by Stephen J. Cocconi
In an Op-Ed article for the New York Times, famed columnist Thomas Friedman borrowed the title from the prize-winning book by historian Doris Kearns-Goodwin’s “A Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”. His assertion is one that I agree with. I actually had begun this article over 2 months ago, then faltered into despair. But upon reading his, I decided to conclude this one.
For those who smelt the Democratic Party into a common unidimensional slag like the Republican Party, you fail to account for the fact that various members of the Democratic party are allowed their in-fighting and co-exist (no matter how acrimoniously – like AOC and her block) that no Republican rank-n-file politician would dare risk. Also, let’s face an un-PC fact that is still rife in the modern era regardless of which party, or even nation; I speak of racism! The fact that the Republican party is lily-white and the Democrats are a rainbow of colors, rolls back the curtain on it all! A fact that drives the underlying psyche of both parties: the former to be closed and the second to be open (more so anyway). But what is also true is that the Baby Boomer generation of the Democratic Party: Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, and Hillary Clinton, stand in the way of progress, and victory, and are beholden to the same 1% class, so-called neo-liberals of Wall Street, that have rendered the US and many of the worlds’ democracies into defacto plutocracies. And sadly, in spite of many of his personal convictions and integrity; former President Barack Obama became beholden and a subordinate to, this entrenched wing of his party.
Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigeig, are outside the extreme wealth class and not within the mainstream of Democratic Party Politics. These people, though of differing generations, all have less ties and dependencies to the “old party” apparatus that many want to cite when they claim “aw, the Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans.” No, not even the most wealthy, like Tom Stayer and Mike Bloomberg, are not in the lock-step horde of totalitarian monsters that have enriched themselves, allowed the poor, the environment, the working class, and people of color, to be worked to death or enslaved by debt, all while rewarding themselves with tax cuts and doing it all on deficit spending. And at the same time they begrudge health care, a living wage, and clean air and water, and equal justice, especially for the most vulnerable amongst us. People who fear national health care because of alleged ‘death panels’ don’t seem to equate the fact that when private insurers deny claims for critical treatment NOW, these ALREADY ARE THE DEATH PANELS! Just in private industry with no public accountability.
What has happened is the success of the 1% plutocrats in American and other democratic nations (the UK, Germany, France, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and even some in the Scandinavian regions) to brainwashing already frightened citizens into distrusting public institutions. And erroneously encourage them to seek private sector saviors for transcendent financial salvation. A concept in political science referred to as “totalitarian fascism”. You are now on the brink, as Mr. Friedman implies at the end of his article, that another Trump term and the potential loss of the Congress to Republicans, will ensure the final dismantling of any remaining real protections for average citizens. And it will all be done LEGALLY – within the edifice of a dully elected government. A foundation hollowed out by the termites of greed and rotted from the outside by the fear and ignorance of its citizens.
The only action left, albeit an imperfect one, is a united electoral frontal assault on the forces of totalitarian control. Of which Mr. Trump is its most obvious, and crass, figurehead. But figurehead just the same! Thus, my suggestions below have within them a distribution of every ‘flavor’ of the American electorate, every gender, all nationalities and colors, and both liberal, moderate and even business conservative types. If they pull together and begin to hammer this administration, and the vipers of the Republican party with facts, they will overtake Trumpians, and can win! Especially, if they make light of and add security to election day voting so that any outside interference is stopped before it happens. Even if cheating does happen (computers are easily hacked) can be caught and contested. Then it will not the Democratic Party that wins per se, but democracy itself over plutocracy. Yet, doing that cannot be viewed in isolation either. Constituencies of historic relevance must be truly addressed. Race. In the age of stop-n-frisk, of border walls and imprisoning children, and tearing up long standing treaties; racism and classism are essential to assess and be accountable to. But only the Democrats seek to honor differences at all. Even if it does not do it well.
