Opinion: America's Survival Depends on Democrats Continuing As a Big Tent Party

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The Democratic Party is the only big tent left in America. It’s also the only viable political party that defends American interests and American values. It’s crucial we hold on to these characteristics, as Trump tries to take us further into the abyss of totalitarianism.

Now that the old Republican Party has been transformed into a party that mistakenly believes being one of Putin’s colonies will somehow make America great “again”, Putin’s puppets will focus their attentions on doing to the Democratic Party what they did to the Republican Party.

The Democratic Party is strongest as a big tent, full of young voices with new ideas and older voices who have been around the block a few times. The corporate media pundits will try to sell us on moving further to the right, rejecting centrist political ideals that they will malign as “far left” and they will try to convince us of the merits of ideological purity tests and they may question the validity of compromise.

I won’t suggest that big tents are easy. They can be intense and passionate. Solutions for problems in one part of the country, won’t fit in others. And what may be good for advancing opportunities for the older, white man isn’t the best thing for young women of color.

Yet, this is the America we are, warts and all. It’s an America worth defending and fighting for. It’s an America where debate is not division, and unity doesn’t carry a big gun. It is an America built by immigrants, not “settlers”. It’s an America where freedom of speech, freedom of the press is not merely about echoing a narrative but acts as a check on government power, transparency and integrity.

Former Republicans will attest to the fact that the party they knew, no longer exists. At one time, it was a party of divergent ideas, and looked far more like America than it does today. But as Republicans moved further to the right, it was losing moderate voices. The cycle kept repeating until we have the party Trump created: largely of old, white men who long for a return to something that never was.

It’s a world filled with handmaidens and slaves who obeyed rather than voicing their own thoughts or concerns. It’s a world of strongmen, authority, conformity and violent solutions to created problems.

Every day, Donald Trump takes America further into the abyss of authoritarianism as more high profile former Republicans urge the electorate to vote for Democrats. Just this week we’re seeing the White House take deception to a frightening new level – with falsified transcripts of the Trump/Putin presser in Helsinki. You remember. That’s after the secret meeting of which we know nothing. That’s the meeting where Putin looked like a strong leader and Trump looked like the weak authoritarian’s apprentice he is.

Putin’s protégé is using more of the tricks that dictators use and like those dictators, Trump has virtually unanimous approval from his supporters – in a political party where blind and unconditional obedience are what passes for “unity.” He has the same kind of approval that Putin has, the sort of approval he often spoke about during the campaign.

The nexus between ideological purity and authoritarianism has been playing out in the Republican Party for decades, but it accelerated as Russia’s hold on the party increased first via the NRA and most recently with whatever hold Russia has on Donald J. Trump.

Vladimir Putin was the man behind the curtain. During that infamous presser, Putin admitted to two things. A: He wanted Trump to be president. B: He ordered his officials to help Trump get there.

Putin’s admissions don’t match Trump’s narrative. But, in Trumpian form, the White House transcript of the Helsinki presser omits the questions that Putin was answering.

Jason Easley summarized Rachel Maddow’s account of this incident including this quote by Maddow.

“In the specific that probably lays the groundwork for how president Trump intends to respond if the Democrats win the election in November, so stick a pin in that but in a more general sense, the president disappearing evidence that delays in plain sight pretending up is down and black is white, I think we should see this as Americans as a signal, broadly, that this is garbage time again. We are back into a politically potent era of deliberate nonsense. Disinformation, a form of information warfare. And it is being waged against us.”

This is what Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party has done.

There is no unity behind American ideas or values in Trump’s party. There is no unity behind policies that benefit Americans. What they have is a shell of a leader who uses his megaphone to sell Russia’s interests, be it on Crimea, The G7 or NATO.

What they have is a mistaken belief that becoming Putin’s colony will somehow make America and their own lives “great again.”

The nightmare of Trump’s party is a lesson in real time of what Democrats shouldn’t do.