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Nothing in the Russiastory will improve the personal economies of working-class Americans. It will not give them good health care. It will not rebuild infrastructure to provide jobs. It will not educate our children. So while working-class America continuesto suffer from subpar wages, while they continue to see their health carecosts rise,they hear a narrative that's anathema to their reality. The liberal intelligentsia, the Democratic establishment,is concentrating on a subject that will do absolutely nothing to make their lives better while at the same time giving President Charlatan an excuse for his inability to accomplish anything for the working class.

No one is asking that we ignore the Russiastory. In fact, taking it off of the front burner as folks build a substantive,evidence-based case would be much more effective. Think of how impactful a breaking story would bebut one thatis well-developed,where the Trump family's financial entanglements and collusion with Russia emerge with clarity.It would be much more effective than the daily Russian repetitiousness which causes everyonebut the political junkiesto switch to the Food Network,Discovery Channel, ESPN, or some other station to break said monotony.

So what should the progressive intelligentsiaexpend its resources on?Education, for startersbutin a manner that is palatable to working-class America. Trumps three mostdisruptive policiesTrumpcare, tax cuts, and immigrationcan be tied into a perfect economic narrative that exposes Republicans for the charlatans that they are.

Instead of spending time repeating the same old Russiastory, journalists should go to every industrialized country and do reports aboutreal people interacting with their health care systems, illustrating pricing and outcomes. Go to highly-taxed industrialized countries and talk to working-class people who can describe the social benefits they receive from their government. Do the mathematical analysis that showswhen Americans include their insurance costs,child care expenses, elderly care costs,and other expensesabsorbed by the state, how much more efficient it is than some invisible source capturing some unearned profit. The shortage of farm workers created by Trump's xenophobic stance will ensure higher prices for our produce and other farm goods.

Most of us in the progressive intelligentsiaknow there is a fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats, since the lattertruly believe in the Democratic platform.The problem is that we are governed within a thin center that minimizes the differences, somany in the working class see a convergence into the establishmentwithlittle distinction between the parties.

Many of us are hesitant to engage those who chose Trump, simplybecause we know how flawed they are. A few weeks ago Iwrote the following, and I hope manymore willheed it.

Many Americans are racists. Some are homophobes. Too many are sexists. A growing number are xenophobic. Misogyny still reigns. Americans are humans with all the frailty humanity brings. We will not fix these defect within our lifetime.

We can break the backs of the Republicans if we stop striving towardan unachievable purity and insteadworkon economic, health, and other commonalities while refusing to allow our human defects to stopall progress. It can be done.

Here is an aside that liberalsshould note: Ivebeen to many Netroots conventionsand a couple of tea partyconferences. This black Caribbean Latino with a Panamanian accent was treated better at the tea partyconference than at Netroots when outside of my Daily Kos clique.In fact, I wrote about oneshocking experience at Netroots Nation 2015 that is worth a read.

Yes, of course thetea partywas likely trying to make a point with me, but that is my point. Like them, we can suppress our bad urges when we want to accomplish agoal.

Liberals will do well to read the Politico piece titled "Why Liberals Arent as Tolerant as They Think,which may open the eyes of those willing to self-examine. It's something we can work on within our local progressive groups.

If we progressivesdon't change our game now, we willhave squandered the opportunity to take over the House and the Senate in 2018 and the White Housein 2020. Republicans care less about losing Trump than we do. They will be happy with President Pence and the semblance of a Republican ultra-conservativerebirth.

And so far, theyresellinga bad product much better than we are able to sell a good one.

Continued here:
Progressives are blowing 2018 by dedicating too many resources to Russia story - Daily Kos

Last month, when House Republicans passed legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare, Democrats broke out in song and dance on the House floor, serenading Republicans for their successful vote with the words from a famous song, Nah Nah Nah Nah, Hey Hey, Goodbye.

Really? Democrats and progressives lost three successive national elections because they passed and obstinately stood with Obamacare, and now Republicans are going to be thrown out for repealing and replacing it?

Obamacare was first enacted into law in March 2010. That fall, Democrats lost a New Deal (in reverse) size landslide when Republicans gained 63 seats in the House. That removed Nancy Pelosi as Speaker and replaced her with her intellectual antithesis: policy guru Paul Ryan. Republicans have increased their House majority ever since.

In 2014, Republicans seized control of the Senate, winning 9 seats for a 54 to 45 Republican majority. That Republican control will likely continue for many years, as 25 seats held by Democrats more than half of all remaining Senate Democrats are up for reelection in 2018, 10 in states won by Trump. With only 8 Republican Senate seats up in the next midterms, there is now a greater chance of Republicans winning a filibuster proof majority 60 seats next year, than of Democrats winning a Senate majority, especially given Democrat positions on the issues.

