I see myself as a President Teddy Roosevelt progressive. To understand what that means, you might have to read They Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
The 2016 election is over and the unknown future will reveal itself a day at a time, and in the passing of those days there’s nothing we can do but hope this too shall pass into history, because the future waits for no man, even Donald Trump, and the midterm elections will take place in November 2018, after two years of Trump allegedly running rampant with support from today’s Republican Party (GOP).
The fact is that Donald Trump and the GOP can’t run rampant, because of the U.S. Constitution written to protect the republic from becoming a dictatorship. Any serious attempt by Trump or the Republicans to illegally alter the Constitution will result in a bloody Civil War that will tear the United States apart, and most members of both parties know this is a fact even if Donald Trump allegedly doesn’t.
The reason for that is because there is no easy, legal way for the GOP to change the U.S. Constitution. Simply, the GOP does not have enough votes in both Houses of Congress. To propose an amendment to the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote in the U.S. Congress and then that proposed amendment must be approved by two-thirds (33) of the 50 state legislatures.
In 2017:
- The GOP will only control 26 states
- The GOP will hold 52 seats in the US Senate and needs 66 votes to propose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
- The GOP holds 238 seats in the House and needs about 284 votes to propose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. Founding Fathers did all they could to block one party or president from controlling every element of the U.S. government by making it extremely difficult to change the U.S. Constitution, and the rule of law as defined in the U.S. Constitution still stands as a defense against any tyrant.
Yes, the GOP and Trump will do serious damage to the achievements of the progressive movement started by Republican President Teddy Roosevelt in 1901, but the U.S. Constitution will still be there to guide the United States when Trump’s 4 or 8 years in the White House ends. Hopefully, the Trump presidency will end in 4 years if his mouth and actions keeps shooting hollow-point bullets.
That means between January 2017 and January 2019, the GOP will do all it can to achieve their tyrannical, right-wing agenda to support the wealthiest Americans and weaken or dismantle the Social Safety net for all Americans that FDR started when he was president from 1933 – 1945: Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, food stamps, etc.
The GOP had to wait more than 100 years to dismantle what two progressive presidents accomplished for all the people of the United States. And they are eager to get started.
Once the Democrats return to a majority, if the Democrats abandon neo-liberalism that defined the presidencies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and win back the angry voters they lost in the 2016 election, the political winds of power will shift once again, and to do that, the Democratic Party must learn from the presidencies of Teddy Roosevelt and FDR.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran, with a BA in journalism and an MFA in writing, who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
Lofthouse’s first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy followed by his award winning memoir Crazy is Normal.
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Lloyd Lofthouse 