Too fucking true: "Hey Democrats, Fighting Fair Is for Suckers"
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/04/democrats-majority-rules-norms-trump-2020-218947As we all know, Trump and the Republican Party that enables him eat norms for breakfast. A norm is a tacit and mutual agreement that certain exercises of power, while lawful, also are unthinkable. As a result, a willingness to think the unthinkable is itself a source of power. With that willingness, you can deny a president a hearing on a Supreme Court nominee. You can threaten to jail your political opponents and call an election rigged if you dont win. You can demand investigations of your enemies, you can fire the FBI director investigating you, and you can quite possibly pardon yourself for federal crimes.
Trump and Republicans are not interested in self-restraint. We ought to be past surprise, for example, that the let the people decide standard invented by Mitch McConnell to block Merrick Garlands Supreme Court nomination no longer applies now that Trump can choose a successor for Anthony Kennedy. Those who care about the future of liberal democracy in this country ought to be beyond outrage and ready for something altogether colder and more disciplined.
Democrats should plan to treat political norms, when and if theyre in charge of a unified government, the way Trump and the Republicans do. They should be readying a program of systematic norm-breaking for partisan advantagebut only if they are willing and able to follow it through to its conclusion.
BigmanPigman
(51,642 posts)to get away with it. The Dems are too goody goody. We need to break the rules at will like the GOP. That is how you beat them at their own game!
Girard442
(6,086 posts)...and still have room for five more.
NRaleighLiberal
(60,026 posts)lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Bare knuckles are called for now.
Sanders4life
(5 posts)What's ironic is if you pay attention to the old guard republicans, they hate Trump for this more than liberals do.
Rhiannon12866
(206,298 posts)And they're speaking out. Welcome to DU!
Timewas
(2,196 posts)Fair Fight doesn't exist, if you try to fight "fair" you lost before you started...
msongs
(67,462 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(49,047 posts)Breaking rules leads to jail time and is immediately used against you. Don't give the Republicons that weapon.
Going low (being uncivil) is not a big deal.
Barack Obama beat John McCain and Mitt Romney. He didn't break rules and he didn't go low.
Barack Obama passed important health care legislation and healed the economy from the Great Recession. He didn't do it by breaking rules or going low. In fact, Obama's administration had the lowest number of indictments, prosecutions, and convictions of any administration in living memory.
ouija
(398 posts)Two wrongs dont make a right...hahaha. There is only one rule moving forward, there are no rules. Dont want to hear, we are better than that, then cry when they steal the Supreme Court, steal elections, gerrymander and rule from the minority. Cant break the rules when you simply change them.