six months ago, now are in effect voting to repeal it, because of the plums which they demanded and got for their vote.  Senators Corker and Rubio also were similarly bought.  There's a word for people who can be so easily bought, and it isn't "horsetrading."  This is beyond the time-honored "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" tactics which Senators practice all the time.

So, as the 1930’s band leader, Ted Lewis, called out, so the Republicans can call out to the American people, “Is Everybody Happy?”  Most will be.  For a few years anyway, until the proverbial piper must be paid.   But we're not talking proverbial fictions here, we're talking about our government.

But what else can Americans expect when they trust their government to

The Party of Evil.

JL

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