Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the evolution of the Democratic Party under the Trump Administration.
Here is the column:
Washington has long been a stranger to principle other than the principle of self advancement. Yet, something new seems to be emerging across the country. Politicians have long felt the need to disguise raw political agendas in the pretense of principle. That pretense has disappeared.
In this age of rage, voters seem to have no patience, let alone need, for leaders speaking of abstract principles. They want immediate unequivocal action in supporting or opposing President Trump. For Democrats, that all consuming purpose has led to the abandonment of core unifying values, including many that first drew me to the Democratic Party. While they would vehemently deny it, Trump is remaking the party in his inverse image. This past month shows how far that transformation has gone.
The remaking of the Democratic Party was evident last week with the reaction to the decision to withdraw troops from Syria. There was a time when a sizable number of Democrats opposed undeclared wars and unending military campaigns. Now, they are appalled that Trump would not continue a war in one of the myriad countries with American troops engaged in combat operations. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called the withdrawal a “Christmas gift to Vladimir Putin,” while Tim Kaine, David Cicilline, and other Democrats called it “irresponsible” or “hasty.”
Of course, this “hasty” move is after seven years of intervention in the civil war, including personnel on the ground since 2012. Our military also has been in Iraq since 2003 and in Afghanistan since 2001. One study estimated the costs of the wars in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan at $5.6 trillion. More importantly, thousands of military personnel have been killed and tens of thousands have been wounded. Yet, Democrats now espouse the same lines denounced during the Bush administration.
Popular cable programs with Democratic and liberal viewers are equally full of recriminations over withdrawing from these wars. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow criticized the plan to withdraw troops as merely an effort to distract the public, despite Trump campaigning in 2016 on promises to withdraw from such wars. “Morning Joe” host and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough denounced the president as a “quivering coward” who failed to understand that we must fight “enemies like ISIS abroad, so we do not have to fight them in our own schools, churches and airports.” Liberals once rejected the premise that we should engage in continual wars in other countries or face terrorism on our streets at home.
Democrats are now defined by Trump the way that antimatter is defined by matter, with each particle of matter corresponding to an antiparticle. Take the secrecy. Democrats once were the party that fought against the misuse of secret classification laws by the FBI and other agencies. They demanded greater transparency from the executive branch, which is a position that I have readily supported. Yet, when oversight committees sought documents related to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation of Trump associates, Democrats denounced the very thought that Republicans would question the judgment of the FBI that any such disclosures would be tantamount to jeopardizing national security.
Democratic Party leaders including Pelosi declared that the oversight committees had moved beyond “dangerous irresponsibility and disregard for our national security” and “disregarded the warnings of the Justice Department and the FBI.” Likewise, House Intelligence Committee ranking minority member Adam Schiff expressed shock that the FBI was not given deference in withholding the information in the surveillance investigation.
Yet, when the information was finally forced out of the FBI, including the disclosure of previously redacted material, it was clear that the FBI had engaged in overclassification to shield not national security but to shield the bureau itself from criticism. It included discussion of the roles of high ranking FBI officials and their reliance on such sources as the Christopher Steele dossier, which were already publicly known. Democratic House members like Schiff presumably knew what was in the redactions and, nevertheless, wanted deference to the classification decisions of the FBI.
In supporting the investigation of Trump, Democrats have embraced expanding definitions of crimes like obstruction, conspiracy, and the like. Historically, Democrats have resisted such efforts to stretch the criminal code to criminalize broader and broader areas of conduct. During the Trump administration, Democrats sound like legal hawks in demanding criminal charges for conduct long treated as civil matters, such as campaign finance violations and foreign agent registration violations.
In pursuing Trump, Democrats have also adopted a type of “red scare” mindset. While Republicans long pumped up the Russian menace as a political Cold War narrative, Democrats are now adopting the same type of rhetoric over the Russian attempt to interfere with the 2016 president election. Democrats for the past two years speak about how Russians “stole” the election or destroyed the legitimacy of the results, with little empirical data to support such irresponsible and unfounded claims.
