{"id":5840,"date":"2022-08-23T09:02:18","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T13:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=5840"},"modified":"2023-07-13T11:24:16","modified_gmt":"2023-07-13T15:24:16","slug":"right-track-wrong-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2022\/08\/23\/right-track-wrong-track\/","title":{"rendered":"Right Track, Wrong Track"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cNow, generally speaking, would you say that things in the country are going in the right direction, or have they pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?\u201d<\/em>  – (Morning Consult<\/a>, right track, wrong track poll question). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concrete Rules<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been a student of politics since Mom pinned a \u201cKennedy for President\u201d button on my blue sweater. I was three years old and it was in 1960.\u00a0\u00a0And there are \u201cage old\u201d rules in politics, that proved themselves accurate over the more than sixty-five years of my lifetime.\u00a0\u00a0One of those, concrete, indisputable rules is this. \u00a0If the majority of the nation think the country is on the \u201cwrong track\u201d, then the Party in control of the government will be the \u201closer\u201d in the next election.\u00a0\u00a0That makes a lot of common sense.\u00a0\u00a0Democrats control the House, the Senate, sort-of, and the Presidency.\u00a0\u00a0On August 15th<\/sup>, 70% of the country said that the United States is on the \u201cwrong track\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morning Consult breaks this down by political party affiliation.  47% of Democrats thought we were on the \u201cwrong track\u201d, 78% of Independents, and 91% of Republicans agreed.  And that fits perfectly with the \u201cage old\u201d rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I\u2019m a lifelong Democrat.  I can count on the finger of my right hand, not including the thumb, how many Republicans for any office I\u2019ve actually voted for.  I actively campaigned for ten different Democratic Presidential candidates, including working on the professional campaign staff of one.  So if you\u2019re looking for what a \u201cDemocrat\u201d thinks, I think I should count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think the United States is on the wrong track.  And I don\u2019t blame Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, or Chuck Schumer a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Driving that Train<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So will the \u201cwrong track\u201d poll make me vote Republican, or even make me not show up to vote in November?  Are you kidding me \u2013 I haven\u2019t missed a contested election since 1974 (when I turned eighteen).  And I am more motivated than ever to go out and support my candidates.  Just as importantly, I am motivated to do everything I can to stop those that I blame for our Nation being on the \u201cwrong track\u201d:  the Republican Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s not a matter of policy disagreement, though there are a whole lot of Republican policies I disagree with.\u00a0\u00a0I disagreed with a lot of Republicans all of my life.\u00a0\u00a0But through most of that time,\u00a0\u00a0I felt that we shared a common goal:\u00a0\u00a0the good of the United States.\u00a0\u00a0My Republicans friends (and family) just had a different view of how to get to that goal, and I respected our differences.\u00a0\u00a0In our current era though, for the first time in my sixty-two years of politics, I don\u2019t feel that we share a common goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blocking the Tracks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t even need to get into the \u201cMAGA\u201d Party that dominates Republican life.  Senator Mitch McConnell is the embodiment of establishment Republicans, called by many of his fellow party members a \u201cRINO\u201d, Republican in name only.  And yet his avowed goal, since Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, is to stop all Democratic legislation.  He isn\u2019t interested in governing, and wasn\u2019t able to get much done even while he had the reins of power in his hands.  But he absolutely wants to prevent anything and everything from happening.  Failure of the Democrats is enormously more important to him, then the good of the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Give him his due; while McConnell had power, he was able to achieve two \u201cstellar\u201d legislative actions.\u00a0\u00a0He passed a trillion dollar tax cut.\u00a0\u00a0By definition, tax cuts cut taxes for those who pay the most, so the wealthy got the most benefit.\u00a0\u00a0And he transformed the Supreme Court into a branch of the Federalist Society. they now promote a view of America as \u201cset in legal concrete\u201d at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But past that, McConnell sees the Senate as a political battlefield, without a larger view of serving the good of the nation.  It\u2019s that obstructionism that motivates me to go out and vote for any Democrat I can find.  And I haven\u2019t even gotten to MAGA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jump <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Our country is definitely on the wrong track.\u00a0\u00a0One of the two major parties is the engine leading us down that track. They are headed away from \u201csmall d\u201d democracy, and towards a more authoritarian and oligarchical (gotta love that word) society.\u00a0\u00a0While it\u2019s easy for even the \u201cgood\u201d Republicans to disclaim the extremists that control their locomotive, what they don\u2019t seem to get is the entire Party is enabling America to race away from our core values.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a few:\u00a0\u00a0Liz Cheney, John Kasich, Larry Hogan; who tried to change the direction of the Republican train. They want to \u201cpull the switch\u201d and move their party back from the \u201ccrazies\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0But, like a car stuck at the crossing as the freight comes through town, they\u2019ve been swept aside, hardly even slowing down the MAGA juggernaut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only way for us to get on the \u201cright track\u201d, is to\u00a0\u00a0jump from that train.\u00a0\u00a0And that\u2019s the critical fact that may break the \u201cconcrete, indisputable\u201d precedent of electoral life.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019m hoping my fellow Democrats, and the rest of America, do that in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cNow, generally speaking, would you say that things in the country are going in the right direction, or have they pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?\u201d  – (Morning Consult, right track, wrong track poll question).  Concrete Rules I\u2019ve been a student of politics since Mom pinned a \u201cKennedy for President\u201d button on my blue … Continue reading “Right Track, Wrong Track”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nRight Track, Wrong Track : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"70% of Americans see our country on the "wrong track". 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