Tag: Hakeem Jeffries

Political Blitzkrieg by Trump?

W.J. Astore

Answering a friend’s challenge

Recently, a friend wrote to challenge me to “write a great article about Trump’s introduction of ‘lightning war’ into politics,” citing Nazi Germany’s use of Blitzkrieg in the opening campaigns of World War II. My friend sympathizes with Trump, so his political Blitzkrieg comparison wasn’t meant pejoratively.

Image of Blitzkrieg from the Imperial War Museum. It wasn’t my idea for Trump…

Whether you call it Blitzkrieg or a “flood the zone” strategy, there’s little doubt Trump’s rapid-fire orders and actions have put those who oppose him on the defensive. Democrats are throwing up their hands in surrender-like motions. Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries plaintively asked: “What leverage do we have?” Then he added: “They [the Republicans] control the House, the Senate, and the presidency. It’s their government.”

The Democratic battle flag is a white cross on a field of white. They claim they can do nothing to stop Trump and his rampaging billionaire sidekick, Elon Musk.

It’s funny: When the Democrats had control of the House, Senate, and presidency, I often recall them complaining they couldn’t get much done due to obstruction by Republicans. How come Republicans can obstruct but not Democrats?

Leaving that aside, what about my friend’s praise of Trump as having launched Blitzkrieg politics? Reversing Clausewitz, is politics simply a continuation of war by other means?

America, so I’ve been taught, was founded as a republic with a Constitution. We claim to be a nation of laws. We like to think we’re a representative democracy. The House and Senate are supposed to be deliberative bodies where laws are made and money is spent in accordance with the will of the people.

I know: nice fantasy, right?

The U.S. government has become corrupted by money and special interests. We know our representatives rarely represent us. They represent their owners and donors. That breeds cynicism and a certain level of affection among some for Trump as a disruptor.

But smashing government isn’t the smartest and most effective way of reforming or even of rebuilding it. Empowering autocrats and plutocrats like Trump and Musk isn’t going to produce democracy and a government that serves the people. A Trump “political Blitzkrieg” will likely echo the Nazi Blitzkrieg of 1939-41, featuring widespread destruction and subjugation of “enemies.” It’s not a method conducive to greater justice and a more perfect union.

So, to my friend’s challenge, I say this: Political Blitzkrieg may provide an illusion of victory, but “victory” for whom, and for what? Wars, whether real shooting ones or political ones, are corrosive to liberty, freedom, and equality. In war, it’s typically the workers and poor who suffer most, the rich who profit most, as power congeals at the top.

Trump’s so-called Blitzkrieg, combined with a Democratic attitude of surrender, is producing a government by and for men like Elon Musk, even more so than it already is. If you truly desire plutocracy and one-party rule, Trump/Musk is your dynamic duo.

I still prefer democracy, however imperfect, and a system that doesn’t elevate and empower the richest among us as dictators.

The War Party Rules Washington

W.J. Astore

Guess What’s a High Priority for Democrats in Congress?

Here’s a reminder of a stark reality: When President Joe Biden finally ended the disastrous Afghan War in 2021, the Pentagon war budget went up by roughly $50 billion.

The Afghan War was costing America almost $50 billion a year until the war party in DC (both Democrats and Republicans) decided enough was enough. So how could ending a war result in a substantial increase in military spending?

That’s easily answered. The bipartisan war party pivoted from the lucrative but frustrating war on terror to the much more lucrative “new cold war” with Russia and China. And of course Vladimir Putin’s provoked invasion of Ukraine early in 2022 sealed the deal. Putin’s illegal invasion, provoked as it was, as NATO itself admits, was a massive boon to the military-industrial-congressional complex. Pentagon war budgets have continued to soar since 2021 (and indeed since 2001 and the original launch of the war on terror), with no end in sight other than perhaps nuclear Armageddon. (Not an end I’m looking forward to, but there’s no fate but that which we make.)

A few in Congress, mostly Republicans, are finally growing tired of massive military aid to Ukraine, though these same Republicans are generally in favor of even more massive military budgets to “deter” China. Yet Democrats are fighting against reductions in military weaponry to Ukraine with the kind of energy you’d think would be devoted to helping Americans deal with poverty and inflation.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (left) carrying water for Zelensky of Ukraine. More war, please! 

So, for example, House Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has stated that a high priority for Democrats in the ongoing struggle over electing a new House Speaker is that the new Speaker must support higher funding—for Ukraine! (Jeffries also wants the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden to end.)