In 2016, Democrats suffered their greatest shock loss of the White House to political newcomer Donald Trump. No one who had never been previously elected to any office had ever won the Presidency, except generals who had led America to victory in major wars (Washington, Grant, Eisenhower).

The silly notion that Senate Republicans are at political risk because they repealed/replaced Obamacare is adamantly echoed by the Democrat Party controlled media. That is all the more ridiculous because the Republican bill actually makes good on all the failed promises Obama Democrats made to win enactment of Obamacare in 2010:

President Obama famously said that under his Obamacare legislation, If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan. Period. But even Democrat controlled media labelled that the lie of the year. It turned out that if Obama liked your health plan you could keep your health plan. Millions of Americans lost healthcare plans they were perfectly happy with, because their plans did not include cover all the Obamacare required benefits that Democrats think health insurance should cover. The Republican bill repeals both the individual and employer mandates, liberating workers to choose the health plan they prefer.

Obama promised that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. But as working families lost their health plans, they often lost their doctors too, especially as insurers struggling under all the Obamacare mandates and regulations restricted coverage to narrow networks of doctors and hospitals. Under the Republican plan, by contrast, working families are free to choose a health plan that includes their doctor.

Obama promised that health insurance premiums would decline under Obamacare by $2,500 per year per family. But instead, health premiums have soared by much more than $2,500 per year as a result of all the taxes and regulatory costs Obamacare imposes, nearly doubling in some states. By repealing those taxes, mandates and regulatory costs, the Republican plan will substantially reduce health insurance premiums. So will the insurance market competition the Republican plan engenders.

Obamacare did not even achieve universal coverage, as Obama misled Progressives to think. From the beginning, CBO projected 30 million Americans would remain uninsured 10 years after Obamacare was fully implemented. Most of those who gained coverage under Obamacare did so through expansion of Medicaid, an entitlement program financed entirely by taxpayers.

While CBO has not yet scored the just passed House Republican bill, the score of the initial bill showed that it would reduce federal spending by $1.2 trillion (almost all entitlement spending), cut taxes by $900 billion, and reduce federal deficits by over $300 billion. If you add trillions in reduced regulatory costs, any bill close to that would involve the greatest reduction in government in American history, providing a strong boost to the economy. That would be enormously popular with grassroots Republicans, Independents and even blue collar Democrats.

The sole political risk to Republicans is if they fail to enact a repeal and replace bill, which would cause enormous intraparty strife. Even more danger lurks if Senate Republicans agree to Democrat Minority Leader Chuck Schumers demand to sit down and negotiate a plan Democrats think would fix Obamacare, rather than replace it with free market solutions such as choice and competition.

The focus among Senate Republicans should be to ignore the instincts of Northeast Senate RINOs to water down the House bill, keeping spending, taxes, deficits, and regulatory costs high enough to undermine any economic recovery, and the future of the American dream. Republicans instead need to follow Speaker Paul Ryans Jack Kemp vision to maximize freedom and prosperity for all Americans.

Lew Uhler is Founder and President of the National Tax Limitation Committee and the National Tax Limitation Foundation (NTLF). He was a contemporary and collaborator of both Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman. Peter Ferrara is a Senior Fellow at the Heartland Institute, and a Senior Policy Advisor to NTLF. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush.

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Progressives Do Not Grasp The Politics Of Health Care - The Daily Caller

Let me tell you the story about how many politically progressive Christians came to think they were Anabaptists. (Im mainly talking about post-evangelical progressives rather than traditional mainline progressives.)

To recap, Ive made the argument that many progressive Christians believe they are Anabaptists when, in fact, they are Niebuhrians. This truth was exposed with the election of Donald Trump. The rise of Trump has politically energized progressive Christians in ways that are hard to reconcile with Anabaptist theology and practice. Again, this is no judgment of Anabaptist theology or of all the political activism of progressive Christians. Not at all. This is just a description of the disjoint between political theology and political praxis.

Most progressive Christians want to be politically engaged. Very much so. Especially with Donald Trump in office. But Anabaptist theology doesnt provide great theological scaffolding for much of that political activism. Thus my advice: Seek out and embrace a political theology that provides better theological support. To my eye, I think that theology is Reinhold Niebuhrs Christian realism.

But that raises a different question. Why did so many progressive Christians come to embrace Anabaptist theology in the first place?

Thats the story I want to tell you.

The story starts in 2003, with George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq. Many progressive Christians mobilized against that war. At the time, social media was just exploding. Blogging was in its Golden Age. Twitter would show up in 2006, just in time for the 2007-2008 Presidential campaign where we debated the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, torture and Guantanamo Bay.

