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Part of the problem? Drew Magary argues they care way too much about what Republicans think.

Yesterday the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put out a bunch of limp potential slogans for their would-be takeover of Congress in 2018, and Twitter summarily took them to the woodshed for it. One glance at the options presented and you can tell that tell that the committee spent hundreds of man-hours and enormous sums of money just to throw RESIST & PERSIST into an online poll. You would think that after losing to Donald Trump, and then getting subsequently beaten in five special elections after the fact, that the Democratic party would re-evaluate both its ideals and its leadership. Instead, they decided to put their mental energy into bumper stickers.

Democrats have been relatively clueless since the day I was born. Lewis Black once said that America is ruled by a party of bad ideas and a party of no ideas, and that more or less holds true in 2017. Given the demonstrable evils of the Republican party, Democrats SHOULD win back Congress in 2018. A literal cadaver ought to be able to siphon votes away from those shitbags. But then again, Democrats should have beaten Trump as well, which means that the political hopes of a majority of Americans currently resides in the hands of a party that has all the strategic acumen of Elmer Fudd and, even worse, still doesnt realize its shortcomings.

I dont like grousing about this. For all of the Democrats obliviousness, theyre still a far superior option to the party that wants to burn poor people for fossil fuels, and I dont wanna be one of those Weird Twitter assholes who spends all day calling Hillary a bitch. But every day that Trump remains in power does lasting, perhaps irreversible damage to both the country and the greater solar system, and his only opposition remains the only group of people ON EARTH who could have possibly blown an election against him. If the past year wasnt an obvious sign that the DNC needs to change how it does business, then what would be? Do we all have to die first?

Just today, the New York Times gave column space to former Clinton operative Mark Penn, who stupidly argued that the Democrats need to be the party of the mythical American center, the exact same strategy that backfired on Clinton last fall. One of my GQ colleagues said that Democrats care wayyyyy too much about Republicans, and this op-ed goes a long way toward proving it. This dribble of think-tank strategery comes after Georgia Congressional candidate and eight-year-old boy Jon Ossoff lost a special election afteryou guessed itpositioning himself as a centrist. In fact, Ossoff decided against loudly denouncing Trump on the campaign trail, and instead released this actual ad:

It really is stunning how Democrats continually try to hit Trump in his least vulnerable spots. Hey, you folks who love the way Trump talks shit on Twitter: I promise you that I wont do that! Meanwhile, Trump rose to power by ginning up the fervor of a supposedly small voting bloc that believed (wrongly) that its needs were being ignored. God forbid Democrats take any lessons away from that. No, instead we get more whinging about working class white voters (God, enough of these motherfuckers!) and all their bullshit angst over crime and immigration. You think Democrats will be able to address that angst better than the golf blob currently occupying the White House? Who in hell is this party really serving if theyre so horny for the redneck vote?

"[The Democrats are] too meek to get what voters REALLY want, and thats because they are all strategy and no heart. They chase voters rather than lead them."

Yet, its hardly surprising that big-name Democrats would still see value in this kind of empty heartland pandering. Say what you will about Republicans, but at least their leadership genuinely represents their constituency. Thats the party of rich guys, and its RUN by rich guys. Those two entities are simpatico. Meanwhile, the Democratic party is still run by cocktail party vets like Pelosi while trying to serve people with whom Pelosi has little to nothing in common: poor people, minorities, etc. I genuinely liked Hillary Clinton as a candidate, but on the campaign trail she basically acted like a robot that was trying to learn empathy by observing humans. Oh, I see you humans call these tears. These tears mean that you are sad! They are, as constituted, the party of lip service.

Thats not good enough. Democrats fail again and again because (A) They want to reach the broadest possible audience, which means they reach no one at all, and (B) Leadership runs the party but is not OF it. Even firebrands like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are still relatively genteel white people from New England. They LOOK like Republicans, as do the Silicon Valley buttheads currently ruminating on ways to DISRUPT liberal politics. Why do you think people loved Barack Obama so much? Because Democratic voters actually felt like he was one of them (even if Obama was still too centrist and too damn deferential to monsters like Mitch McConnell). Theres no reason for Obama to be an anomaly among Democratic leadership. They have willed this disconnect into perpetuity.