While many of us support the Mueller investigation and the need for sanctions against Russia for its interference, Democrats now routinely refer to Russia as our “enemy” and accuse any people with alleged connections to Russians as “traitors.” Special counsel Robert Mueller may have more to reveal on Russian hacking, but there is little evidence that either the trolling operation or leaked emails of the Hillary Clinton campaign had a material impact on the 2016 presidential election.
In building up the Russian menace, Democrats ignore that we have not only hacked the emails of our enemies but of our allies as well for years. Moreover, we have routinely intervened in or influenced foreign elections. Likewise, other nations from Israel to Mexico to China and many more, have long tried to influence our elections. Still, Democrats are escalating their calls for greater action against Russia, including criticism of being too dovish in not confronting Russian military elements around the world.
A party requires more than hatred for an individual. A party has to stand for something that transcends the immediate or the visceral. Yet, in the age of Trump, the public is not interested in nuance or niceties. The watchword is “resist” and that means to push back at all costs, even against our core values. So the question is not what the Democratic Party will do but what it will be after Donald Trump eventually leaves office.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is only a part of things. Democrats are in the late stages of their power mad control freak warfare to seize the United States. For the next two years their attacks on the economy, The People, The Constitution, Constitutional Rights, Civil Rights, The Rule of Law, Traditional values, American Culture, their violence and their staged crises and incidents will increase tenfold. Their goal is to create chaos, confusion and instability to get the American People upset, frightened and fatigued enough to surrender to “the cause.” They expect the weak, the helpless and the cowards to run to the big mama socialist government safe space for promised protection. They expect the American Citizen who loves this country and the life it affords to feel threatened, outnumbered and helpless against the rising socially engineered threats to them and capitulate.
Democrats are going after everything that the American People have built their lives on. They are systematically dismantling everything People depend on to live and sustain a Constitution based life of freedom.
Democrats will continue to escalate their attacks right up to the 2020 election. (Which a huge number of People believe is already rigged. Why else would they jam so many disastrously unfit failed clowns into the clown car?)
Only part of what the Democrats are doing is about their hatred Trump himself.
The real target is The American Citizen.
Trump is the Red Herring. A destraction to keep The People focused somewhere else while the Democrats prepare the koolaid.
The Democrat operation is like your cell phone. While you’re furiously distracted tapping away at Clash of Clans your cell phone is continuously running background apps that deplete your battery, make “fundemental” changes to your phone with your extremely uninformed consent and gather data to plan strategies to separate you from your “currency” and “nudge” you toward joining the compliant herd looking to be directed toward the app creators predetermined goals. If God Himself were President, the Democrats would be on the attack.
Trump Derangement Syndrome (a strategy that is especially effective with the raised to be ruled millieflake crowd) is just another strategy the left uses to complete and win their own very real life game of Risk: Global Domination.
We need an Art Deco revival. Then nobody would stay at the ugly Trump hotels.
One has to wonder whether Turley is being honest here, or just trolling.
He characterizes our presence in Syria as “intervention in the civil war”, and conflates it with Iraq and Afghanistan to inflate the costs and casualties. In fact, we’re there to defeat ISIS, and prevent genocide. And we’ve lost fewer than 10 soldiers there, because they’re generally _not_ “engaged in combat operations”. What they’re doing is what Trump claimed he wants to do: giving technical assistance to the people of the region, who are doing essentially all the bleeding and dying. And providing air support, because the Iraqis haven’t yet developed our capabilities in that area.
Most of the criticism of Trump came as a result of his insane declaration that we can leave because “ISIS is defeated”, when that’s so far from the truth that not even the Hubble could see it. And because he didn’t show that he’d given any thought to the consequences of his decision.
He also completely ignores the fact that the committees seeking FISA documents weren’t doing “oversight”: they were engaged in a purely tribal attempt to protect Trump, and dishonestly misrepresenting the information they got in aid of that effort.
And, most important, he misses the fact “resist” refers to what Trump is _doing_, not merely, or even primarily, to what he is. And that Democrats have proposed, and even enacted when they had the power to do so, policies that the majority of Americans support. The main thrust of the Democrats’ 2018 had nothing to do with “hatred”: it was stopping the damage to the health care system that the GOP has been doing.