As these debates raged on social media, Anabaptist theology, with its criticisms of nationalism and war, became a powerful theological tool in the hands of progressive Christians to level indictments at the Bush administration.

In addition, emergent and post-evangelical expressions of Christianity were going strong. Many disaffected and disillusioned evangelicals were looking around for theological positions that critiqued how evangelicalism had been co-opted by politics. With its strong criticisms of Constantinianism, Anabaptist theology also fit that bill.

And so it was during these years that many progressive Christians, in using Anabaptist theology so effectively to critique the Bush administration and the politicization of evangelicalism, convinced themselves that they were Anabaptists.

But they werent Anabaptists, not really.

Why werent progressives Anabaptists? Two reasons.

First, theres more to Anabaptist theology than its peace witness. Anabaptist theology also espouses a robust ecclesiology, the church as the locus of life and political witness. This aspect of Anabaptist theology doesnt sit well with many progressive Christians, who would rather work as political activists than invest in the daily life of a local church. To be sure, many post-evangelical progressive Christians harbor nostalgia for the local church, memories of hymn sings, youth camps, vacation Bible school and pot luck casseroles. But at the end of the day, progressive Christians tend to think calling Congress, community organizing and marching in protests are the best ways to make the kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

Second, the robust ecclesiology of Anabaptist thought and practice works with a strong church-vs.-world distinction. This contrast has been famously captured by Stanley Hauerwas: The first task of the church is not to make the world more just but to make the world the world. In Anabaptist thought the church is set apart from the world, its goal to be a witness to the Powers by making a stark contrast between the kingdom of God and Babylon.

That negative view of the world has never sat well with progressives, who, being liberals, tend to have a very favorable view of the world, a view which sits behind their very open, inclusive, cosmopolitan, non-judgmental social ethic. Progressives want to embrace the world, they dont want to create a community that highlights the darkness and depravity of the world. For many post-evangelical progressives, a negative view of the world smacks of the judgmentalism they are fleeing from.

In short: During the Bush years, progressives used parts of Anabaptist theology to great effect. Progressive Christians denounced the evils of war, empire, nationalism and Constantinian Christianity. Progressive Christians were so effective in this critique that they started to think they actually were Anabaptists. But progressive Christians never really were Anabaptists. They were post-evangelicals who became Democrats.

Richard Beck is professor and department chair of psychology at Abilene Christian University. He is the author ofUnclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality and Mortality.Richards area of interest be it research, writing or blogging is on the interface of Christian theology and psychology, with a particular focus on how existential issues affect Christian belief and practice. He blogs atExperimental Theology, where this post originally appeared.

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How did political progressives think they were Anabaptists? - Mennonite World Review

Theres a famous story about how Lana Turner was discovered: sitting in a Hollywood drugstore, sipping a soda. Next thing you know, shes one of the most sought after It girls of the 1940s.

There may be some key details left out of that account, but one can assume, at least in theory, that it makes sense.

What doesnt necessarily make sense? The recent fever pitch over 78-year-old Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who has been adopted by a new generation as Auntie Maxine.

Waters has spent more than four decades in public service but its only now that shes become the political crush for young progressives. Thats due to her fierce attacks on President Trump and his new administration. While other politicians practice staid sound bites, Waters is extemporaneous and unpredictable. But usually her message is along the lines of Impeach 45!

That has made her deep raspy voice and withering facial expressions almost inescapable recently.

Although shes been a staple of cable news shows on CNN and MSNBC, Waters popularity and reach have surpassed the traditional political audience and grabbed hold of young left-leaning hearts and minds.

In the past month alone, shes appeared at the MTV Music Awards where she basked and curtsied in the roaring applause of a standing ovation that went on and on. Shes been featured in the Huffington Post, Teen Vogue, Ebony and The Washington Posts Cape Up podcast.

But it was probably a January article by humor columnist R. Eric Thomas on Elle.com that catapulted the septuagenarian to stardom with the selfie-taking set and led to her new, familial nickname.

Apparently, Thomas, who has a Lana Turner story of his own he was hired by the magazine after being discovered on Twitter was home watching C-SPAN, when Waters serendipitously appeared on the screen.

Thomas had found a new muse.

If you havent seen the performance that launched hundreds of thousands of tweets, take 30 seconds to watch the whole thing. But if you dont have the time, heres what you need to know: Waters had left an intelligence briefing with then-FBI Director James Comey. She was not pleased with what she had heard.

Yes, can I help you? What do you want? is how she addressed reporters.

Thomas cant help laughing as he recalls watching it unfold in real time. I was like, Who is this person? he said, She walks into a press conference like theyre already on her last nerve.

