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For a National Unity Ticket in 2020
It should be clear to most people after the fiasco in Helsinki earlier this week, that Donald Trump shouldn’t be President. I don’t know how you can look at that press conference and say, “Yes, that man should be President. America made a good choice.” At the same time, no one reading this wants to turn the government over to the Democratic Party, which is currently at war with itself over whether it wants to be moderately progressive or fully embrace democratic socialism.
We’re approaching a point where the divisiveness of our politics could cause serious long-term damage, or worse still, take a violent turn. Political violence is an aberration in our system, but if the situation continues to deteriorate, it could come to blood.
With an unfit Republican president on the one hand and a scary Democratic Party on the other hand, where does that leave us for 2020? There is a clear need for national healing, how do we bring it about?
I’d like to suggest an option: a bipartisan unity ticket in 2020.
The idea is that the Democrats would nominate an elder statesman. Someone who is not a fire-breathing socialist, with extensive experience in government, who is at the end of their political career. In my mind, I picture Joe Biden for the role. He would then, in turn, pick an anti-Trump Republican, someone like Jeff Flake, Ben Sasse, or John Kasich. (Mitt Romney or James Mattis, being elder statesmen types, might also work.) The ticket would then pledge to only serve one term and not seek reelection.
To continue the idea, the cabinet and other appointments would be roughly split 50/50 (this isn’t outlandish, cabinets are often bipartisan), judicial nominations would focus on consensus choices, or the President and VP would take turns picking, and Supreme Court picks would be of people over 60. The idea, overall, would be to focus on consensus building in governing, with the end of national healing. Or, in the words of President Harding, “a return to normalcy.”
Before you condemn this plan as a fantasy, I hasten to note there has been a unity ticket before in American history. In 1864, Abraham Lincoln ran with Andrew Johnson, a Democrat. Those were extraordinary circumstances to be sure, but there is precedent.
Are there problems with this plan? Difficulties? Objections? Practical points that would need to be worked out? Sure. The biggest obstacle would be the need for an elder statesman to step forward and be willing to prioritize healing the nation over their own personal ambition. In fact, it would require a whole cadre of people willing to prioritize national healing over temporary political experience. But it could be done if someone chose to step forward and be a leader.
Published in General
This isn’t any better: http://ricochet.com/532252/just-a-thought/
Maybe it’s time to lay off the “I can’t believe this is on Ricochet, proof of how bad Ricochet is” nonsense…
I mean, God forbid someone’s opinion should be on Ricochet…
I didn’t say that he doesn’t know what he’s doing – I said (or at least meant to imply) that I’m not necessarily convinced that he *does* know what he’s doing. Could still go either way.
I like that he’s pushing the sclerotic status quo aside.
Still not convinced that his vision for the replacement of the status quo is completely in sync with mine.
I don’t accept the premise that Trump is unfit. On what basis?
I adore it that the Left and the RINO quislings are now so suspicious of Russia and all things Russian. Oh and so reverent toward our governmental agencies! Where were they when Buraq Hussein snarked at Romney for saying Russia was a geopolitical threat? Did they feel our intelligence agencies could do no wrong when it became obvious Saddam Hussein didnt actually have WMDs?
Plenty of people could and did watch that press conference and conclude that Trump is a fit and effective President. A “unity” ticket? It is to laugh.
Oh who did that. Please don’t say Hillary, because no, that’s not true.
Suggested reading:
http://ricochet.com/archives/uranium-one-thing-non-story/
No. If it was obvious, then they’d just nominate the furthest-left person. Not everyone wants to do that. That’s why they’re at war with themselves.
Right. The idea is that people would see the obvious need for a national unity ticket and come together and do this.
I’m maybe more open to this concept, in general, than most, but the problem is that all of the possible candidates would stink, and it would certainly be hijacked by the left. It would probably only work with two people from outside of politics, like Mark Cuban and The Rock, and that would also be a crapshoot. I do think we need a Trump, we just need a better Trump who isn’t as much into self-harm and wildly idiotic statements.
Howver, I’m intrigued by the bolded part of the quote above. It’s easy to see how thwarting his nomination at or after the convention, or supporting removal from office would be a betrayal, but that’s based on party elites denying the will of the people. If Trump were to lose either the GOP primary or general election in 2020, that would be as much a reflection of the will of the voters as was Trump’s win in 2016. It’s the process as it’s meant to work and not mischief to overturn a popular result.
I don’t know if you noticed, but while it seems the president has been saying apparently awful embarrassing things, mostly good things seem to be actually happening on the ground, so I’m not sure why a radical “solution” is warranted.
The US intelligence community seems to have meddled extensively in the last US election just as it long has in other foreign countries (to borrow NPRs past practice of many years of referring to “the dollar and other foreign currencies”) providing what Rush Limbaugh estimated as $400,000,000 in assistance to the Clinton campaign. I’m not sure if that includes whatever the Russians had to do with the Steele dossier.