They had policies that most Americans like in 2016, too. Trump did his damnedest to make the campaign about personality, and avoid discussions of policy. It seems he succeeded wildly with Turley.
It strikes me that Jonathan Turley is too busy to fully think through his miniature essays.
“we’re there to defeat ISIS” Haha ….. to kill a faction we created? cough neocon cough …
“He characterizes our presence in Syria as “intervention in the civil war”, and conflates it with Iraq and Afghanistan to inflate the costs and casualties. In fact, we’re there to defeat ISIS, and prevent genocide. And we’ve lost fewer than 10 soldiers there, because they’re generally _not_ “engaged in combat operations”. What they’re doing is what Trump claimed he wants to do: giving technical assistance to the people of the region, who are doing essentially all the bleeding and dying. And providing air support, because the Iraqis haven’t yet developed our capabilities in that area.”
Surely you are joking here. You are a perfect case in point. At one time the Democratic populace opposed this type of thing. You people just love to dominate. You need to stop soft balling and be upfront about it. We had no mission there other than to topple the existing government in order to control gas line access and expand the empire. We need to “just leave” everywhere.
My God, who doesn’t understand that???????
“In fact, we’re there to defeat ISIS, and prevent genocide. ”
The different battles in the middle east are complex and it is not a matter of whether or not we leave Syria. It is a matter of what our objectives are. ISIS will exist in some form or another in the middle east and elsewhere. For now ISIS is defeated in Syria and that was our stated purpose for being there. The question is whether or not once we enter a field of battle we ever leave it and whether we are going to send armies wherever ISIS rears its ugly head. One has to answer those questions as well when responding to the Syria question. Then one has to look around and take note that troops will remain in Iraq. Does that suffice or does each battle ground require active American troops on site?
Think in terms of existential threats to the US. We have loads of them. One of the most powerful military features of our government is our economy so one has to be careful where one drains the batteries of the economy making sure that we are not overextended.
Thank you for your comment , Turley has become a hack or troll if you prefer.
Brilliant.
And heartbreaking.
But it’s the public that doesn’t care what the DNC or media are saying or doing as long as it is anti-Trump.
That pretty much sums it up. Oppose first, then put forth a lazy and fat argument. See above.
What’s funny is they’re so being used, and their own conceit doesn’t allow them to see it.
However, pulling out of that graveyard of empires, Afghanistan, seems a good idea. Invite the Chinese in.
Sounds like a good plan to me.
The most sensible thing you have ever said here, DBB. Ever.
Perhaps he’s waiting for some slightest shred of proof? So far the War Monger Party has managed to come up with everything and anything except the one thing that would validate them as anything worth keeping around instead of just chucking with the left over dish water.
OK now repeat the litany of 13 russians or some such nonsense.
Who is he?
Take another slug of the hair of the dog what bit you and try again…
“…China and many more, have long tried to influence our elections. Still, Democrats are escalating their calls for greater action against Russia, including criticism of being too dovish in not confronting Russian military elements around the world.”
Without doubt the number one Go To choice for anything to do with wars is the War Monger Party. It sounds better, more honest, to refer to them as Socialist Progressives maybe Re-gressives for they are in no way, shape, nor form a Peace Party.
Looking forward to Part II: “The Trump Party: How the Republican Party Lost its Defining Values in the Allegiance with Trump”
Professor….This is one of your best posts…just an excellent assessment! Thank you!
Cindy, though I appreciate this posting by Professor Turley I think he has purposefully marginalized his voice and has seemed a bit too tentative when dealing with the abuses of power both here and abroad.
Allan….good to hear from you. I understand what you’re saying…it’s just that having to be around Texas Democrats down here, it’s so refreshing to hear from Prof Turley, who could easily stay inside the tent, but doesn’t most of the time.
I opine that the Demos began to lose so-called defining values with the election of Clinton as prez.
1909 officially but prior to that actually with the help of Woodrow Wilson however the seeds were sown even further back.
