“If there has been a consistent thread in the erratic administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, it is the marriage of white nationalism with plutocracy.”
foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/20/dem…
foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/20/dem…
“His populist political trick—from that first speech after descending the escalator... has been to blame Black and brown people for the economic and social dislocations that were, in fact, the product of Reaganite economic policies and the costs of a misbegotten war.”
“Trump and his accomplices in the U.S. Congress have deployed this populist scapegoating... to distract from their use of the federal government to serve the short-term interests of corporations and the superrich, further exacerbating the economic inequality...”
“...that hamstrings the country’s future. Much has been said about the evils of this approach to governing, but what Democrats (and a very few Republicans) have realized is that in choosing to plant his own and his party’s flag in a moral abyss, Trump ceded all higher ground.”
“In response to a current pres. who has so damaged [U.S.] institutions and reputation, the Democrats have said: Let’s go back to the foundations and trust that if we purposefully build an America that is fairer for everyone, it’ll work better too—and gain broad popular support.”
“And that is also the America that engenders the world’s respect—sometimes hopeful and admiring, sometimes begrudging. It is the America that dictators and populists fear for the way it exposes the lies that underwrite their power.”
“For when Americans show what they can do with the institutions and values of which Obama spoke, they animate the promise of pluralistic liberal democracy for all the world to see.”