Higher military spending for Ukraine is a top priority for Democrats, even as Americans struggle with higher bills for food, housing, health care, and other essentials of life. Think about that for a moment.

Of course, Congress was prepared to continue paying for Ukraine’s war effort even if the federal government had shut down, so Jeffries is nothing but consistent here. Waging a wildly expensive and dangerous proxy war against Russia is more important to Congress than helping Americans who are struggling across our land with food and gas bills.

Small wonder that the largest political party in America is composed of “independents.”

Whether it’s RFK Jr., Cornel West, or someone else, we need to get behind independent candidates and reject the Democratic-Republican war party. Vote the war pigs out!

The Fight Over the Speaker of the House

W.J. Astore

If only Progressive Democrats had fought at all when they had the chance in 2021

There is no Left in America, not in Congress, at least. Whenever the so-called Left, or Progressives, or the Squad have an opportunity to drive policy changes, they cave to the corporate centrists within the Democratic Party. Which is why I laugh, however ruefully, when Republicans warn about the “radical left” and how powerful it allegedly is in America. What “radical left”?

Two years ago, before Nancy Pelosi was yet again elected Speaker of the House, so called Progressives (perhaps we should call them PINOs, or progressives in name only) had a rare opportunity to drive change by withholding their votes for Pelosi as Speaker, just as Republicans are doing now for Kevin McCarthy as Speaker. Like today’s Republicans, the PINOs could have extracted concessions from Pelosi, including a House vote on Medicare for all, for a $15 federal minimum wage, and similar policies the PINOs claim are at the top of their agenda. They chose to do nothing. They got no concessions. They drove no change. And thus the centrist/corporate Democrats continue to ride roughshod over them.

Remember this, Democrats? Force the vote was a rare opportunity to drive change, but the PINOs caved to Pelosi and got nothing in return

Which is why I salute the Republicans who are holding up McCarthy’s appointment as Speaker. They have convictions and are willing to fight for them. They are extracting concessions from McCarthy. Meanwhile, all the PINOs are doing is posing for selfies while poking fun at alleged Republican disorder.

No, you PINOs. This is what true democracy looks like. It’s messy. It involves in-fighting. You have to be willing to get bloodied, at least figuratively speaking. And if you’re unwilling to fight, to “bring the ruckus” to your own party, as AOC claimed she wanted to do, party rulers like Pelosi and current House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries will diss, dominate, and demote you, as they did and do. 

Let’s take a quick look at the new House Minority Leader.  CNN praised Jeffries as “the first Black lawmaker to lead a party in Congress.” That’s truly what matters, right? Diversity. More Black faces in high places. Or more women at the top. Or more LGBTQ+ and so on.

But what if “diversity” results in no meaningful policy changes? What if diversity, as my wife puts it, is mainly an optical illusion?

Jeffries, as Sabby Sabs of RBN (the Revolutionary Blackout Network) notes here, is just another corporate Democrat who’s especially skilled at fundraising for the Party. He’s against Medicare for all, he despises the Squad, he’s a fervid supporter of Israel (the “sixth borough of New York City,” he quipped), and his resume includes Georgetown University and (of course) a law degree.

Hakeem Jeffries, House Minority Leader

Can we expect progressive policies from Jeffries? Is he a radical leftist? Of course not! He’s a younger version of Pelosi, a corporate shill who’s sold as a change agent because he’s the first Black party leader in Congress, just as Pelosi was praised for the “change” she represented as the first Madam Speaker.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s generally a good thing when more women, more BIPOC, and other traditionally underrepresented groups attain positions of power. But if their ideas, policies, commitments, and practices are basically the same as those old white fat tomcats who preceded them, where’s the progress? Where’s the change?

In so many ways, today’s Democrats are yesterday’s Republicans. They are pro-war, pro-military, pro-business, and thoroughly corporate. Their alleged diversity is mostly optical. Meanwhile, the Republicans, whatever else they may be, are showing true diversity of views, as manifested by Kevin McCarthy’s messy fight for votes from his own party.

All those corporate Democrats and PINOs in Congress should take a very long look in a truth-telling mirror before crowing about how dysfunctional the Republicans allegedly are. If dysfunction means fighting for change that’s consistent with your principles and campaign promises, the Democrats could truly use some of that “dysfunction.” So too could America.