If The Election Is A Referendum On Trump, Then America's Reputation As A Decent And Moral Society Is On The Line
There will be a national election on Tuesday, and the outcome of that election will indicate whether or not the US is a decent and moral society in 2019, or if it has succumbed to the heart of darkness exemplified by Donald Trumpism.
The national election is the one for the US House of Representatives. Every single American who wants to can vote to elect their representative to Congress. All 50 states participate, unlike the 2018 Senate races, which are largely taking places in states that voted for Trump in '16, are considered traditional "red" states, and are thus not in themselves indicative of a national referendum. Similar with the governorships, which although expected to trend heavily toward the Democrats this year, only reflect part of the country and governors don't much represent national politics anyway.
The House races are where the referendum on Trump can be truly gauged. Current prognostications seem to indicate a small to moderate advantage to the Democrats when the smoke clears, and beginning in January the Dems would take over in the House as the controlling majority with the ability to use committees as they wish and control what proposed bills make it to a vote.
America's reputation as a decent and moral nation is on the line as it never has been before. In 2016 no one knew what a Donald Trump presidency would be, although there were surely dark hints. His effect as president in actuality could not be gauged in 2016, but there is no longer any such available excuse for voters. We now know with depressing clarity that Trump has been a worse president than most feared. He is astonishingly dishonest, even by Washington DC standards. It would be impossible to find a national policy issue about which Trump has not lied. He has led an administration filled with corruption on a scale rarely seen. His pledge to "drain the swamp" was merely a cover for turning the swamp into an ocean of misbehavior and self serving by executive branch officials. Perhaps most of all, Trump's narcissistic cynicism has turned the country into opposing factions based on racism, xenophobia and "nationalism" . Recent news clips of voters being interviewed show us exclamations of Americans saying "this (Trumpism) is not the America I grew up with" or "this is not how we want to be represented by a president". Millions of people know instinctively , and through fact, that the President of the United States is not a good man, or a good caretaker of his high office. He has lowered America in the eyes of the world and in our own eyes.
On Tuesday the results of the vote for the 435 US House of Representatives will indicate whether or not we still have a country based on decency.
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Anyone who votes for a Republican for the congressional offices on Tuesday is voting to affirm Trumpism, and we will respond to you accordingly.
John
Who are "YOU" to dictate who anyone should vote for and to threaten them if they do not do as "YOU" think appropriate.
[deleted]
I don't recall threatening anyone. You seem to have tipped your hand Robert, so now we can see you plan to perpetuate the travesty in the White House by voting against any legislative checking mechanism on this maniac.
As long as people show where they stand on the question of Trump and Trumpism, then we know how to address you. He is a worthless pos human being and you seem to be signaling that you will support his cause with your vote.
It is what it is Robert.
If only your comment was relevant to anything. Alas ....
And what would you call this? Who is this "we" you are talking about? You ready to lead the left to go full Antifa on the rest of us? You really think the majority of them will follow? What will you do when you and the rest find yourselves horribly outnumbered? Remember the majority of Americans don't even vote.
I am no fan of Trump; but no way in hell am I voting for the Dems that as a whole have sunk to Trump's level; and then dug even further. I promised myself after voting for Bill Clinton second term no more "voting for the lesser of two evils". Congrats, the Dems are making me break that vow. They should be very proud.
Total nonsense. Only the NT COC prevents me from responding to you in a way you deserve.
The Democrats have sunk worse than Trump?
Lol. What you smokin brother?
Trump Now Lies 30 Times Daily: Fact-Checker
President Donald Trump has begun telling even more falsehoods than previously, a fact-checking journalist has alleged, referring to the commander-in-chief as already being a “serial liar.”
“These are not simply the usual exaggerations of a crowd size and so on,” David Dale, who is the Washington correspondent for Canada’s Toronto Star , said Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” television program.
“He's making stuff up in the last couple weeks in a way that I don't think we've seen from a serial liar, the President, before" he added.
Robert, NowhereMan, Sean, etc. - are you seriously going to vote for a candidate who supports President***** Trump ?
