It’s natural enough that different factions of the Democratic Party see things differently. But we’ve got to stop letting the Republican Party off the hook.
- Bill Clinton may have let China into the WTO, but he was not around to see or act on China’s behavior. Essentially 100% of job losses occurred under Bush, either directly or as a result of the 2008 crash. Obama had no opportunity to do anything: his first two years were spent avoiding a depression, and after that the Republican Congress shut down government.
- That Republican Congress has never received its deserved public exposure. Its stated objective was non-cooperation with Obama on all issues,. They understood perfectly what stimulus is good for, and they made sure it didn’t happen—with the proven-bogus “balanced-budget amendment”. The Republican Party deliberately kept the country poor for the 2016 election
- On meat and potatoes issues Trump is not a rebel, he’s a Republican. His primary effect on the economy was through the tax cuts. Those were properly the Koch organization tax cuts—delivered as ordered to the primary donors to the Republican Party.
It’s not wrong to say that both parties share blame for the growth of inequality and such—but not in equal measure. The position of the “Trump base” would have been quite different if Obama had not been denied all opportunity to act. A Clinton Presidency would have worked on education, healthcare, and climate change instead of the Koch tax cuts.
Clinton was reluctant to criticize the Republican Congress, because she thought ordinary Republicans might support her (Comey fixed that!). We seem to be making a similar mistake by excusing Republicans in the guise of “everybody did it until now”. We’re letting Trump be the hero who brought it all to the fore.
On issues Trump is a Republican. Republicans produced the 2008 crash, the Iraq war, the drastically increased inequality, and the current polarization of society. Democrats fix things. Trump has made it harder, but we can get it done.
on the outside 