Tarkan wrote:Big machine Democrat politics pretty much originated in NYC (and Chicago), so yeah, it's going to be hard to get rid of them and the corruption. As much as I don't really like progressives on the issues, I dislike corruption and subverting the will of the people even more.
Re: Trump being a NY Democrat - I agree. This is one of the ironies of Trump getting elected and being transformed into the American fascist 2nd coming of Hitler. On most issues, he was pretty fucking liberal for a Democrat, and much closer to a traditional populist Democrat than the Bush/Romney style corporate Republicans, and certainly to the left of the mainstream GOP when it came to things like: health care, trade protectionism, gun rights, gay marriage, war (technically he's the most anti-war President we've had since Carter), and criminal justice. Part of me wonders what would have happened had the Democrats embraced Trump instead of demonizing him - I think he might have veered hard to the left after being elected. As it was, the GOP establishment hated him as much as Democrats did, so that left him to side with his populist constituency (of which the alt-right and Q-conspiracy folks were a component of). About the only two issues you could claim he was a hard core conservative on was illegal immigration (and by all measures, much more conservative than even the GOP) and Supreme Court justices.
He was a Liberal Democrat. Past tense.
His campaign talk of 2016 was closer to Populist Democrat. Get rid of NAFTA & GATT via Executive Order (Probably unconstitutional but I wanted to see someone try it anyway), get Steel Production back even if it means coal (China and India are the reasons for the floods in Pakistan, not "The West") and his plan to eliminate our participation in the Universal Postal Union subsidies of Chinese mail to the USA was brilliant. Except he just compromised on "increased rates for Transitional Nations" so It is still cheaper to ship a package from Shenzen to NYC than it is to ship a package from Georgia to NYC. So minor win but hardly a progressive victory for US Industry or at least US Etsy sellers.
His Steel plan was one I supported too but it still never recovered to the level of Bush II era and certainly did not come close to 1970's output. But his tariffs raised prices for a bit and then they got cheaper than they were before, which is pretty much what Progs like Ralph Nader predicted ages ago, so a minor win for that.
But ultimately Trump is a fascist at heart. He caters to fascists, he supports Browshirt-like paramilitary organizations and he pads the supreme court with the likes that no progressive or Progressive-Lite would have ever done.
Plus trying to overthrow our nations Democratic processes so he could remain in power was something no Prog would go for.
He just adopted the transactional nature of all the NYC politicians he and his father dealt with.