Rob FromThe Poor, Give To The Rich

Responses to a Bernie Sanders Facebook post which read:

This is what class warfare looks like:

The business Roundtable – representing Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and others – has called on Congress to raise the eligibility age of Social Security and Medicare to 70, cut Social Security and veterans COLAs, raise taxes on working families and cut taxes for the largest corporations in America.

The responses:

Susan: welcome to the new America. Thank goodness I am so old they can't hurt me too much. I am ashamed that we are leaving our children and grandchildren a world that is worse than the one we were given. And you know as well as I do that or problems have not been caused by immigrants, illegal or otherwise, nor is Obamacare the cause of our decline

Lisa:  Glad I'm old too--we're f___d if Bernie Sanders doesn't take the helm.

Susan:  He would have my vote but only if he runs as a democrat.  If he runs as an independent, green or other party candidate, I'm afraid he will split the vote like Nader did in 2000. Look what happened then. All hell broke loose and we will not recover in my lifetime.

Me:  We'll recover when a Dem picks up Obama's defiance of Reaganism and we get a new FDR.  When Clinton declared the era of big government was over, he damned even Dems  to obey Republican ideology.  Triangulation is better known as capitulation.  Now, for the first time since then, Dems are saying Republicans are fundamentally wrong, so let's stop letting them tell us the rules of engagement.

Susan:  Think it will happen in our lifetime? I am afraid repubs would rather see our country go down in flames than work to fix it for the common good.

Me:  I would have to agree that the Republican Party has become as corrupt as a party can be. It is  endlessly pandering to it's fading base of aging, frightened white people, mostly male and to its robber baron bosses.  I would say within 10 to 15 years we will see a radical change as more and more young people become eligible to vote and and carry the resentment of Republicans trying to disenfranchise them. The Republican Party in America may well face the same fate that happened the Republican Party in California. The great victory of Prop 187 changed California from a conservative red state to a blue state in which republicans stand little chance of accomplishing anything.  More likely, Republicans will return to being a party which includes moderates and even some liberals.  The fanaticism has run so deep that this may not be possible.

But remember, the Republican Party was once the most liberal party in the Western world. The Democratic Party was once the party of conservative racial bigots. Things do change, and they often change almost overnight due to one great leader.  The Republicans became the home of  bigots and the Democrats lost that status because LBJ pushed through civil rights legislation.  It was almost literally overnight and shocked the world in its suddenness.

I deeply respect Obama's accomplishment in drawing the line in the sand and declaring that Reaganism would no longer be allowed to dominate unopposed, but he failed to go so far as to be an FDR or an LBJ. That is, to be a great president. Obama is only a much better than average president.