Ralph Nader - To the Ramparts: How Bush and Obama Paved the Way for the Trump Presidency, and Why It Isnt Too Late to Reverse Course

You dont get more old school than me. I still type on an Underwood typewriter, not a computer. Moreover, I still read print newspapers and keep files of clippings from them to glance through when Im thinking of past events. Taken aback when Trump was elected, like many who barely believe such a walking illustration of ignorance and arrogance could step into the White House, I pulled out my clippings and began paging through them. First I looked at the campaign, how Clinton fumbled and how Trump managed to finesse every revelation of his lack of civility, truth, and common sense. Then I leafed back further to examine the primaries, noting how much Sanders was ignored by the media and shut out by the Democratic National Committee apparatus, how the Republican field was filled with tired retreads, and how Trump managed to shift his TV persona of being a winner into the political field. But trying to fathom the unfathomablewhy voters, with the key help of the Electoral College, voted for such a manifestly phony, dissembling character to sit in the Oval OfficeI found I had to pull out older volumes of clippings and consider the Obama regime. Could it be that the Democrats and Obama laid the groundwork, at least indirectly, for the triumph of reality TV over reality?

As I glanced over the clippings, I began to conceive of a projectfor this book. I have already spoken and written about the dismaying change in American newscasting, whereby only the most recent, flashy events are covered and, worse, are explained by superficial reference to other recent events. Trumps success in his presidential run is ascribed to stupefied voters or Hillarys lackluster performance or the economic malaise of the working class. No digging beyond the topsoil!

Folks, its below the topsoil that the real causes lurk. Its there that the groundwater percolates. In this book, I will examine some profound causes that brought us Trump. Sure, he got quite a few voters to believe his hype. But was that because they were desperate, or was it because they didnt see Hillary as representing their interests? And if the latter was the case, was that because Hillary was an unsympathetic person, who didnt project a caring, I feel your pain attitude in the manner of her husband, or was it because she was not putting herself behind a peoples agenda? And if the latter, was this a recent phenomenon or was it presaged by an equally mandarin, albeit better concealed, viewpoint held by Obama?

One thing that elected Trump, as everyone agrees, was the voters sense of total disillusionment with Washington politicians. But the faces on TV make it sound like this disillusionment is as perennial as complaints about the weather. Not so.

My reading of the past few years is that this disenchantment is neither ever-present nor without cause. Sure, Trump profited big-time from it, but he hardly caused it. Sure, the Republicans, holding their noses, got in line behind Trump, but, again, I dont cite them for the voters discouragement. No, the voters sense of abandonment rests solidly on the shoulders of the Democrats who let them downbig time.

I say this because the Democrats are the ones to whom the public has historically looked for progressive change. It was they, not the Republicans, who promised to be in their corner. It was a Democrat, Roosevelt, who ushered in the New Deal, with public works programs to help with massive unemployment, and who established regulations over the banks, brokers, and other industries. It was a Democrat, Johnson, who fought for and signed major civil rights law to counter the disenfranchisement of black people. It was the Democrats who had the peoples back and at least tolerated trade unions from the 1940s on.

Historically, the Republicans were the hard-bitten apostles of the so-called free market and the handmaidens of wealth. The poor woman and man pinned few hopes on the Republicans. It was the Democrats to whom the voting public turned when hankering for fairness, compassion, or progressive change. And when the Democratic Party fell away from pushing hard for reform, the public fell hard. It fell into disillusionment with politicians, and this generalized into such despair that they were willing to elect as president a reassuring charlatan wrapped in an American flag.

This book will show how Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, and other Democratic leaders in the Obama years turned a deaf ear to many of the cries of the people. This was shown most graphically in that, in his eight years as president, Obama jetted around nearly five hundred times to fat-cat political fund-raisers where he could glad-hand the wealthy, but paid nary a visit to the grass roots to spend learning and galvanizing time with ordinary people or their national civic groups nearby in Washington, DC.

But here is what Im not saying. Im not equating Democratic Party policies with those of the Republicans. We have to make a distinction here, which will be outlined in this book. Take the areas in which there is continuity between the previous Democratic regime and the new Trump administration, such as foreign policy and the Democrats unwillingness to nail or punish corporate criminals. Set that against where there is a clear difference between parties, as in the Democrats signing of the Paris climate accords and Trumps repudiation of them, or the two administrations views of civil rights, with the Democrats pushing to extend their protection and Trump rolling it back.

Even with their espousal of environmental and consumer protection, civil rights, Social Security, and elderly Medicare, the Democrats hardly went vigorously on in favor of these progressive values when they were in power; Obamas failure to raise the frozen $7.25 per hour minimum wage is just one of the more egregious examples. To put this more graphically, I would say that if I were grading the parties on their ability to deliver on laws that would change the lives of the vast populace for the better, I would flunk them both. The Democrats would get a D+ and the Republicans an F. Neither could be proud of their record.

Now Trump, although he had no intention of helping a public whipsawed by lost jobs, diminished access to justice, and broken infrastructure and services, did sense their cries. But it was the Democrats dereliction of duty that made them cry out. And not only did the Democrats refuse to bring about changes the voters were hungering for, such as reining in corporate crime and power, but they seemed to