John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY NEIL MACDONALD IN CBC NEWS
“If the Democrats have any spine, they'll nominate Elizabeth Warren to take on Trump: Neil Macdonald
“Donald Trump poses as a populist, while rewarding the rich. Warren is the real thing”
Elizabeth Warren has her merits. She would be preferable to that old rubber-faced phony, Joe Biden.
But I view her still as a rather weak candidate. Her voice is simply missing on some immensely important problems for America and the world.
And I don't know why she ever came up with that stunt of claiming indigenous heritage. It showed extremely bad judgment in anyone's eyes. Trump's insulting mouth would tirelessly pound away at that, and it would have traction with many Americans, not just the belly-over-the-belt types.
She also, like Bernie Sanders, spends a lot of time talking social programs that, no matter how nice you may think they sound, cannot possibly see the light of day in contemporary America.
We are not talking about a place at all similar to Canada in such matters, but about a pounding fist of an empire with not even any pocket change left over for social programs.
And most Democrats support that imperial/military priority just as much as Republicans do. Johnson, Clinton, and Obama all waged aggressive war, and little has changed. And there are lots of quite conservative Democrats. Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, sounds like a member of Trump’s staff when he speaks of foreign affairs.
The Democrats simply are not a party of the kind of liberals Canadians are used to thinking of. No extremely progressive legislation could possibly pass.
And then when it comes to imperial/military affairs, the heart of America's greatest problems, Elizabeth Warren's has not been a voice much heard over the years. She has voted for massive military budgets, and she is no critic of America's bloodbath in the Middle East.
I think a woman would be great, and there is a truly outstanding woman running, Tulsi Gabbard - intelligent, tough, articulate, honest, attractive, and concerned about some truly important matters.
Please see this interesting item concerning the first debate by Democratic candidates;
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/06/27/john-chuckman-comment-first-debate-by-democrats-brings-eyebrow-raising-polling-results-for-tulsi-gabbard-despite-having-short-airtime-she-crushed-the-opposition-poll-links-a-really-impressive-w/
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I do think when Neil Macdonald writes of "populists," he misses something important.
The current generation of "populists," in Europe as well as America, has nothing in common with the populism of Franklin Roosevelt's day.
This generation of “populists” is not wildly far from the American isolationist types of Roosevelt's day, or even some of the less extreme fascist parties of the 1930s, not all of them, and there were many, being as extreme and violent as the Nazis.
The Western world has become a much less kind and generous place than it once was. We see this everywhere.
True liberalism or the populism of Roosevelt's day literally died out years ago in the United States.
That's why many Democrats are not all that wildly different than most Republicans. They don't at all resemble the left wing of Canadian Liberals.
Remember Bill Clinton's speech bragging about signing a piece of legislation "ending welfare in our day"? Obama, too, was no real liberal. He didn’t create a single significant piece of progressive legislation, and he certainly did nothing for the poor black Americans he appealed to with his “Yes, we can!” of campaign speeches in the rhythms of traditional black preachers.
Imagine Clinton’s brag about welfare coming from a Democrat thirty years before? It just couldn't have happened.
Years of relative prosperity and aggressive wars and indifference to the consequences of those wars changed the soul of American society.
Europe, too, has changed under heavy American influence. In many ways, it is far less independent of American attitudes than it once was.
In Britain, Boris Johnson is different largely in style from Trump. We’ve just learned that he is even a “closet” friend of Steve Bannon, former Trump intimate. A genuine, humane progressive like the Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn has been viciously attacked many times. And with the most shameful tactics.
And the same thing is seen in Canada, only to a lesser degree. Once the Conservatives had some genuinely humane and worthy leaders, men like Robert Stanfield or Joe Clark. Today, the Party reflects Stephen Harper.