My friend Jeb Lund once said that the reason Republicans succeed is because, in general, theyre better at giving their voters tangible things. You want a meaningless tax cut? They can get you that. You want immigrants rounded up? Theyre on it. Love guns? Heres seventeen! Big fan of war? Oh! Oh, Republicans will give you all the war you can eat. By contrast, Democrats will give you a VERSION of what their voters wanted that just happens to have been watered down roughly 98 percent by concessions to Republicans. Your health care will still be an expensive pain in the ass, but at least Democrats heart was in the right place. Theyre too meek to get what voters REALLY want, and thats because they are all strategy and no heart. They chase voters rather than lead them. You only need to look where that strategy has gotten them so far to know where its going to take them.

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Read the rest here:
Democrats Will Never Get Their Shit Together - GQ Magazine

The opposition party should embrace a sweeping reform agenda that embraces the promise of voting rights, competitive elections, and genuinely representative democracy.

Voters wait in line to cast Super Tuesday ballots in Austin, Texas, on March 1, 2016. (AP Photo / Tamir Kalifa)

American democracy is not working. We have a president who lost the popular vote by almost 3 million ballots, a Congress that reflects gerrymandered district lines rather than the will of the people, and a voting system that discourages rather than encourages the high turnouts that are needed to establish a genuinely representative democracy.

The Republican Party, which has benefited from this dysfunction, is in no rush to change things. Indeed, it has at its highest levels embraced the voter-suppression lies and scheming of charlatans such as Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and President Trumps Orwellian Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity. So it falls to progressive Democrats, nonaligned independents, and third-party activists to take the lead in the struggle for democratic renewal.

For the Democrats, there are two ways to address the crisis. First, they can carry on as they always have and hope that they get better at being an opposition party within a fundamentally flawed system. Second, they could propose to reform the system in ways that would begin to realize the promise of competitive elections and popular democracy.

Congressman Don Beyer has chosen the bolder route. Last week, the Virginia Democrat proposed the Fair Representation Act, a plan to democratize congressional elections with a bold reform that could also be used to bring real competition to state legislative contests.

Agenda? Sure: End gerrymandering. Eliminate the Electoral College. Guarantee voting rights. Overturn Citizens United.

Explaining that polarization and partisanship, both among voters and in Congress, have reached dangerous and scary heights, Beyer says: The Fair Representation Act is the bold reform America needs to be sure every vote matters, to defeat gerrymandering, and ensure the House of Representatives remains the peoples House.

Rob Richie, the executive director of FairVote, which has worked with Beyer to promote the measure, says, The Fair Representation Act is the most comprehensive approach to improving congressional elections in American history.

FairVote argues that, Under the Fair Representation Act, all U.S. House members will be elected by ranked-choice voting in new, larger multi-winner districts. This system would replace todays map of safe red and blue seats that lock voters into uncompetitive districts, and elect members of Congress with little incentive to work together and solve problems

Heres FairVotes assessment of how the Beyer plan would work:

Smaller states with five or fewer members will elect all representatives from one statewide, at-large district. States with more than six members will draw multi-winner districts of three to five representatives each. Congress will remain the same size, but districts will be larger.

They will be elected through ranked-choice voting, an increasingly common electoral method used in many American cities, whereby voters rank candidates in order of choice, ensuring that as many voters as possible help elect a candidate they support. Under ranked-choice voting, if no candidate reaches the threshold needed to win, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. When a voters top choice loses, their vote instantly goes to their second choice. The process repeats until all seats are elected.

Using this approach, four in five voters would elect someone they support. The number of voters in a position to swing a seat would immediately triplefrom less than 15 percent in 2016 to just under half.

The districts themselves will be drawn by state-created, independent commissions made up of ordinary citizens. These larger districts would be nearly impossible to gerrymander for political advantageand would force politicians to seek out voters with different perspectives and remain accountable to them.

Thats a lot of democracymore than most partisan Republicans, and a good many partisan Democrats, are prepared to embrace.