The USSR both meddled in and participated (via its useful idiots and its agents such as Gus Hall) in US elections for many years. Russia has continued the practice, and US intelligence has been meddling in Russian elections since they began to be consequential, in other words at least since Yeltsin.
DAG Rosenstein has said that while the GRU officers the DOJ just indicted did indeed meddle in our last election, there is no evidence to support the assertion that their meddling was of any consequence.
It is clearly within the President’s foreign policy ambit to decide if and in what forum to address this with Russia. My impression of Russians from the street level on up is that they have contempt for the U.S. when it tries to act like a blushing virgin who somehow wandered into a brothel, which is the stance the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) want to Trump to take – for their own political advantage. They too have contempt for the US, though not for its hypocrisy (unless contempt advances the Prog agenda) but for its sovereignty.
If libertarians and various flavors of conservatives think that playing Menshevik in a coalition with the hard Left’s neo-Bolsheviks is a good idea, they are sadly mistaken.
Look, you’re welcome to suggest someone else.
Here’s the criteria: Democrat, elder statesman type, end of his career, held multiple government posts at the federal level or as governor.
And yeah, I am against big government. This isn’t my first choice. But not to be hyperbolic, if there’s a civil war, it’ll mean more government not less.
Right. The idea is that the Democrats would do this. Odds are the Republican Party will continue to support its lord and master, Donald Trump.
Let me stop you right there, Hank. How could you possibly watch that Helsinki press conference and think that?
Hold on. Let’s unpack this.
You think Booth shot Lincoln because he picked Andrew Johnson as his running mate? And Booth … wanted a Southern anti-Confederate, a traitor to Booth’s own cause, to become President?
I’m sorry, that’s just nonsense.
My point is there is nothing in it for Dems to nominate a unity ticket. I agree they’re split on how far left they can go and still beat Trump, but if they decided to simply play it safe, they can nominate a pair of relative centrists from within their own party (Biden-Manchin). Why do they need Ben Sasse on the ticket? That’s a much harder sell to their base while not getting any greater certainty of victory; indeed it would open them up to a major challenge from the left.
Yeah. This suggestion wasn’t really aimed at you.
It wasn’t a coup. Please don’t corrupt the language.
You just described Hillary.
I would say that Lincoln’s second term probably did not go as planned.
Right. We can’t go back, obviously. There’s no going back to the pre-Trump status quo. However, there is the opportunity to mitigate the amount of damage done.
Right. I’m familiar with them. Unity ’08, etc.
This would use an existing mechanism, the Democratic Party, to accomplish the goal.
Because your side gave us Trump. So you have to sit out the Big Chair for a few years. I’m just trying to moderate the amount of damage.
Okay so, the whole point of the proposed unity ticket would be to not have Democratic supremacism, but to have a bipartisan power sharing agreement.
Or you could put the premise aside and look at the solution proposed here that depends on serial delusions about how the political world actually works. And then consider that this person has concluded Trumpian unfitness based on those, and other delusions.
But of course you are right to challenge the first premise as well!
How Obama-esque of you. Remember all those speeches he gave in his first term, about how the Republicans just had to go sit in the back of the bus?
Funny way to create “unity”.
Right. The idea is to use the Democratic Party, so there isn’t a “whoever the Dems put up.” It’s just Trump versus the unity ticket. At the unity ticket would be moderate enough to draw in Republicans who are disgusted with Trump but don’t want to vote for Elizabeth Warren.
Agree. Any such attempt would be the same thing as giving the scorpion a ride across the river on our back.
Plus, as I pointed out in comment 76, the person that most fits his criteria for an ideal “centrist/unity” candidate is Hillary Clinton.
Fred,
Then how could you suggest that this was a unity ticket in the first place? Perhaps Southerners didn’t understand that Andrew Johnson was as Southern anti-Confederate? Clue me in on how this was a unity ticket. I do believe that the South was very pro-Confederate and even as they were beaten badly and were losing the war they had no intention of settlement. You brought this up as an example of a unity ticket, didn’t you? If it had actually been a unity ticket then my little thought experiment could have been valid. As it was it took no such additional incentive to get Booth to murder Lincoln did it.
Some unity.
Regards,
Jim
What in it for everyone would be national unity. The idea of bringing the country together.
No, it would probably not appeal to the Democratic Party as a whole. This idea requires a statesman, a leader. Someone who is willing to forgo political gain for the sake of healing the nation.
The common wisdom is that politicians go full bore to feather their nests when they know they are ineligible for re-election. Virginia does something interesting in forbidding consecutive gubernatorial (four year) terms. The governor has to sit out a term and then run without the advantages of an incumbent. It is no guarantee of good government, but it stirs the pot a bit.
Give me a break.
The left says traditional marriage Christians and “transphobes” are extremists when we are just what consisted of the norm 10 years ago.
So, facts not in evidence. And Gallup polls support my position, not your’s. When the alt-right wins an election, or even a primary, get back to me. The left had a socialist as a contender for president and one just won a primary ousting a well established Dem. She’ll win in Nov because the R runner is weak.
Trump was elected President. Therefore he should be President.
Your premise is flawed. And annoying.