Published July 1st.

Presidential historian Allan Lichtman took aim at CNN's News Central hosts Monday morning for being "complicit" in Donald Trump's political rise amid the presumptive Republican nominee's bid for a second term.

Lichtman, appearing with hosts John Berman and Sara Sidner, shifted gears during his comments about recent polls between Trump and Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.

He believes Trump's remarks during last week's debate should have grabbed more headlines than Biden's much-discussed struggles.

"I love you guys in the media, but I have to say, you are complicit in Donald Trump lying and conning his way to the presidency. All of the attention has been on Biden's faltering debate, but Donald Trump's debate was vastly worse," Lichtman said. "It was based entirely on lies. More than 30 significant lies.

"He threatened our democracy by saying he wouldn't accept the results of a fair election. That he would seek retribution. Why wasn't that the headlines? Why wasn't that the greatest concern from the debate, rather than all of the focus on Joe Biden."

In his rebuke of the media's coverage of Trump, he continued:

"There's an old saying, it's not just the evil people who wreak havoc on the world, it's the good people who don't do enough to stop them. And the media right now is complicit in Donald Trump gaslighting his way to the presidency and threatening our democracy," Lichtman added.

I feel so fucking vindicated right now that a presidential historian is saying the same exact thing I’ve been saying. Trump’s “performance” was horrifying and nobody said a word. Its infuriating.

You must only care about the horse race aspect of election then.

There are people who don’t see “beat the other guy no matter what” as the aim of our great political project.

The aim of our great political project is “Lets work together to create a world worth living in, a world of broadly shared prosperity, a world with the infrastructure that is the envy of the world, a world where housing is a human right, and so are healthcare (including in the rural areas), retirement, food, education and transportation. Let’s work together to explore space and to discover new science. A world that’s unpolluted. A world where being poor is not a slow motion death sentence. A world where everyone is in a position to build some savings instead of living paycheck to paycheck. A world of internet connectivity as a human right, including in the most rural area. A world of net neutrality. A world of limited copyrights and limited patents. A world void of monopolies as a matter of principle. A world of personal bodily autonomy. A world where privacy is protected for most people but where the superrich have transparency requirements because they can greatly affect our wellbeing with a stroke of a pen. A world with a wealth ceiling and no billionaires.”

And your solution is…?

I am copying my reply from elsewhere in this thread so you can see it too:

I am against Trump as much as you.

But if we feel we must vote D “or else” how and why would the Democrats feel the need to offer meaningful reforms to their voters?

If I am a Democrat politician and I depend on billionaire good will $$$, I know I don’t even need to promise much to my voters, I just need to be less tyrannical and less insane than my friends across the isle. Then my goal is to work the system enough to get reelected, and after a few election cycles revolving door myself into a $300k a year “do nothing” job that one of my billionaire backers will have lined up for me assuming I don’t displease him.

The logic of this is inescapable. It means our only hope is for the Republicans to somehow become much more progressive so that the Dems actually need to work to compete.

The only way for a progressive voter to escape this conundrum is to signal to the Democrats that the Dems do NOT have our votes on lock. And the only way to signal that is to vote our conscience no matter what, even if it’s scary.