Come on, John, if it wasn't a veiled threat, nothing is. "We will respond to you accordingly", but ONLY if you vote Republican. Who are "We"? Goons with baseball bats? Sounds not only like a veiled threat, but an empty one as well. LOL
At least I'm safe from your threatened retribution cause you know I'm not even entitled to vote in the election, although I think I can convince the officials in California I'm entitled by showing them my Ontario driver's licence. After all, there is an Ontario, California, and can't illegal aliens vote in California?
I don't see where JR said we will 'deal with you accordingly' as you directly quoted him as saying. That does sound a little like a threat, what he actually said does not. You are deliberately misquoting him to make it sound like a threat.
Yes Buzz, I made a "threat" to deal with them accordingly,
, in other words, to deal with them people who are so clueless as to vote for a serial liar, crook, bigot, and buffoon. Do you deal with clueless people the same way as you deal with people who are on the ball?
Sorry. I misquoted you - and it's corrected now. Anyway, John, don't panic. The world won't come to an end if the vote doesn't go the way you want. As you know, it's not that important to me one way or another, but I have to admit that I'm looking forward to seeing the results, curious because of the things that have been happening lately in the USA and wondering what effect they will have on the vote.
Oh, and by the way, why don't you take a break from this paranoia-causing election and try my movie quiz? You're one of the very few people who could get a decent score on it.
www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2018/11/04/election-referendum-trump-corrosive-changes-american-politics-column/1871790002/
This election is a referendum on Donald Trump's corrosive impact on our politics
I wish Republicans had checked Trump and been faithful to the Constitution. But my former party failed. Democrats are better bet to preserve democracy.
The midterm election Tuesday is not a primarily a choice between conservatives and liberals or their policies. It would be, in the words of Ernest Hemingway, “ pretty to think so ,” but it is not true.
Yes, there are some important issues pending as we head into the 116th Congress: health care, an idiotic trade war, an arms control treaty . Yet they pale in comparison to what should be the overriding concern of every American citizen of any party or affiliation: the preservation and protection of our constitutional system of government.
This is a serious claim. How much damage, really, can any one member of Congress, or any state or local official, make to our way of life?
As it turns out, plenty, if they choose to run under the banner of a party that is now little more than the vehicle of an ignorant and rage-addicted cult of personality. The 2018 midterms are, more than anything else, a referendum on the corrosive changes in our political life wrought by the current president of the United States. Donald Trump himself has said so. “I'm not on the ticket,” he said last month, “but I am on the ticket, because this is also a referendum about me .”
Take a moment to consider how far we fallen from even our most basic standards of political conduct in just a few years.
Freedom of the press? Despite a mass murder of Jews in Pittsburgh and an attempted mass assassination of more than a dozen prominent Americans by men parroting the rhetoric of his most fervent supporters, Trump has accused the media of being the true source of violence in our public life. He has raised the idea of yanking broadcast licenses and shrugged off the murder of a columnist for an American newspaper while continuing to inveigh against journalists at his anger-soaked mass rallies.
Executive power? Republicans once defended the principle of limited government. No longer. Today, Trump talks about rolling back the 14th Amendment of the Constitution ("birthright citizenship") by executive order, and a mostly compliant GOP and its servants in the right-wing media scramble to praise this Caesarism not only as defensible and but as lovely to behold.
Judicial overreach? The Republican Party I joined in my youth during the Reagan years was implacably opposed to the rule of “unelected judges.” Today, Republicans are so insecure about their own ideas that they have sold out everything else conservatives once cared about — free trade, a strong foreign and defense policy, the importance of character in politics — to get two more Supreme Court justices they hope will carry on their narrow crusades (primarily against Obamacare and legalized abortion) even if they themselves are swept from power.
Law and order? Respect for the military? The president has attacked America’s law enforcement and intelligence organizations, including his own attorney general, as part of a “deep state” out to get him. He has played politics with security clearances, while his own White House is riddled with conflicts of interest and shockingly lax security procedures. Meanwhile, the president has pushed for a huge, showy, and ultimately pointless deployment of troops to the Mexican border, a move that seems more like political theater than the protection of national security.
