(This week we simply present, without comment, American political wisdom from a centrist journalist.)
Thomas L. Friedman New York Times July3, 2019 :
Excerpts:
“Only we can take ourselves down.
“And that is nearly certain to happen if we don’t stop treating politics as entertainment, if we don’t get rid of a president who daily undermines truth and trust – the twin fuels to collaborate and adapt together – if we don’t prevent the far left from pulling the Democrats over a cliff with reckless ideas like erasing the criminal distinction between those who enter America legally and those who don’t, and if we fail to forge what political analyst David Rochkopf described in a recent essay as ‘a new American majority'”.
“That’s a majority that can not only win the next election but can actually govern [emphasis in original]the morning after, actually enable us to do big, hard things that need to be addressed, because we have so many big hard things that need to be addressed – and big hard adaptations can only be done quickly together.
“Sounds naïve? No, here’s what’s naïve: Thinking we’ll be O.K. if we keep ignoring the big challenges barreling down on us [China, Russia, Iran] … with the result that no big, long-term and well-thought-out adaptations get built …
“Fortunately, the mid-term elections showed us that there is a potential new American majority out there to meet these challenges …
[Assuming Donald Trump is the Republican nominee] “If Democrats can choose a nominee who speaks to our impending challenges, but who doesn’t say irresponsible stuff about immigration or promise free stuff we can’t afford, who defines new ways to work with business and energizes job-creators, who treats with dignity the frightened white working-class voters who abandoned them for Trump — and who understands that many, many Americans are worried that we’re on the verge of a political civil war and want someone to pull us together – I think he or she will find a new American majority waiting to be assembled and empowered.”