But here is why Democrats should take the Beyer plan seriously: It focuses attention on the necessity of breaking the curse of gerrymandering while at the same time presenting the Democrats as a party that embraces competition rather than political gamesmanship.

The Republicans, with tremendous support from billionaire campaign donors such as the Koch brothers, have mastered the art of making elections noncompetitive. Americans hate the current system. They tell pollsters it is too owned by special interests, too mangled by money, too deferential towards political careerists, and too disrespectful toward voters.

The people are angry about gerrymandering. They want competitive elections and true representative democracy. (A 2013 Harris poll found that 74 percent of Republicans, 73 percent of Democrats, and 71 percent of independents object to the pro-politician, anti-voter methods of redistricting that now prevail in most states for congressional and legislative elections.)

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Combining support for the assault on gerrymandering that Beyer has proposed with support for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Courts Citizens United ruling (as proposed by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and others in the Senate and House) and with support for a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right to vote and to have that vote counted (as Wisconsin Congressmen Mark Pocan and Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison have proposed) would go a long way toward branding the Democrats as the party of reform that America needs.

By becoming the party of democratic renewalpromoting bold and meaningful changes that empower voters to end the malaise in Washington and state capitals nationwideDemocrats can make themselves the party of the future.

Americans are looking for just such a party. Lots of folks believe that neither old party can fill the political vacuumand they could be right. But Congressman Beyer has offered his party an opportunity to rise above partisanship and stand on principle. Democrats, who have struggled to chart their course following the disastrous 2016 election, have a chance to identify themselves as the party that is ready to give voters what they are crying out for: a more honest and competitive politics.

See more here:
Democrats Must Become America's Anti-Gerrymandering Party - The Nation.

When President Trump holds his first face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin Friday, he will not only be dealing with high-stakes international issues but also will be under intense political scrutiny at home.

Any sign of weakness from Trump in his meeting with Putin will open him up to criticism from Democrats, many of whom steadfastly believe the president at least partially owes his election to Russian hacking last year, and Russia hawks in his own party, many of whom have been concerned about his desire for an opening with Moscow.

Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has been described as a "cloud" over the White House by Trump himself. The matter is being investigated by a special counsel appointed by the Justice Department and multiple congressional committees.

Democrats have been searching for evidence of collusion between the Russians who hacked into their party leaders' emails and the Trump campaign. Top congressional Democrats pressed Trump on Thursday to raise the issue in his meeting with Putin and forthrightly condemn any election inference by Moscow.

"The integrity of our democracy and the security of the free world depend on the United States stopping Russia's unchecked assault on our election systems," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement. "President Trump needs to confront Putin for hacking our democratic systems and make it clear the United States will not tolerate further meddling."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., joined four other Democratic senators in writing a letter making similar request of Trump, demanding the president "make absolutely clear that Russian interference in our democracy will in no way be tolerated."

"We believe it is crucial for you as president of the United States to raise this matter with President Putin and to ensure that he hears you loud and clear interfering in our elections was wrong in 2016 and it will not be permitted to happen again," the senators wrote. "We urge you to raise this matter with President Putin later this week. President Putin must understand this can never happen again."

Trump was noncommittal Thursday, again expressing less than wholehearted support for the intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russia was behind the election-year hacking of the Democratic National Committee and others.

"Well, I think it was Russia, and I think it could have been other people and other countries," the president said at a news conference in Poland. "It could have been a lot of people interfered."

Trump didn't directly disagree with the assessment that it was Russia, but he also pointed out that the intelligence community once appeared certain there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, before the 2003 U.S. invasion.

"Guess what? That led to one big mess," Trump said. "They were wrong, and it led to a mess."

This drew the kind of harsh criticism Trump can expect if Putin is seen as gaining the upper hand in their meeting.

"The president's comments today, again casting doubt on whether Russia was behind the blatant interference in our election and suggesting his own intelligence agencies to the contrary that nobody really knows, continue to directly undermine U.S. interests," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in a statement. "This is not putting America first, but continuing to propagate his own personal fiction at the country's expense."

Schiff is the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and has doggedly pursued the Russia probe, often making unfavorable comments about Trump in the process.