Perhaps most important, the president is in a full-blown assault on the notion of truth itself. Or, more accurately, he is doing everything in his power to ensure that ordinary citizens cannot tell the difference between the truth and a lie. He has inoculated millions of Americans against ever grasping a fact of which he does not approve by demanding that citizens of a democracy behave as though they are subjects of an authoritarian state, and accept that he, personally, is the only source of truth.
Some Republicans, while wincing, are meekly trying to sell a passel of judges, a tax cut and some regulatory rollback as worth all of this. Others, meanwhile, have followed the president’s lead and resorted to inane but nonetheless dangerous conspiracy theories . They warn of an “invasion” of migrants , chant the mantra of “ fake news ,” and level the usual scummy and anti-Semitic slurs on “globalists” and the orders they’re supposedly taking from Jewish philanthropist George Soros .
The Democrats, a party still reeling from years of losses that culminated in the shock of 2016, are themselves still something of a hot mess. Whether they can do better than the GOP as a governing party is up to them. But they are far less of a threat to our constitutional order.
The choice now is whether to continue to enable the president’s behavior, or to contain him with the reliable device of divided government. As a former Republican, I would have preferred that the Republican Party itself had opposed Trumpism by exercising the self-control, prudence, stoicism, and dedication to unwritten norms that once marked traditional conservatives. The Republicans, however, have failed the tests not only of responsible oversight, but of constitutional fidelity. Their removal from the majority is crucial to preserving a democracy that must survive long after Trump and his courtiers are gone.
Tom Nichols, who left the Republican Party last month to become an independent, is a professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College, an instructor at the Harvard Extension School, and the author of "The Death of Expertise." The views expressed here are solely his own. Follow him on Twitter: @RadioFreeTom
Who is going to do it?
The triggered snowflakes crying in the street?
The Antifa pussies going to poke em with a stick while they are not busy getting knocked the F out?
Or maybe the keyboard warriors can man up to the bull they spew?
Yeah and my nephew is 7 foot tall and was in the military...……...
Your memory is failing. Conveniently. Again.
Oh sweetie....
No. No we don't.
I am not signaling anything - tomorrow morning I will go to the polls and I will vote for some Democrats, some Republicans and one or two not affiliated with major parties
I will also support four ballot initiatives - two supported from the left, one supported from the right and one that pretty much everyone agrees on.
That is how an intelligent person goes through the process of deciding how to vote for people and issues - it has nothing to do with parties, liberals, conservatives or anything else but the issue and its merits or the person and their qualifications for the position they are running for.
As to the legislature - my prediction is that the Democrats will take control of the House by a narrow margin, the Republicans will increase their majority in the Senate by one or two seats and we will be back to gridlock - which a lot of people seem to want anyway.
And do not flatter yourself that anyone gives damn how you respond to them
I am no Trump fan either, but it will certainly provide a significant amount of amusement to see the anti conservative progressive leftist liberal loonies heads implode (figuratively speaking of course) when things do not go their way today!
maybe the keyboard warriors can man up to the bull they spew
I dare Trump to do the same thing or doesn't the bs he spews on Twitter count?
Was he wearing his MAGA hat when he did it?
Yeah right!!!!
Yep, appeals to hate is always a good Campaign tactic. /s
(Oh, Nice threat by the way...)
If you vote for the Republicans to retain the House you are voting to continue Trumpism, perhaps the most vile political ideology in modern memory.
Ignoring the Democrats that have sunk to Trump's level; and kept right on digging? Or are we supposed to award their vileness to combat Trump's vileness? Even if the current Democrat platform is something we cannot support?
Saying that the Democrats are as vile as Trump is a delusion.
secure borders, better trade deals, more jobs and lower taxes all at the same time?
I'm not sure if we can take much more of that...
Arguably Andrew Jackson is not within the realm of "modern memory".
You'll need to use LBJ instead.
Sorry, but in my opinion that was the previous administration.
Truth hurts doesn't it? I consider the progressives leftist liberal Dems more vile.
There is little difference between the Dems taking the House by one seat and the Republicans retaining it by one seat. 45% of the country supports Trump. America has already brought great shame upon herself by electing Trump. This will not be rectified by the Dems taking the House back and they won't take the Senate, so a total rebuke of Trump is not going to happen.