He was delighted, flabbergasted and inspired and that led to this unforgettable paragraph:

I have never seen anything like this outside of a family reunion. Rep. Waters is definitely that auntie who got rich selling Avon and doesnt really like your father. Or any of these low-rent people. But you sit by her so that she can stage-whisper critiques with a mouth full of potato salad.

So, technically, the words Auntie Maxine may never have been strung together by Thomas, but he takes full credit anyway.

Its on my business card! he bragged.

Asheya Warren is among Waters legion of fans, and says the congresswomans frank style and shade-throwing skills are what appeal to her.

Its the way she says what she says, Warren said. Older women like Waters get a pass to freely speak their minds, added the 30-year-old.

Once a woman is over 60, she said, Youre able to say whatever you want to, whenever you want to. My mom does it, her two sisters do it, my grandmother did it, and again, thats why that Auntie moniker is so well received.

Waters is thrilled by it all.

I am surprised and honored to be so enthusiastically supported by millennials, she said by phone from her office in Los Angeles.

She says millennials though she may be a little generous with that designation stop her on the street, at the mall and in restaurants, with the same cry. Auntie Maxine! Oh my God, can I take a picture? they squeal in excitement.

Waters recognizes shes filling a void left by todays professional politicians, who are sometimes afraid to state their genuine opinions, fearing a backlash from constituents or the potential loss of their seat. But Im not afraid of that, she said defiantly. I will speak my mind.

And if that makes you want to call her Auntie, be ready. She likes giving hugs.

Original post:
'Auntie' Maxine: The Young Progressives' Political Crush of the Moment - KQED

President-elect Emmanuel Macrons success in France against a far-right opponent suggests voters from different camps are prepared to rally around a moderate candidate from the centre. Photograph: POOL/Reuters

Will Hutton mentions creating a new party in a throwaway line at the end of his column on why the future for progressive politics looks less than inviting (Never in my adult life has the future looked so bleak for progressives, Comment).

This should not be an afterthought. It is the one bright spot of hope in a desolate landscape and one that progressive media outlets such as the Observer should be championing. If 8 June sees Theresa Mays Conservatives returned to power, then moderate Labour, Lib Dem and Green politicians should finally agree to form a single progressive party and stop splitting the anti-Tory vote, as they have done since 1945.

A beneficial side-effect of such a realignment will be that Jeremy Corbyns hard-left Labour will not join and can become marginalised by a much larger and more electable force. The left-of-centre party activists have become detached from their voters witness the haemorrhaging of support from the Lib Dems after entering a coalition with the Tories that was opposed by many and the way that lifelong Labour supporters are deserting Corbyn.

What we need now is undeniable evidence to confirm that voters are crying out for change and political leaders with the backbone to put country before party and listen to them.

David Vigar Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire

Britain is a country of the European Enlightenment, so I have thought, writes Will Hutton in last weeks newspaper. If only it was, we would not be descending into the mess of xenophobia and economic self-immolation that is the product and inevitable outcome of Brexit. But the Enlightenment was more at home in Scotland than it was in England.

In recent years, there has been a debate about the identity of the English, a debate that never produced a definitive answer.

The result of the referendum, however, has supplied one we are not Johnny Foreigner. For at least four centuries, the British, dominated by the English view of politicians, politics, society and the rest of the world, have been seen and understood through a prism of the dominant culture of a Great Britain. It is a culture of pomp, an unelected upper house, titles signifying social differences and a how we won the war media. There has never been a whole commitment to the European Union.

George Hudson Worcester

I agree with Will Hutton. David Cameron lacked judgment in holding the referendum, but also to blame for the result was the lack of Labour leadership in promoting a vigorous campaign to expose the distortions and lies the Tories were using to blame Europe for the policies they had instigated, which had damaged schools, hospitals, social services and housing needs.

Equally disastrous was the Labour leaders crass decision to take his MPs into the lobby to abandon the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, which had been deliberately designed to prevent opportunist governments from taking advantage of electoral swings to benefit their own party. He could have stopped Theresa May in her tracks by opposing her and prevented her from gaining the 67% majority required to change the act. Instead, he not only faces the self-devastation of his own party, but, even worse, it gives the Tories untrammelled power to do as they wish for the next five years, uncontrolled by the slender overall majority the party currently enjoys.

Charles Tyrie Nottingham

Hasnt Will Hutton anything cheerful to say? Im depressing myself enough think about the political and economic state of the nation without him making me feel even worse. Cant the Observer start a pre-election section full of humour, something to let readers feel a momentary surge of happiness and, shall we say, enlightenment? Ian Hogg Witney

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The big issue: progressives are crying out for a new party - The Guardian