Golden Say's Trump's Going To Win & He's Fine With That
It’s hard to say exactly who the worst Democrat in the House is. At one point it wasn’t hard at all. Kyrsten Sinema had not only the worst voting record, she was also the chair of the toxic Blue Dogs. But now she’s neither a Democrat nor in the House. If you look at ProgressivePunch’s exhaustive ratings, the half dozen worst lifetime vote scores— all ranked “F”— belong to, from bad to worst:
Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)- 69.02 (PVI— D+14)
Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- 66.67 (PVI— D+4)
Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME)- 65.31 (PVI— R+6)
Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)- 63.27 (PVI— D+3)
Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)- 53.74 (PVI— D+9)
Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- 49.46 (PVI— D+3)
All six look for opportunities to vote with the Republicans and all are virulent haters of all things that smack of progressivism. Josh Gottheimer, co-chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, and Jared Golden, co-chair of the Blue Dog Caucus, are especially odious because, beyond their voting records, they are constantly buying into right-wing framing and hissing that those talking points are “centrist.” There are few Democrats I would like to see lose their seats in a general election more than Gottheimer— one of AIPAC’s worst pro-genocide shills— and Golden, another genocidal maniac.
Yesterday, Golden penned an OpEd for one of his district papers, the Bangor Daily News, not just predicting that Trump will win but assuring Mainers that a Trump victory is not anything to be worried about. “Biden’s poor performance in the debate,” he wrote, “was not a surprise. It also didn’t rattle me as it has others, because the outcome of this election has been clear to me for months: While I don’t plan to vote for him, Donald Trump is going to win. And I’m OK with that.” He explicitly said the Democrats are wrong about Trump being “a unique threat to our democracy” and wrote that he refuses “to participate in a campaign to scare voters with the idea that Trump will end our democratic system… Pearl-clutching about a Trump victory ignores the strength of our democracy. Jan. 6, 2021, was a dark day. But Americans stood strong. Hundreds of police officers protected the democratic process against thousands who tried to use violence to upend it. Judges and state election officials upheld our election laws. Members of Congress, including leaders from both parties, certified the election results.”
OK, so here's why Golden might be worse than even Gottheimer and Cuellar— in his own words:
This election is about the economy, not democracy. And when it comes to our economy, our Congress matters far more than who occupies the White House.
Some of Congress’ best work in recent years has happened in spite of the president, not because of him. A handful of responsible Democrats, including myself and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, rejected Biden’s bloated “Build Back Better” bill and instead passed a law that supercharged American energy production, saved Medicare billions of dollars and reduced the deficit. Years earlier, Congress stood up to the GOP establishment who tried to hijack Trump’s agenda to achieve their long-held goal of repealing the Affordable Care Act. Defeating them saved health coverage for tens of millions of Americans and protections for people with preexisting conditions.
It was Congress that wrote and passed the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act to bring back manufacturing so we can once again be a nation of producers, not just consumers. We wrote laws to unleash American energy by tapping domestic natural resources— oil and gas, biomass, the sun and wind— as well as nuclear power to ensure a steady supply of affordable, reliable energy. And we passed an infrastructure law that’s already building and improving roads, bridges and ports.
In 2025, I believe Trump is going to be in the White House. Maine’s representatives will need to work with him when it benefits Mainers, hold him accountable when it does not and work independently across the aisle no matter what.
Congress will need to stand up to economic elites and so-called experts in both parties who are already working overtime to stop Trump’s proposed trade policies that would reverse the harms of globalization and protect American businesses from unfair foreign competition. We need to protect from extremists the law I helped pass that caps seniors’ insulin costs at $35 and forces Big Pharma to negotiate and lower the cost of prescription drugs.
Perhaps more importantly, members must stand up to the GOP old-guard who will use a Trump presidency as cover for handouts to the wealthy and powerful at the cost of America’s working families and communities
We must stabilize Medicare and Social Security, without cuts for seniors. We must guarantee women’s reproductive rights. And Congress must be ready to once again protect the ACA and to end huge tax breaks for the wealthy and for multinational corporations.
I urge everyone— voters, elected officials, the media, and all citizens— to ignore the chattering class’s scare tactics and political pipedreams. We don’t need party insiders in smoke-filled back rooms to save us. We can defend our democracy without them.
One Member of Congress spoke to me off the record, not wanting to insult a colleague publicly: “How utterly delusional! What did he do during the burning of the Reichstag, tell the Berlin Fire Department that it was no big deal? In one country after another, this is precisely how democracy dies.”