The start point however is when the representatives of the 13 nation states after two years of effort finished The Constitution. Democracy, Democrat, Democratically was mentioned in the journals or minutes nine times and each time without fail rejected for consideration
The one place where it’s positively mentioned is in defining the well spring of power as the individual self governing citizens as opposed to the European ‘divine right of monarchs.’
To tie this in with the natives of North America go look at, in particular, Weatherford’s “Indian Givers” and the use of the Iroquois Confederation experience in establishing our system as a representative Republic
I read what the anthropologists write.
No, the Party did not “lose” their defining values with Slick Willy; they just embraced his values.
And in so embracing, lost the way.
Fortunately it appears that the Clintons are being ignored.
well certainly they threw organized labor overboard and instead cozied up to Wall Street and “free trade” as much as they could
After decades of unfair competition, It took POTUS Trump to make the United Steel Workers happy.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/03/08/united_steelworkers_leo_gerard_members_wont_forget_what_trump_did_he_stopped_wealth_transfer.html
Well if the Anti-Trump party starts to falter they can reconstitute themselves as the Whig Party.
Darren, look at demographics and guess which party is aging out. It ain’t the Democrats!
The Democratic Party is in the process of cancelling itself, and maybe the rest of us with it. With their divisive SJW rhetoric, they’ll keep tearing things down until they disembowel each other. It’s the endpoint of their madness. Look at the collapse of the women’s march for example. They are already subdividing and lashing out at each other. Your lot sure seems to offer a lot to the country.
I have seen Trump drink water, I am amazed that the left has not died of dehydration by now.
We drink beer if we can afford wine.
I have heard also that he can walk on water, but I’ve never actually seen him back up his boast.😉
We don’t drink it in case he walked on it.
To be on the safe side, you should probably avoid wine as well.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BQUcCaWN3Ck
The late, great Johnny Cash started writing tributes to Trump in the 1960s.
Oh yes, also Jonathan Turley’s understanding of physics … Well, some can’t keep apart tort and torte not to mention bomb from bombe.
This is a good example of Democracy in chains.
? What?
One can hardly call it The Democrat Party anymore. Even if this were a Democracy which it isn’t and never has been there is always room for those bedrock core principles of the original ideals of democracies.
But this current version has nothing to do with any of that.
Perhaps the new batch will be able to accomplish something since, for example, the margin for the Speakership is so flimsy thin.
Not unrealistic to see someone with an understanding of the values of our representative Constitutional Republic, someone like former nor ex Marine Colin Lamb to provide the necessary leadership to lead the new “Young Turks?” in establishing a New Democratic Party or as some call it the Independent Constitutional Democrats and wit wouldn’t take much.
Wouldn’t take much to become a new party and apart from the current neo foreign ideology of the socialist regressive left. I see just enough to cause Pelosi to lose the Speakership.
I see just enough to become a core values vote magnet that can take the oath of office and unlike Ocasio take take that oath honestly without purposes of evasion.
For a while I said there is no such thing as Constitutional Democracy but in thinking about it like a good objectivist should it dawned on me there is such a thing though not that one currently under the thumbs of Schumer and Pelosi.
Remember a Democracy is where all the citizen members take part in evrything and when it becomes representative is no longer a Democracy. That is true. However the founders also said the ‘individual self governing citizen and citizens are the source of, all power the and hold the ‘divine right.as citizens. Not any Party. just the self governing citizens.
So in that context Democracy does exist but it does not exist under thumbs of the socialist autocracy now holding it imprisoned.
Think about it.
Encourage your friends and neighbors to reform that which is good and reject that which is evil just as the Constitutional Republic Party has had to reject the RINOs. So must the true citizens reject the DINOs.
Democracy didn’t work out so well for the classical Athenians. The Republic finally collapsed in Rome, maybe under the weight of too much to govern and too many Senators.
The USA? George is fond of quoting Franklin.
Well said, DB. FF saw the government as a necessary evil, and we sure do have our lot today, and it just keeps growing. The less of that tripe, the better.
FF?
Turley is right on these issues mentioned, but the Dems are still strong on the vast majority of their platform. They are pro-labor (mostly), pro-environment, pro-civil rights, pro-life, for Social Security, Medicare and such, and are now moving fast to single payer. They are strong against Trump because he stands against most everything they have stood for.