The media reacted similarly. "A trashing of the American press corps and Intel community in Eastern Europe of all places," tweeted NBC's Chuck Todd. "Could Putin have asked for anything more?"

"If you are a Republican elected official waking up to Trump's unwillingness to say Russia hacked the election, better to go back to bed," tweeted CNN's Chris Cillizza.

"For Russia, Trump-Putin meeting is a sure winner," the New York Times declared in a headline.

A former Republican national security official saw the matter differently, pointing to Trump's military action in Syria and stands the president took as recently as his Thursday speech in Poland that were unlikely to please Putin.

"Trump doesn't like the Russian election interference being used to delegitimize his win," the official said. "He also sees the constant questions about whether he thinks Russia is behind the hacking as the media getting him to try to play along with it."

"We urge Russia to cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere, and its support for hostile regimes including Syria and Iran and to instead join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in defense of civilization itself," Trump declared Thursday.

Officials who were seen as relatively favorable to Russia, like former national security adviser Mike Flynn, are out. Officials who are more critical of Moscow, like new national security adviser H.R. McMaster and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, are ascendant inside the administration. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has overcome a reputation for friendship with Russia to speak unfavorably about Putin's government's actions abroad.

Even some Democrats have conceded that Russia may not be as potent a political issue as they thought after a series of special-election losses.

"The fact that we had spent so much time talking about Russia has you know, has been a distraction from what should be the clear contrast between Democrats and the Trump agenda, which is on economics," Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" last month, the day after Democrats lost in Georgia's 6th Congressional District.

"I seriously doubt Trump is too worried about what the Democrats are emphasizing politically right now," said Christian Ferry, a Republican strategist. "If they were able to win a special election, maybe it would be worth some consideration, but we've seen multiple times that the Democrats' concerns are not the same as the American people's."

Still, Trump is in unusual political territory as he approaches his meeting with Putin. An Economist/YouGov poll taken in December found that 52 percent of Democrats believed Russia probably or definitely tampered with the vote results to get Trump elected, with slightly more believing this was definitely true (17 percent) than definitely not true (16 percent).

That was before Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey, Attorney General Jeff Sessions' recusal from the Russia probe and Robert Mueller's appointment as special counsel and before Hillary Clinton laid out her theory of how her opponents at home could have colluded with the Russians to deny her the presidency.

An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll conducted this month found that 54 percent believed Trump's dealings with Russia were "illegal" or "unethical." Only 36 percent said he had done nothing wrong, a tick below his national job approval ratings.

While there is a huge partisan divide in those numbers, with 80 percent of Democrats convinced the president acted unethically or illegally, 58 percent of independents agree. Numbers like those, along with Republican elected officials' misgivings about improving relations with Putin, have Democrats seeing an opening. Whether particular aides, like Kremlin critic Fiona Hill, will attend the Putin meeting has received unusual attention (she won't).

Trump is the third consecutive president who has met with Putin with the hope of tamping down tensions with Russia and cooperating on thorny international issues. Neither former President George W. Bush nor former President Barack Obama was successful and neither faced the same political pressures at home while trying.

The rest is here:
Democrats ready to pounce on Trump missteps with Putin - Washington Examiner

To state the obvious: Partisan video clips are not designed to make the other party look good. Theres an art to these things. You compile the worst moments by the other team, or by an opponent, and try to make them go viral.

But a strange, flailing campaign by the Republican National Committee to demand a Democratic fix for the Affordable Care Act goes unusually far in misrepresenting what the opposition party is doing or saying.The RNCs push began on Wednesday with a series of tweets at Democrats such as Hillary Clinton, demanding they put up plans of their own. Clinton responded, predictably, by linking to the ACA plan she ran on in 2016, which included fully funding insurance subsidies and letting younger people buy into Medicare.

Unbowed, the RNC released a compilation of Democrats being asked by talking headswhy they would not work with Republicans to fix the ACA. Most analysis of the videohas been that its simply bizarre. As Republicans know, the opposition party does not need to run on its own detailed health plan to win elections.