The 2020 Unified Democratic Ticket
President: Bernie Sanders
Vice President: Amy Klobuchar
Secretary of State: Michael Bloomberg
Secretary of Defense: Tulsi Gabbard
Attorney General: Kamala Harris
Secretary of Energy: Jerry Wang
Secretary of Interior: Tom Udall
Secretary of Secretary of Commerce: Pete Buttigieg
Secretary of Labor: Kristen Hildebrandt
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Elizabeth Warren
Secretary of Homeland Security: General James Mattis or Admiral William McRaven
Secretary of Housing: Cory Booker
Secretary of Treasury: Adam Schiff
Secretary of Education: Bill de Blasio
Secretary of Agriculture: Antonio Delgado
Secretary of Transportation: Sherrod Brown
Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Tammy Duckworth
Office of Management and Budget: Richard Blumenthal
EPA Chief: Tom Steyer
Surgeon General: Robert R. Redfield
Solicitor General: Merrick Garland
UN Ambassador: Richard Armitage
White House Chief of Staff: Sherrod Brown
Small Business Administration: Gary Peters
Many will notice that I have not placed former Vice President Joe Biden in this list. Why? It is time for his generation of Democrats to be retired.* (See the post Super Tuesday addendum at the bottom.) They use much of the same playbook as the Republican Party, manipulating with seniority, subordination and whatever tactics they can connive, especially inflated or embellished news. In this election, what must be curtailed is the power of money-oriented schmoozing of which he (Biden) was a poster child. (once referred to as the senator from Visa credit cards – because of his ties with the banking industry), Sadly, so-called “moderates” afraid of upsetting the apple cart of the Democrats $$$ machine have lined-up behind Biden undoubtedly to get the handouts. If their mediocre, former VP candidate could carry the day in November. He cannot! The people fed up with status quo politics will stay home as they did in 2016. That alone will sink the election even if a democrat won the popular vote…again. (Gore and Hilary).
Oscar Wilde once quipped. “Everything in moderation, including moderation.” The Democrats have taken this to its logical extreme and have made it a beach-head even when the ocean-of-emotion has drowned them. It is time to match fire with fire. Only an equally polarizing figure as Bernie Sanders, with a strength of personality as cantankerous as the current occupant, can rattle the cages of the American voter and show a real contrast that many in the electorate, including luke-warm Trump voters, desperately crave. But alone, he is not enough. Having a moderately progressive woman like Amy Klobacher as Vice President, not Elizabeth Warren though I have great respect for her, is a key addition. Also, this list has many of the 1%, white-male, but not front-line Democratic apparatchik loyalists members in it. Michael Bloomberg, an actual successful NY businessman who has 4 times the wealth of the President (since Mr. Trumps followers are so enamored with money), is my pick for Secretary of State since he will be seen as a balancing influence to a Sanders Presidency with the power class around the world.
However, it is vital to have a team, with a unified message, to canvas the country simultaneously, doing more than the imbecilic and childish name calling of the right-wing. Driving home messages with facts about a unified administration which will shift spending from bombers to people, from military industrialist and demigods to entrepreneurs and small businesses. Reclaiming ownership of our federal land from the poisoning effects of mining, fracking, and leaking pipelines. To train and employ people to erect solar, wind, and yes even nuclear alternatives instead of continuing to subsidize fossil fuel billionaires while hundreds of thousands of Americans, who own little or nothing, may actually be employed full-time, but are forced to live on the streets as there only place to rest their weariness, suffer the filth. These things are what this Team of Rivals must do. If not, the last gasp of planet Earth will be sold off to the ultra-wealthy class and their inheritors. While the remainder of the human race, and what few animals survive the final rape, are cast into a new kind of entertainment and distraction arena; where the only real voting they will have left to them is on American Idol. Not so ironic that we now have a reality TV president. Please, let’s not allow that to become a permanent thing.
The only way for such a negative outcome to be avoided, and a potentially daring strategy to curtail it is for the Democratic Party, Democratic voters, and voters of conscience, to get together and stop the bickering! Talk about missing the forest for the trees! At this point, many in the United States are missing the future because they do not accurately see the reality of the present. If Americans are going to slow down the headlong rush toward the climate cliff and into the grip of fiscal chains, then this group together must do it. Four more years of what you have now will be the death Nel of both the planet and for equal representation in democratic governance in the United States.
Sounding alarms when Rome is burning is not only prudent, but a duty of all loyal citizens. Otherwise, one is merely a subject. And if not careful, an unwitting slave.
Addendum from 3-5-2020
Moderation will lose the election for the Democratic Party. Conformity and conventional thinking has lined up behind Jolly Joe Biden, the Joke. He is not really taken seriously as a leader inexorably described as a “politician” instead. We already have had enough of those. Everyone but the party of capitulation, apparently, has seen the evidence of this.