This three issues that this article mentions do not represent a shift and I do not see them as having anti-Trump as their core issue.
They are also still the hands down straight up War Monger Party and civil rights? Not since 1909. No they are not pro civil rights by any means nor anything close to it.
Their only success under LBJ required 100% of the then GOP to counterbalance the majority of the DNCs who voted against civil rights.
They are not pro labor nor are they pro life not with their record on abortion up to and after the moment of birth. They are not pro women with their record of hosting to this day the two biggest victimizers of women in the country.
You see you don’t get to change definitions especially when the evidence is so transparently against you. Words have meanings and those from a fictionary count for nought.
” I do not see them as having anti-Trump as their core issue”.
😒😊😀😄😂
Molly, I appreciate your sense of humor!
Yeah, she’s good.
I liked the “pro-life” claim as well.
Not an impressive analysis, Jonathan Turley.
For example, do you not find the Daesh, aka ISIS or sometimes ISIL, to be a menace to be eliminated, extirpated from the face of the earth?
For another, is not Putin’s Great Powerism an upset to world order?
I would put it that the Demos are attempting to be the party of reason versus the Republicants, many of whom belong in St Elizabeth’s. Too bad it was demolished.
False Premise. The currently and falsely named Democrats do not allow thinking nor reasoning and have done nothing to rid themselves of DINOs while the Constitutional Republic Party faction of the GOP has taken major strides in ridding itself of the RINO’s AKA right wing of the left -which put’s paid to your ill thought out conclusion.
However their are those in the Socialist Regressives who are just about sufficient enough to destroy Benita’s dreams on their own. I wish them every success and hope to see the re-establishment of the Independent Constitutional Democratic Party. What a vote magnet that will be! Benita Bounced and Schmuckley Free!
Dr. Benson seems to have a comprehensive, “insider” kind of knowledge of the St. Elizabeth facility.
Can he give us more of the history of St. Elizabeth, based on what he remembers from his extended stays there?
Before my time. Ezra Pound was judged insane and sent there rather than face the penalty for being a traitor.
You can look up the history to your heart’s content.
Dr. Benson,…
Since St. Elizabeth still exists, I’m not sure what you meant when you wrote “Before my time”.
Unless you’d rather forget😯 the time you spent there, and imagine that it never existed in your lifetime.
To my surprise, part of St Elizabeths, no apostrophe, still has inmates; 290 I learn.
In my 3 trips to Washington, DC, I never went near it.
#HappyNewYear Professor–it seems as if you have jumped to a hasty conclusion-let’s give the new House Majority a chance to prove its’ mantle–I will remind you that Republicans had uniform control of Government–they got two SCOTUS judges approved, they got a tax cut (which has blown a big hole in the national debt)—as they bascially disregarded the Minority with their sham investigations. As for Syria, please understand the rationale as to the hasty decision-Russia and Iran will now have a free hand to do whatever they want at the expense of the Kurds. Please also read what Mitt Romney wrote for the Washington Post : https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mitt-romney-the-president-shapes-the-public-character-of-the-nation-trumps-character-falls-short/2019/01/01/37a3c8c2-0d1a-11e9-8938-5898adc28fa2_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5fcb14701138
You seem to derive a lot that wasn’t said in the single line “pull out 2,000 troops. And most of what you infer and the ever faithful to the extremists of the left WaPo immediately began preaching. But I have to give your effort a failing don’t give up your day or night job if you had thought to become a fiction writer.
I particularly like Fauxahautas coming out swinging with a beer. Just one of the girls, that Elizabeth Warren. Drinks beer right out of the bottle and she is 1/1024th Native American (maybe).
New Name Peck And Haunt Us or something similar it’s still left wing extremist socialist autocratic and bogus DINO seeking to keep slaves from forming their own party. To hitting the reset button and and driving them from the temple. She does not seek to become ”one of us” but the single leader of a single party in the mold of the Chief Autocrat. No native indigenes tribes ever did such a thing another proof that the would be dictator Lizzie Borden Warren is still a phony.
“No native indigenes[sic] tribe …” I dispute that. Find an anthropologist to back your claim. Any one.