But the video makes it look like Democrats are not just evasive, but stumped when askedwhat theyd be willing to change to fix the ACA. Thats not whats been happening. Here are the three main clips, with the answers that were sliced out of the video printed in bold. With Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.):

NBC News: Would it be smart for Democrats to offer their own alternatives, their own fixes for Obamacare now, and try to bring Republicans on board?

SANDERS: Well, thats exactly thats a very good point. And that is some of the ideas that we have been talking about. For example, I, personally, speaking only for myself, think that for a start, while we move to pass a Medicare-for-all single-payer program; short term, we should lower the age of Medicare down from 65 to 55. Secondly, I think we need a public option. That means in every state in the country, if you dont like what the private insurance companies are offering, then you have a public option with decent benefits. Thirdly, weve got to deal with the cost of prescription drugs in this country.

With Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) less substance, possibly because the question was about President Trumps complaint that Democrats were not working with Republicans:

CNN: Do you share part of the burden for a failure to improve Obamacare?

WARNER: Im viewed as one of the most bipartisan guys in the United States Senate. Every bill I work on, Ive got a Republican partner. There has been no outreach by the Republicans to the Democrats. They decided theyre using this sort of strange process called reconciliation that allows them to pass a bill with 51 votes, not the normal 60. Unfortunately, the bill thats come out of that has been pretty godawful.

With Rep. Jackie Speier(D-Calif.):

CNN: Why arent you working to fix this, rather than just saying no? What do you say to them?

SPEIER: What I would say to them is: Theyre absolutely right. There are a lot of amendments we have to make to Obamacare, just like there were a lot of amendments that were made to Medicare after it became law in this country. We have to fix the cost elements in the Affordable Care Act. We have to have more cost containment. I am with them in wanting to do that.

Left out of the video is that most Democrats want to respond to the immediate threat to the ACA, as cited by panicky insurers, by fully funding the taxpayer subsidies that make plans on state exchanges more affordable. And lets be fair:left out of seven years of Democratic attacks on the GOP was that Republicans did have health-care bills of their own, theoretically ready to go as soon as the ACA was repealed. (The last six months have revealed that they were less ready than advertised.)

But sometimes, these attempts by one party to shape a narrative are so dishonest than you wonder what the point was. Here, it seems that Republicans are trying to bait Democrats into endorsing a single-payer health care bill as Sanders plans to do when the AHCA/BCRA debate is over. For weeks, the White House has argued that the coming health-care choice is not between the ACA and its repeal, but between the Republican bill and a pricey single-payer plan.

There are two problems with that. One: Obviously, Democrats who get behind a single-payer bill will have answered the whats your plan question. And two, to the great delight of Democrats, the Republicans health-care bills are far less popular than the concept of single-payer Medicare for all.

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Republicans try to shift health-care blame back to Democrats - Washington Post

On domestic policy, the Democratic Party is moving left. On foreign policy, the Democratic Party barely exists. Yes, Democrats like climate change agreements and oppose banning refugees. But those are extensions of the partys domestic commitments. Yes, Democrats support a hard line against Vladimir Putin. But thats mostly because he helped elect Donald Trump. What is the Democratic position on Syrias civil war? Or Chinese imperialism in the South China sea? Or Saudi Arabias war in Yemen and bullying of Qatar? There isnt one. President Obama stood for the proposition that America should resist costly military interventions and seek diplomatic agreements with longtime foes. When it comes to war and peace, the post-Obama Democratic Party doesnt really stand for much at all.

How to Deal With North Korea

Take North Korea. Ask congressional Democrats what America should do about Kim Jong Uns nuclear ambitions and they mostly answer: more pressure. Which is the same answer Republicans give. After Kim tested an intercontinental ballistic missile this week, Politico reported that Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday called on President Donald Trump to increase pressure on North Korea and China. In May, every Democrat in the House joined every Republican except one in supporting a bill to impose new sanctions against companies that do business with Pyongyang. In March, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity, Ed Markey, joined his Republican counterpart in praising the Trump administration for imposing new sanctions of its own.

