John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY SAMUEL MOYN IN THE GUARDIAN
“The problem with Democrats is substance, not style
"Following Trump’s election, US liberals have blamed their failure on rhetoric. But politics is about much more than baiting voters"
The author starts with inaccurate assumptions.
Democrats and liberals are not the same thing at all.
Of course, some Democrats are liberals, but this is not a liberal party overall.
It is a war and empire party for sure.
The last Democratic President, Obama, still often is referred to as liberal, and I challenge anyone to support the characterization.
He was bombing people somewhere for every day of his eight years.
He was responsible for the chaos made out of Libya, a country whose leader, like him or not, kept his country at peace and was generous with the needs of his people.
He was also responsible for the start of the horror in Syria, which still continues, having killed about half a million.
He created millions of desperate refugees in Europe from his bombing in the Middle East.
He was responsible for the ominous "pivot" towards China after his march of destruction through the Middle East.
He started the American industrial-scale extrajudicial killing system using drones, something I would never have dreamed of seeing in the US years ago.
It was under his watch that the NSA and its massive domestic spying got really rolling.
He was almost a fanatic about secrecy and leaks and was always ready to punish leakers.
His one big domestic program, Obamacare, was a poorly-done compromise with big private health interests in the US. It never gained any affection from people with its very complicated and costly nature.
He did absolutely nothing for his own people, the poor blacks to whom he appealed in his campaign with "Yes, we can!" delivered in the rhythm of a black preacher.
He was involved in some pretty shady stuff we do not completely understand during the election with spying and other matters.
Please, there are no liberals in American, except some folks who gather in a few quaint shops in Vermont and Oregon and some professors no one listens to.
This is a massive brutal empire, and both parties fully support that central reality, which also leaves little resources or time or concern for the ordinary citizen. Indeed, years ago, both parties stopped talking about citizens and talked about consumers. They stopped talking about the poor and started talking about the middle class. The differences between the two parties are of the profound nature of any duopoly, as Coke versus Pepsi or McDonald's versus Burger King.