A total rebuke of Trump would be if he were impeached and convicted. It would be great if that would happen but what's more likely is an end to some of the legislative harm he's been causing, and there will be real substantive investigations into his unethical conduct and that of his nominees. If the Senate flips too then it would end the harm he's been causing to our judicial system.
And Democrats aren't fear mongering....
I liked this response from the link:
Notes Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly of The Post:
"America a decent and moral society?" The terms would be what? The grounds would be what? Is it a constant. Or is it a fluctuating circumstance?
This election will determine if the Russian interference was successful and whether that interference is allowed. A portion of the nation does not care. Another portion of the nation is livid.
John, I want to give you some heartfelt advice. Some of the comments you've been posting here appear somewhat hysterical. I'm concerned about the extent of your profound anguish over this election, and suggest that you do not watch or listen to the results, and if when they are tallied you are told your team won, you can rejoice, celebrate, and read and listen to the news and tell everyone "I told you so", but if it does not go your way, then make sure you never leave being under constant observation for at least a week, making sure that during that time you have no access to a weapon of any kind, anything sharp, or a rope. We really don't want to lose you in that case, because you will be necessary to remind us all daily (as you have been doing up until this time) of the need to prevent Trump from being re-elected two years from now. Please try to stay calm.
If I were you I'd be more concerned about your inability to accurately describe yourself. You tell people you are a "moderate" but you act on this forum like a Trumpster. It's not a good look Buzz.
Trump takes a right wing extremist stance on Israel and Iran. I don't think Buzz really cares for Trump outside of this, but it's an issue that trumps (no pun intended) all for him. He does have solid left wing views on some issues.
I just enjoy being a devil's advocate. The only thing Trump has done that pleases me is what he is doing about Israel, but if his "deal of a century" is not beneficial for Israel, then my feelings might change. Most of what he's done and said I really don't give a damn about one way or the other as it has no effect of me. However, if what he does harms me, like makes me pay more money for my necessities, or causes the Canadian dollar to lose value which will affect my pension's buying power, then fuck him, start a revolution and depose him for all I care. Dump Trudeau while you're at it.
I didn't even think about Trump when I filled out my ballot and didn't find his name anywhere on it. I simply voted for those that will put up the best fight against socialism, communism and liberalism.
This is an unusual year, a national emergency. The imperative is to check Trump and encourage Republicans to circle back to the mainstream.
"What you want is a Republican Party that's a problem-solving conservative party," Ornstein says. "If they don't lose this election it will continue to devolve down to a cult of personality and populist thuggery."
Trump dominates Washington today, all three branches. That kind of dominance by one party is never healthy, but under Trump, it's downright scary.
If he wins on Tuesday, the next two years are certain to get a lot scarier.
Tom Moran
New Jersey Star Ledger
as the so-called mainstream is actually batschit left? not a chance.
we promised to take our country back (we did) we also promised to keep it, and we will.
there has been no change in our plans
Yes, you support a liar, a bigot, a crook, and a buffoon, aka President***** Trump.
your opinion about trump is not as important as you think.
1 day and a wake up.
cheers
My description of Trump is not an opinion, it is reality.
Thus defines the raving mad delusionary thought process of many on the left.
sorry john... your opinions are not reality.
reality is that thing that will bite the left on the behind manyanna.
cheers
Donald Trump recently claimed that he is a good judge of crowd size. That is a buffoon my friend.
The day after his inauguration Trump asked the government photographer to doctor the crowd photos to make the attendance seem larger.
this is not a democracy, we do not have "national elections"
our nation has general elections
and tomorrows gonna be a doozy.
cheers
The president* entertains a pre-election rally audience
Exit poll data by the BBC’s US partner network CBS shows that 65% of people said President Trump was a factor in their vote today.
That's higher than the previous peak of 60% for Obama in 2010.
Some 26% of voters said Trump positively influenced their choice for House of Representatives candidate, while 39% voted to oppose the president (and 33% didn't change their vote).
Around 44% of voters approve of the job Trump is doing as president - which is not dissimilar from Obama's rating in the 2010 mid-terms.