What should be the Democratic Party agenda? Here's the long and short of it.

Carried in all editions of the Sky Hi News May 24, 2017

The news coming from Washington regarding the Russian connection scandal has historic implications and the Democrats are salivating at a chance to turn the House of Representatives from red to blue.  The danger for  Democrats is that the scandal may drown out other news, and bury Democrat’s excellent case to beat Republican House candidates. The case to be made is that the Democrats are the champions of the middle class and :the GOP is  attacking  ordinary Americans’  day to day financial survival.

The GOP  talked  up a middle class game in 2016, but in 2017 they took a hard right turn..

They are quietly undertaking an agenda that hurts middle class pocket books, from  yanking away affordable health insurance and making it harder to pay off student loans or  to buy a home.   It will be up to Democrats to make sure the GOP/Trump agenda does not get  passed while voters are looking the other way.  

The scandals will play out over time, possibly lasting past 2018 and impacting the elections without the Democrats even hyperventilating. If Democrats  make the Russian issue  their only focus,  they are in danger of drowning out an attempt to position themselves as the advocates of issues that help  the middle class.   Voters ultimately care  most what impacts their lives, and  many  could view the Russian connection  as an issue that does not directly affect them other than crippling the implementation of Trump's domestic agenda.

Whenever the Trump administration and local GOP candidates support a policy that will hurt the middle class, Democrats need to 1) respond  quickly 2) point out how it hurts the middle class , and 3) present positive,viable alternatives..

Aside from any unease or disgust with the Russian connection, top of the list of voter  concerns is health care, per recent polls. Democrats cannot just  be a party of "no”. The party  must propose a better way to go. It must recognize the Obamacare problems of dwindling insurer participation and high cost of the individual market premiums.. It then must propose a fix that maintains affordable access and keeps essential benefits with guaranteed coverage of pre-existing conditions.

Political reality is that Congressional Democrats  alone are powerless to implement any fixes to health care insurance  They do not have the majority and cannot pass much without some Republican support .  Medicare for All right now would be a very hard sell.to moderate Republicans.. Retaining and repairing Obamacare can be short term way forward. Doing so  should  not preclude those  who advocate  continuing a quest  down the road for a system that is cheaper for citizens and government and  provides more universal  and comprehensive. coverage.  That vision is the longer one.

If the investigations lead to jail time for Trump’s associates and  even Trump stepping down,  the GOP agenda  will not go away even if there is a President Pence.  The GOP will continue an attempt to upend healthcare insurance ,  limit civil rights , harm women’s health,

increase our dirty our air and water, remove consumer protections in financial matters,   undermine public education, and make radical , immoral  cuts in.the social safety to finance huge tax cuts to the rich.  .  That is the “long of it” .The only  short term brake on the GOP is if the House majority can go Democratic in 2018.  

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In the meantime, Trump and the GOP are busy fulfilling their own prophecy that Obama care will fail. Donald Trump is trying to sabotage Obamacare by  proposing to remove subsidies to insurers or to those who receive subsidies that are necessary to  make their policies affordable in the exchanges.  His goal is to force Democrats to accept Trumpcare that has only 17% approval in the entire country. . So far their plan  would screw the lower middle class  for years by dumping 24 million off the insured roles and provide fewer benefits  for the rest who  will have to pay  even more out of their pockets.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/210545/healthcare-surges-top-problem
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/19/donald-trump-end-payments-obamacare-subsidies-238616
. http://www.latimes.com/…/la-fi-hiltzik-obamacare-charts-201…

”https://www.yahoo.com/n…/uh-oh-most-iowa-apos-225803321.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/05/03/iowa-at-risk-of-having-no-obamacare-insurers-next-year-in-all-but-five-counties/?utm_term=.c1164c7566cb
See 5/20/17 blog post: Trump has plans to destroy Obamacare so he can claim it is  failing
See 5/4/17 blog post: The china shop rule: Trump broke health care insurance; he owns it
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/05/will-gop-sacrifice-safety-net-programs-on-altar-of-tax-cuts.html
and blog posting 4/17/17 Trump threatens to blow up exchanges: Why?

Some other views worth considering: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-trump-gop-bargain-may-be-unraveling-1495403179

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-republican-survival-strategy-1495236527