Tuesday, June 26, 2018

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

On the day that the Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration's Muslim ban, let's turn the clock back to August 2016 and recall the words of then-Bernieite H.A. Goodman at the Huffington Post:
Jill Stein’s platform and value system correlate directly to the ideals Bernie Sanders championed in 2016. For Americans who refuse to abide by the political “extortion” of voting for Clinton because Trump is frightening ..., Ajamu Baraka and Dr. Stein represent a viable option....

Ultimately, Trump’s major policies would never get passed Congress. Specifically, Trump’s border wall, widespread deportations, and immigrant ban won’t achieve the 60 votes needed to defeat a filibuster by Democrats....

Will Donald Trump’s major policies get 60 votes in the Senate? Will a border wall, mass deportations, or a ban on Muslim immigrants get any votes from Democratic Senators, or even the votes needed from every Republican Senator?

Of course not....

None of Donald Trump’s major policy objectives­, at least the ones that frighten progressives the most, will get passed the Senate, even if they possibly get through (and even this is a stretch) the House of Representatives....

Therefore, the scare tactic regarding Trump ruling the nation with an iron fist, deporting families at will and banning immigrants, is nothing more than cheap propaganda. Trump will not be able to impose his will upon the American people, and most of his major policy ideas can be blocked by either Congress or the Supreme Court.
Goodman, of course, is a full-blown Trumper now. I wonder how many readers fell for the argument that Trump was not to be feared because none of this scary stuff could really happen.

For the record, the candidate Goodman was endorsing in August 2016, Jill Stein, got 31,072 votes in Wisconsin; Trump's margin of victory there was 22,748. Stein got 49,941 votes in Pennsylvania; Trump's margin of victory there was 44,292. Stein got 51,463 votes in Michigan; Trump's margin of victory there was 10,704.

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