{"id":41244,"date":"2020-02-15T01:36:57","date_gmt":"2020-02-15T01:36:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=41244"},"modified":"2020-02-15T01:36:57","modified_gmt":"2020-02-15T01:36:57","slug":"a-resounding-no-to-a-far-left-ideologue-to-succeed-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=41244","title":{"rendered":"A resounding &#8216;no!&#8217; to a far-left ideologue to succeed Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=MAGA%20%23centrism%20%23farleftideologue%20%232020election%20%23POTUS&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/left-right-and-center-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-41245\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/left-right-and-center-1-300x108.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"108\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/left-right-and-center-1-300x108.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/left-right-and-center-1-768x275.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/left-right-and-center-1.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I hope my views are clear by now about my preference for the next president of the United States.<\/p>\n<p>If not, then I&#8217;ll lay it out in plain English: I do not want the next president to be a fringe ideologue with an overly aggressive agenda that has no prayer of being enacted.<\/p>\n<p>That would rule, according to what we&#8217;ve witnessed to date, the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, two U.S. senators who&#8217;ve become champions of the Democratic Party&#8217;s progressive movement.<\/p>\n<p>That would leave in no particular order, say, Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer. I won&#8217;t include Tulsi Gabbard and Deval Patrick in that mix, because I think Gabbard needs to drop out of the race and Patrick, well, he isn&#8217;t making any noise at all.<\/p>\n<p>My strong preference is to elect someone who can succeed Donald Trump who will be able to forge bipartisan coalitions, who knows how to legislate, who has a deep understanding of government and who adheres to policies that reflect more of a mainstream point of view.<\/p>\n<p>The Democratic nominee, first off, needs to be able to defeat Trump this fall. I don&#8217;t know yet how he or she will accomplish that feat. It remains a tall order, given the immense power of presidential incumbency. I have maintained over many election cycles that incumbent presidents remind me of heavyweight boxing champions: To defeat an incumbent you&#8217;ve got to <em>knock him out.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Will any of these contenders measure up to the huge task at hand?<\/p>\n<p>In a normal election year, with a normal incumbent seeking re-election, it would appear to be more attainable than one might think. Trump&#8217;s campaign rally riffs are intense studies in <em>incoherence.<\/em> This individual cannot string cogent sentences together. I listen to him, try to grasp what he is saying and damn near every time I come away scratching my head, wondering: <em>What the hell did this guy just say?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Donald Trump is far from an ordinary politician. He plays to his base exclusively. He fires &#8217;em up with his untruths, his insults and innuendo. He makes patently outrageous statements that in a prior era would have doomed any normal politician. Talk about a Teflon politician. This guy embodies the description.<\/p>\n<p>I want the next president to restore a healthy measure of respectability to the nation&#8217;s highest, most exalted office.<\/p>\n<p>I want someone who knows how to govern and someone who understands that good government <em>requires<\/em> compromise. A fire-breathing extremist does not fit that important description.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?hashtags=MAGA%20%23centrism%20%23farleftideologue%20%232020election%20%23POTUS&#038;via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I hope my views are clear by now about my preference for the next president of the United States. If not, then I&#8217;ll lay it out in plain English: I do not want the next president to be a fringe ideologue with an overly aggressive agenda that has no prayer of being enacted. That would &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=41244\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A resounding &#8216;no!&#8217; to a far-left ideologue to succeed Trump<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[7225,9221,9220],"class_list":["post-41244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-2020-election","tag-extremism","tag-political-centrist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41244"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41246,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41244\/revisions\/41246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}