Liberals: You Are Not Wrong

An appeal to broaden the scope of your vision.

Yes, he is as bad as you say. No, he is not the main problem.

Liberal constitutional crisis: Trump gets rid of Mueller to protect himself.

Not a liberal constitutional crisis: The head of the NSA lies to Congress about spying on all Americans, including members of Congress. The president starts any one of a number of wars without Congressional approval, from Vietnam to Libya to Yemen. The Supreme Court oversteps its authority to undermine labor organizing (Janus v. AFSCME) and fair elections (Citizens United). The government violates its treaty obligations under the United Nations Convention against Torture which has the force of US law.

Liberal violation of free press: Jim Acosta of CNN loses his access to the White House.

Not liberal violations of free press rights: Julian Assange under illegal and indefinitely detention. Barrett Brown goes to federal prison for revealing how military contractors created to serve the US military are turning their services over to US corporations to conduct operations on US citizens. Gary Webb hounded and perhaps murdered for revealing that the CIA is bringing crack cocaine into Black neighborhoods.

Liberal outrage about democratic voting rights: Republicans institute laws to make voting harder and otherwise prevent mass voting. Republicans gerrymander elections to become over-represented in Congress.

Not liberal violations of democratic rights: The fact that both parties get their funding from the same set of oligarchs. The fact that elections cost so much money that only billionaires can really make a difference. The mere existence of super billionaire families controlling so much wealth lowers the importance of elections themselves as inequality at this level is inherently undemocratic. Closed primaries that restrict the voting power of the 30–50% of the population that does not want to “belong” to either party. A two party system with no ranked voting, proportional representation, or other means of allowing dissent from the two parties themselves. Unopposed Democrats running for office in the blue states.

Liberal constitutional outrage: Trump violates the emoluments clause and talks about dumping birthright citizenship from the Fourteenth Amendment.

No Liberal constitutional outrage: Every president violates the War Powers provisions, international treaties with the force of US law ignored, the NSA obliterates the Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendments, the bipartisan assault on Wikileaks and others violates the First Amendment, poor people have no access to federal courts, the consolidation of media under corporate control violates the First Amendment, the fact the Ninth Amendment has never been applied, the principle of civilian control undermined by the NSA and CIA, the cozy relationship between banks and the two dominant political parties.

Liberal evidence of tyranny: Trump jins up violence against minorities and the press, doesn’t understand or respect basic democratic principles.

Not liberal evidence of tyranny: The police summarily execute over 1000 people in the street every year, mass incarceration, white supremacist ideology in federal and local law enforcement, rejection of civilian control by FBI, CIA and NSA agents, infinite war budgets and hundreds of foreign bases, drone strikes killing civilians in more than a dozen countries for more than a decade, war in violation of international and domestic law, torture in violation of duly agreed treaty, single individuals own more wealth than entire sectors of the population, lack of basic health care for the people, propaganda in the schools, news controlled by rich corporations, monopoly capitalism, bailouts for CitiGroup after vetting Obama’s cabinet.

Liberal evidence of corruption: Trump selling condos to Russian mobsters.

Not liberal evidence of corruption: Obama outsourcing his cabinet picks to CitiGroup then getting rich after he leaves office, Clinton Foundation raising three billion dollars and providing no actual charity and failing their own audit, cheating in the 2016 primary, Democratic leadership entirely dominated by rich, coastal, white elites.

Liberal evidence of racism: Republicans like King in Iowa and Trump.

Not liberal evidence of racism: 400 years of extreme economic inequality.

The sad thing is that everything the liberals don’t like is real and they (you) are right to be concerned about all that stuff. It’s just missing the forest for the trees.