Since you dispute it back up your claim. I suspect it might be Aztecas but can’t think of any other. So….your dispute your turn to provide proof.
Aztecs will do. Also the Incas. There are several earlier but similar groups in Mesoamerica but more interesting is further north.
You might want to read Jack Weatherfords “Indian Givers.” before straying to far into the land of urban myths.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ACJk5SIG5ZY
Notice how deftly Seinfeld avoids any words and phrases that might offend the Indian gal he likes.
Paul…Lol………I’m surprised she doesn’t call her beer. “Fire water” just to keep the farce alive. 🤠
Cindy Bragg – I have the strangest feeling that picture was not taken in her house. Refrigerator looks too old.
BTW, did hubby finish the Custer book and what did he think about it?
Paul…I agree about that weird photo!
Yes, hubby thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the Custer book…… Thank you.
He is now writing his next western non-fiction historical play for the local bar assoc.
Hope all is well in Az!
Cindy Bragg – it is dipping to below freezing temps in the Valley of the Sun. It snowed in northern Scottsdale yesterday, which is a little higher than where I am. I have been in downtown Phoenix when it snow and it was this time of year. Snow hit the ground and melted, but it still snowed. This is not good for the citrus crops.
Tell your husband I would love to see the script or video of the production. 🙂
Paul …hope the crops survive!
You’re kind re: the play! All of his plays are based on actual county murder cases he finds in the archives in the courthouse basement. He usually has the actual trial transcripts.
And he always uses real family names….with the exception of one year when the family descendents did not want their name used…( which was silly because this is a small town, and most people knew about the case!) The cases are usually from the late 1800’s….some from the 1920’s, 30’s. He enjoys it, but always says “this one is his last one! ” LOL
Turley is in full on Trump defense mode. Siding with Trump on most everything and attacking Democrats. It can be possible to be against some foreign wars and also recognize that Trump has pretty much screwed all our allies in the world. Wouldn’t want to be a Kurd right now. Even Canada, Mexico and Great Britain get screwed under Trump. Turley also portrays all Democrats as being the same and discounting those that agree with the withdrawal while recognizing the way he did it was crazy and would hurt not only our allies but expose our troops. He didn’t consult anyone, but I forgot, he knows more than them anyway.
It’s a short work week with the holidays and with the government being shut down and all, there may be only a couple indictments in the next couple weeks. Turley will be right here to say we haven’t seen any evidence against Trump. Which is only because the report hasn’t been released yet.
Waiting for the Turley article saying fraud, money laundering, and treason don’t rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.
It sounds like Enigma didn’t read what Turley wrote. I am waiting for Enigma to take what Turley said sentence by sentence and dispute Turley’s logic. No. Enigma will instead use vague references like Trump must be a racist because before DJT was born sh!t happened and therefore Trump or anyone agreeing in the slightest with Trump must be wrong.
Allan…….you’re exactly correct about enigma. He’s in denial, and I don’t mean the river 😊
Our main ally is Turkey. I personally don’t like Turkey very much. However it is a nato ally.
There is no “kurdistan” so it is hard to call them an ally. The Kurdish in Iraq were cooperators in our foolish invasion of Iraq and not surprisingly cooperators against the arab-sunni-extremist ISIS. This action does not throw them overboard. They are doing whatever they are doing. It is not for us to decide. Trump wisely subtracts us from this mess.
Meanwhile if they can’t stand up against Turkey on their own then we certainly should not be helping them.
Think clearly about this please
“Meanwhile if they can’t stand up against Turkey on their own then we certainly should not be helping them. ”
More example of empty-headed Democrat Derangement. If he would have decided to stay, they would be championing your argument. I wouldn’t waste my time arguing with horribly thin no-consequence posts.
Once again, if EB thinks the Kurds and whoever around the world need help, we don’t have to stop him. He is more than welcome to go over, spend his money and put forth his life. He just needs to stop being generous with other people’s health and wealth. Now, is there a real argument put forth by the lefties here?? Somewhere??? I might have to make some pro-left points so we can have some sane exchanges. Orange man bad is so old and tired.