I had a fabulous title for this post, but I've forgotten . . .

Well, under Franklin Roosevelt, the Democrats became the party of the underdogs, and a reluctant pile of southern former slave-owners joined them, because of course they weren't going to join the party of Lincoln, who screwed up that whole thing.  When Lyndon Johnson (yes, the one with B as his middle initial) became president on the death of John Kennedy (the one with F), and once Johnson had to deal with the powerful Civil Rights movement, and decided to sign off on the new legislation, the Southern White contingent was deeply unhappy, but they were somehow kept within the Democrat fold.  After the train wreck of the Seventies ground to its final pileup, the battle changed direction: the Democrats took up the fight about economic justice, and equality of women, and Choice, and the GOP retreated to lick its wounds.  Eventually, they would settle on the so-called Pro Life, Pro Guns, Anti-Taxes, and Anti Soviet Union planks.  Their members who were passionate about each of those issues were largely unconcerned about the other issues; for instance, there were many Pro Gun republicans who were perfectly moderate about Pro Choice.  But it was a fragile coalition that was still strong enough to withstand the Democrats, especially since an energy crisis and the fall of the Shah of Iran ran in to distract the population from the fact that the Democrats were more likely to make life livable for the ordinary folks.

After the Reagan-Bush era, Clinton occupied the White House for eight years.  He famously gave the Republican Congress numerous excuses for mounting hostile personal attacks on him, attempting to impeach him, etc, etc.  Many of those attacks, some of them led by one Kenneth Starr (formerly a member of the Beatles*), put Clinton on the defensive, and paved the way for the slackening of checks and controls on Banks, in particular, Wall Street investment banks, which in turn led the way for the vicious lending practices of credit card companies, and ultimately the home mortgage crisis of 2007.

Despite their frequent missteps, in my view, the Democrats have usually kept the welfare of the ordinary people foremost.  However, the laws they passed, and the mechanisms they created for the relief of poverty were abused by a few: Reagan famously described a so-called Welfare Queen, a recipient of welfare who parlayed these entitlements into supporting what was considered a lavish lifestyle.  Such abuses were far from being of epidemic proportions, but the GOP quickly learned that those sorts of mental pictures did not need to be accurate true to be effective.  It was quite possible to speak about some fictitious situation that gets the population mad against some group or other, and the population has now been conditioned into retaining those feelings of indignation long after that fictitious story has been thoroughly discredited.

Another tactic that the GOP deployed with, from their point of view, great success, is simple obstructionism.  It is a distortion of the Credit Game: the Republicans sabotaged every initiative brought forward by the Democrats, simply to be able to claim that the Democrats were ineffective in office.  Learning quickly, and not having the perspective to see where this policy could backfire, the Democrats also fell back on the same idea to obstruct Republican initiatives, but without much success, being in the minority.  What the Republicans are doing with "Obamacare" is also simple obstruction for its own sake, a transparent effort to destroy Obama's legacy.  As one observer pointed out, the implementation of Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was carefully crafted to appeal to the largest number of Republican lawmakers, to enable it to pass both houses of Congress.  Almost any implementation the Republicans can devise is sure to be more left-leaning than the ACA.  But the GOP is determined to find a way to do it, which is amusing in the extreme.

The important thing is that any Democrats out there, you should not lose sight of the main goal that has driven the Democrats for decades: to make the lives of ordinary people easier and rewarding.

Many Democrats, smarting under Trump's unexpected victory, are determined to make Trump feel their ire.  Trump will not suffer under such a slap on the wrist for very long; neither is it likely to make the lives of ordinary people easier or rewarding, and nor is it likely to prevent other Republican hopefuls from adopting the same rhetorical tricks in the future.

Republicans, too, are not happy with the Trump Presidency; in fact they are a lot happier about their majorities in Congress and the Senate.  They too are wondering how to get what they want while Trump is in office, while Trump is busy getting what he wants.  My theory is that Trump wants to change the legislation that taxes the very rich.  In addition, there must be some commercial basis on which Trump can benefit from the Presidency, and you have to look to minds more acute than mine to be able to predict what Trump's angle is.
[Added later: my suspicion is that offshoring of jobs will rise under Trump to unprecedented levels, and he will probably blame some inoffensive piece of Democrat-initiated legislation, e.g. the minimum wage, for running amok with offshoring.]

My Republican friends are eager to persuade me that there is a large number of Republicans who also want what is best for the ordinary folks of the US (as opposed to the very very rich).  I find this hard to believe, but on the outside chance that it is true, we should not lose opportunity to collaborate on any initiatives on which we see eye-to-eye with these fabulous Republicans whom I have never seen or heard of.

The ball is firmly in Trump's court, and that is something we cannot change.  Preemptive strikes, as advocated by youthful hotheads, will move matters onto the line between uncivil and reckless behavior and common decency, on which politics has been dancing for the last several decades, with only a few Democrat leaders holding themselves above the brawling.  Brawling, verbal or physical, is a direction in which I for one prefer not to go.  But the minute Trump makes a move, I think the Democrats must respond decisively.

It is still not clear, but there is an even chance that Trump's cabinet nominees will be approved with only token resistance from the various Senate committees.  But there is a chance that at least some of the members of these committees, even Republicans, take their offices seriously.  It is baffling how little thought working class Republicans give to Education.  If they think a voucher program is to their benefit, either they know something that I don't, or they have no brains at all.  I am fully aware that most of my friends (and my readers) believe that Republicans are all fools, but I find that hard to believe.

At any rate, it ain't over until the fat lady sings (or the slightly overweight lady), and I'm simply advocating that the response of those who are concerned about the likelihood that the President will do something utterly stupid should be: be careful.  Wait until we really know what he has decided to do.

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*Just to see whether you're paying attention.