Seats at the Table

Donna Brazile, the interim chair of the Democratic National Committee, was thoughtful enough to insist that the Democrats "deserved a seat at the table" of the incoming Trump Administration in setting policy for the USA.

This is the same Donna Brazile who helped fix the Democrat presidential nomination for Hillary Clinton while a contributor to CNN, by feeding her questions that were to be asked at debates, questions that were not provided to Bernie Sanders or Martin O'Malley or Jim Webb, who also happened to be candidates from the Democrat side of the primaries.

That, of course, got her canned as a contributor to CNN, although it's a bit hard to tell if that happened because of her actions or, well, because CNN doesn't get watched as much anymore, possibly because their "contributors" cheat on behalf of their favored candidates.

I have to tell you, I don't think the Democrats "deserve" anything, on the merits.  They lost all manner of elections in November, up and down from the state legislatures to the House and Senate, to governorships and the presidency.  They were rejected, in no small part, because of who actually had seats at the table.

There was Harry Reid, their leader in the Senate, who lied in the protected well of the Senate about Mitt Romney's taxes and then admitted later both that he had lied, and that he lied for political purposes.  There was Al Sharpton, who dined regularly at the White House, although his taxes get paid "erratically", to be kind, and "eventually", to be less kind.  The word Americans would use would be "feloniously", but he had "a seat at the table."  Sure the party of the guy that invited him deserves "a seat."

You know how you get a seat at the table?  You win elections, which is something that has not been an area of success for the Democrats much since 2008.  You forfeit that seat when you act like the Democrats did in 2009, ramming Obamacare down the throats of the USA through a parliamentary fudge move without a shred of Republican support, not a single vote.

Did not the Republicans "deserve a seat at the table" in 2009?  Apparently they did not, as they were not reached out to by the Obamists to comment or consult on U.S. policy.  But Donna Brazile feels that works one way for them and another way for the Democrats.  Why it should be different, she does not say.  Do as I say, not as I do.

The 2016 election, more than any in decades, was a choice of approach for the voting public.  Very important point: The person that Donald Trump is -- the billionaire businessman and celebrity of decades standing -- did not get elected because he was famous, rich and had a TV show.  The person that got elected president was elected because he was someone who tapped into all the frustration about Congress and the White House having not done what the nation wanted; who said he would "drain the swamp", protect our veterans, cut taxes, get jobs going hard from private business.

That person just happened to be Donald Trump.

Do you understand the point?  This was an election of approaches, of policy, and not, as it may have appeared given the celebrity of the victor, an election of personality.  It is precisely that which means the Democrats, who caused the problems in the first place, do not "deserve" a seat at the table of leadership.

We didn't just select Donald Trump the man; we selected an approach that says to "do things differently from the way that have been being done."  That is utterly impossible for Democrats to do.  They need to play the loyal opposition and try to work with the incoming administration to represent their views, but they were "selected out" by the voters.

The new administration should be doing what it was elected to do.  The table is fully seated.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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