Jonathan Turley: "Donald Trump is completely transforming the Democrats"

Popular cable programs with Democratic and liberal viewers are equally full of recriminations over withdrawing from these wars. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow criticized the plan to withdraw troops as merely an effort to distract the public, despite Trump campaigning in 2016 on promises to withdraw from such wars. “Morning Joe” host and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough denounced the president as a “quivering coward” who failed to understand that we must fight “enemies like ISIS abroad, so we do not have to fight them in our own schools, churches and airports.” Liberals once rejected the premise that we should engage in continual wars in other countries or face terrorism on our streets at home.

In pursuing Trump, Democrats have also adopted a type of “red scare” mindset. While Republicans long pumped up the Russian menace as a political Cold War narrative, Democrats are now adopting the same type of rhetoric over the Russian attempt to interfere with the 2016 president election. Democrats for the past two years speak about how Russians “stole” the election or destroyed the legitimacy of the results, with little empirical data to support such irresponsible and unfounded claims.

While many of us support the Mueller investigation and the need for sanctions against Russia for its interference, Democrats now routinely refer to Russia as our “enemy” and accuse any people with alleged connections to Russians as “traitors.” Special counsel Robert Mueller may have more to reveal on Russian hacking, but there is little evidence that either the trolling operation or leaked emails of the Hillary Clinton campaign had a material impact on the 2016 presidential election.

In building up the Russian menace, Democrats ignore that we have not only hacked the emails of our enemies but of our allies as well for years. Moreover, we have routinely intervened in or influenced foreign elections. Likewise, other nations from Israel to Mexico to China and many more, have long tried to influence our elections. Still, Democrats are escalating their calls for greater action against Russia, including criticism of being too dovish in not confronting Russian military elements around the world.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/423178-donald-trump-is-completely-transforming-the-democrats

I’d also add the wide-armed embrace of Kissinger, Clapper, Brennan, Wolfowitz, GWB, William Kristol, James Woolsey, Robert Kagan, Bret Stephens, Max Boot, Eliot Cohen, David Frum: remember, the neocons always posed themselves as “JFK Democrats” or lefties who learned better; they already softened on Iraq because Orange Man Bad and Taibbi got flabbergasted by people starting to defend Vietnam all because Trump wants to pull out of Syria

since 1969 people all too often shorthand “Republicans” and “war” and therefore “Democrats” to “peace”: Nixon’s a traitor, the neocons are mysterious defectors with no resonance on the left half of the bench, Reagan and his shenanigans even before the election, Cheney’s a war criminal, etc.–whatever happened with LBJ and the Liberal Hawks, Bill Clinton’s lightweight interventionism, Obama and R2P, Hillary Clinton and Timber Sycamore, they were well-intentioned and Not As Bad

Max Boot rewrites “The Case for American Empire” for Democrats: https://t.co/00MN3hL517

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 27, 2018

A success, except for that whole two million dead civilians thing: https://t.co/1vMuqvRoYr https://t.co/pOGEPkbiGE

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 28, 2018

Turley goes through many of the same concerns I’ve noted–“They want immediate unequivocal action in supporting or opposing President Trump. For Democrats, that all consuming purpose has led to the abandonment of core unifying values, including many that first drew me to the Democratic Party”

adopting Reaganomics, the Koch backing of the DLC, the barking anti-voter authoritarianism was only the start, by 2016 the Dems were a-okay with Jew-baiting Sanders and race-baiting their own voters: like hiring assassins or backing terrorists, those are things you simply can’t “step back” from