For Republicans, this stance is ideologically coherent. Republicans tend to think Ronald Reagan proved that the way to deal with adversaries is through ideological denunciations, economic sanctions, and military threats. By contrast, Democratsat least in the Obama eraemphasized diplomacy and international cooperation. Instead of seeking the capitulation of hostile regimes, they sought deals that involved compromise by both sides. They supported pressure only when it helped to bring such deals about.

Not anymore. When I asked the veteran arms-control expert Joe Cirincione what todays Democrats believe about North Korea, he answered: A Bud Light version of the hawkish neocon view.

What makes this so tragic is that the path Trump is onwith bipartisan supportis doomed to fail. Were Democrats willing to risk a political fight, they could offer a better way.

Trumps path is doomed to fail because it is based on scaring Pyongyang into giving up its nuclear weapons when fear of the United States is a major reason Pyongyang wants nuclear weapons in the first place. Given that North Korea still has no peace treaty with the U.S. (the Korean War ended in an armistice) and watches American troops patrol the other side of the demilitarized zone, it has considered the United States a threat for a long time. But over the last 15 years, Americas efforts at regime change have left Pyongyang even more convinced that only nuclear weapons bring protection.

In April 2003, a month after the U.S. invaded Iraq, a North Korean spokesman declared that only military deterrent force, supported by ultra-modern weapons, can avert a war and protect the security of the nation. This is the lesson drawn from the Iraqi war. When Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test last January, its official news agency declared that, The Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq and the Qaddafi regime in Libya could not escape the fate of destruction after being deprived of their foundations for nuclear development and giving up nuclear programs of their own accord. Therefore, History proves that powerful nuclear deterrence serves as the strongest treasured sword for frustrating outsiders aggression. As Dartmouths David Kang has explained, To dismiss North Koreas security fears is to miss the root cause of North Koreas actions.

The Trump administration, however, believes Americas problem is that its not scaring North Korea enough. Asked as a candidate about assassinating Kim, Trump replied, Ive heard of worse things. In April, Mike Pence said that, When the president says all options are on the table, all options are on the table. Were trying to make it very clear to people in this part of the world that we are going to achieve the end of a denuclearization of the Korean peninsulaone way or the other. And in March, the U.S. and South Korea held an eight-week-long training exercise, involving more than 300,000 troopsmany more than in past yearsin which the two armies practiced missile strikes against North Koreas nuclear sites and decapitation raids aimed at killing its leaders. In response, Kim Jong Un appears to have quickened the pace of his nuclear and missile tests. Which was entirely predictable given what North Korea has said and done in the past.

The Trump administrations other strategy has been to urge China to pressure North Korea economically. (America doesnt do enough business with Pyongyang to wield direct economic leverage. China, by contrast, accounts for roughly 85 percent of North Koreas international trade.) But even as Democrats and Republicans responded to this weeks intercontinental ballistic missile test by echoing Trumps demands, Trump himself was conceding that those demands have failed. Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter, he tweeted on Wednesday. So much for China working with us.

What Trump doesnt seem to grasp is why China isnt working with us. The reason is that as frustrating as China finds Kims regime, its more afraid of contributing to its collapse. If North Korea fell into chaos, China would have chaos on its border. If South Korea swallowed North Korea, China could have American troops on its bordera situation which it went to war in 1950 to prevent.

A Democratic alternative would start with the same recognition that underlay Obamas negotiations with Iran: Convincing adversaries to curb their military arsenals requires making America not more threatening, but less so. (Contrary to Republican mythology, Reagan embraced that same logic towards the USSR as early as 1984.)

Although neither Democrats nor the elite press is paying much attention, a number of former policymakers have offered ways to begin doing this. Last September, a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force led by former Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen and former Senator Sam Nunn suggested that the U.S. and South Korea consider modifications to the scale and content of U.S.-ROK joint military exercises as part of a deal with North Korea. This June, a group of international experts, including former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Cartwright and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering proposed the same thing: the suspension, reduction and eventual cessation of US military exercises in South Korea. That same month, a letter from former Secretary of Defense William Perry, former Secretary of State George Schultz and former Senator Richard Lugar gestured in the same direction. Washington, it said, should make clear that the United States does not have hostile intentions toward North Korea. In other words, do exactly the opposite of what Trumpwith bipartisan supporthas done.

