#bob barr

In the last Midterms, the voters did not base their vote on the question of the Mueller investigation, and the polls since the memo was released also show that it makes no difference. To someone who doesn’t spend all day glued to the news, the question of Trump obstructing justice and the question of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia doesn’t matter. Do I think it should matter to them? Absolutely. Can I change it? No.

The Democrats are right in their quest to get the full Mueller report to the public. But in their quest to get Trump out of the White House, it’s not going to help them. Even if they find something that’s worth impeaching Trump over, the Senate will never agree. So that’s not going to work. The Southern District of New York and their investigations, that are often brought up now, will also not catapult Trump out of office because it is standing Justice Department stance that a sitting President cannot be indicted. 

The only way out of this is electing someone other than Trump. 

And to achieve that, the Democrats have to focus their agenda on the so-called “Bread and Butter Issues”: The issues that an average household in the United States discusses over the dinner table. Among those are:

health care: Trump has proposed a new plan to slash the Affordable Care Act in its entirety, without offering a new plan. He says that will come after 2020, but let’s face it... it won’t.

social security: while the jobs numbers are going up, people are hardly earning more and simple hiccups in your life can derail them completely. it’s time to do something about it.

college costs: student debt is eating up the students and are therefore stopping them from taking important steps in their lives. Time to address it and to make education available for everyone.

and as always: jobs, jobs, jobs

But there are also some more overarching issues that have to be addressed by a democratic challenger to the presidency:

forever wars: recently, two usually opposing veterans organizations, the left leaning VoteVets.org and the conservative Concerned Veterans for America, have teamed up to lobby together to end the forever wars the US is still involved in, citing the fact that people old enough to enlist these days were not even alive when 9/11 happened. It should be on anyone’s agenda to send more people into these war zones (except for Syria).

Russian interference in elections: Elections have to be safe against outside interference no matter from which actor. Russia, Saudi-Arabia, China, whoever it is, they have no business in the “Western” elections, either in the US or in Europe. A democratic agenda has to include measures to rebut that.

regaining the “moral high ground” and interest in global leadership: If the United States want to continue leading the free world, they have to do something NOW. And the best way to do it would be to take a strong stance against human rights abuses around the world, instead of committing them oneself (coughcoughKidsInCagescoughcough). There are several areas where China is taking over global leadership, and it’s debatable whether that’s something anyone wants.

strengthening and reforging traditional alliances: Trump has been trash talking organizations and alliances around the world, like NATO or the UN, and European Allies, among others, if not everyone that’s not a dictator. That’s harmful to trade relations and to the security of the United States. 

Trump must be voted out, not impeached. And therefore the agenda of the democratic party (and they should develop one together) has to focus on topics that actually matter to people. Only then can America show it’s true colors: embrace or reject the hatred? the xenophobia? the lies and deflections? the corruption and nepotism? 

I still have hope that there is a democratic candidate out there who can muster enough support to bring the people who reject the current president out to the polls in 2020. Pretty high on my list at the moment: Pete Buttigieg.