The Council on Foreign Relations Task Force also suggested that in order to convince China to use its influence with Pyongyang, the United States should be open to revising the number and disposition of U.S. forces on the peninsula. In other words, promise Beijing that even if Korea reunifies, American troops will never stand on the banks of the Yalu River.

Its too late to convince North Korea to scrap its nuclear and missile programs. But, with luck, concessions of the kind proposed by these former officials could be part of a deal to get Pyongyang to freeze them. And if you dont think that would constitute a major accomplishment, remember that Pyongyang still hasnt learned how to place a nuclear device on an intercontinental ballistic missile. In the next few years it likely will.

If Democrats offer such a vision, Republicans will immediately reply that you cant negotiate with Pyongyang. All of those negotiations and discussions failed, miserably, declared Pence in April. The mantra North Korea always cheats is so uncontested that it even shows up in news articles. The past three presidents have tried to negotiate, wrote Washington Post National Political Correspondent James Hohlman on Wednesday, only to learn that Pyongyang can never be trusted.

But thats at best a half-truth. Take the most important U.S.-North Korean nuclear deal, the 1994 Agreed Framework. Pyongyang promised to freeze its nuclear program. In return, the U.S. promised to provide heavy fuel oil to compensate for the electricity North Korea would lose by shutting down its plutonium reactor, to help build an entirely new, light water reactor, and to move toward normalizing relations.

Critics say North Korea cheated by secretly pursuing a different pathvia uranium enrichmenttoward a bomb. Thats true. But the U.S. cheated too. Because of objections by the Republican Congress, the United States repeatedly failed to deliver the fuel oil it had promised on time. As early as 1997, notes Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council, Pyongyang warned that if the U.S. didnt meet its commitments, it wouldnt either. Still, North Korea did not reopen its plutonium reactor, a facility that could, according to U.S. estimates, have produced 100 nuclear bombs. And by the end of the Clinton administration, the United States and North Korea had pledged that neither country would have hostile intent toward the other.

When the Bush administration took office, however, it refused to reaffirm this declaration of no hostile intent. And in 2002, when it learned about North Koreas secret uranium program, it used the revelation as an opportunity to scrap the agreement altogether. The North Koreans offered to abandon both their plutonium and uranium programs in return for a final deal that provided diplomatic relations and an end to sanctions. But as then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton admitted, This was the hammer I had been looking for to shatter the Agreed Framework.

Theres an analogy here with Obamacare. By 2002, the Agreed Framework had achieved a lot: It had stopped North Koreas primary nuclear program for eight years. But it had also developed real flaws. Instead of trying to fix them, the Bush administration used those flaws as an excuse to scrap a deal it had opposed from the start. The result: North Korea reopened its plutonium reactor and in 2006 conducted its first nuclear test.

Understanding this history is crucial to the Democrats ability to offer a real alternative to Trumps North Korea policy. When Republicans say diplomacy doesnt work, Democrats should ask the same question they asked when Republicans attacked the Iran deal: Compared to what? As a method of restraining North Koreas nuclear ambitions, Sigal argues, nuclear diplomacy has proved far superior to the record of pressure of sanctions and isolation without negotiations. Yet its that latter path that Trump, with the acquiescence of congressional Democrats, seems determined to take America down.

Why arent Democrats challenging Trump and the GOP? A Senate aide says its because the progressive foreign policy infrastructure remains so weak: A lot of Democratic members are cautious about getting out there because they know they wont have very much cover, and when they get bashed there arent many organizations that would get their back. Thats true. But its also true that progressive wonks, journalists, and activists will respond if they see politicians worth rallying behind.

The lesson of the Iraq War is that progressives must challenge the GOPs hawkish maximalism regardless of the political cost. The lesson of the Bernie Sanders campaign is that grassroots Democrats hunger for authenticity, independence and courage. If there are dangers for Democrats who challenge the current hawkish discourse on North Korea, there are opportunities too.

See the rest here:
Why Won't the Democrats Challenge Trump on North Korea? - The Atlantic