The next two years will be the Golden Window for the
Republicans to accomplish their thirty-five year goal of “drowning the Federal
Government in a bathtub.” They’ve got the presidency, the House, the Senate,
and probably very soon they’ll have a majority of five on the Supreme Court.
Two years is a long time with a Murderers’ Row like that, for people who know
how to push their weight around.
I don’t worry too much about Herr Professor Doktor
President Drumpf. When the Republicans decide that they don’t need him anymore,
or that he’s more of a drag than a boost, he’ll be lying in a ditch dead out on
the Lost Highway without a name-tag. Hail! President Pence!
The Republicans can taste it. Just look at the
triumphant grins on the faces of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnel and the rest when
they sign some bill that reduces even further some right or security of the
working class in America. Man, y’all don’t need health care, you need FREEDOM!
You don’t need Social Security, you need the FREEDOM to invest your own money!
And of course you’ll need an even more massive military to protect your FREEDOM!
It’s enough to make a reasonable man sick.
But where are the reasonable men and women these days? We
know that they’re out there somewhere, because according to poll after national
poll, strong majorities of American adults indicate a preference for very
inclusive, cooperative policies, all peace and get-along. You might almost say
that most people seem to favor very “Liberal” policies in almost every
day-to-day matter. Homosexuals? Who cares? My nephew is gay and I love him and
his husband. Abortion? It’s never the ideal solution but I wouldn’t want to
interfere with my cousin’s choice, it’s her body after all. Marijuana? Not a
big deal, many people used to smoke it themselves and then turned out fine. Social
Security? My dad didn’t have to take care of my grandfather, so why should I
have to take care of my dad? Taxes? Yeah, those billionaires should pay at
least as much as I do. Universal health care? Why yes, thank you! Americans
would love to have a modern, universal national health system. Most of the
developed world has one already and they work just fine. So why can’t we have
one, too? And why are these other things so contentious?
I’m just going to let those last questions hang.
Many of these reasonable Americans are voting for
Republicans these days. That could change.
It might be too late to discuss the matter, though,
since we’re standing on the precipice of a sudden diminution in our
constitutional rights and a mass extinction of common sense policies that we
already have or might have hoped to get in the near future. Poof! It’s Harry
Potter time! Gone! Not magic exactly, more like a coup.
What will we get instead? MORE mass incarceration, MORE
criminalization of every damn thing under the sun, MORE job, medical and income
insecurity, MORE prosecutorial overreach in every single criminal case brought
in every jurisdiction in the country, MORE brutal repression, MORE military
spending, MORE cuts to the social safety net, MORE environmental degradation, MORE nuclear weapons, MORE
enemies around the world, MORE wars and deaths, MORE fear and loathing, MORE
income inequality, and . . .
MORE Republicans! They’ve got the system so rigged
already through Gerrymandering and voter restriction laws at the state level that
for the last several congressional elections they’ve gotten a rather distinct
minority of the votes cast while coming out with rather more seats in congress.
Democracy in action! With a couple of additional years to wreak even more chaos
on the electoral process they could actually achieve their goal of permanent
ascendency, whether they’re getting the votes or not. Why, who’s to say that
voting against them couldn’t become a Federal Crime, charged as treason or some
other grand sounding misdeed? Anti-government demonstrations are already being
charged as crimes in themselves, including charges against journalists covering
the demonstrations. If you’re not with us, you’re against us! We’re fighting
terrorism! I think that I’ve actually heard that one recently. From, you know,
the guy whose ticket is going to be punched so soon that we can start
forgetting his name already.
And who will be working to save us from this fate worse
than death (almost no hyperbole there, unfortunately)???
The Democrats? Um, probably not. Other than a very few
die-hards, that dog won’t hunt. Recall that in 2009 the Democrats were faced
with having won the White House and both houses of congress, and the best that
they could do was to rush to the nearest corner and shiver in fear, wondering
what would become of them now. They couldn’t even manage to give President
Obama a little help once in a while. The Democrats spent the Obama years
allowing the Republicans to: 1) take over most of our state governments; and 2)
run the Federal Government by a combination of bullying and fear mongering. Right
now the Democrats are far shorter of resources and ten times as fearful, so yeah,
I have little confidence in the Democrats in general.
What about the die-hards? Bernie Sanders has a lot of
wind in his sails. He’s a lovely man, and we can count on him to make some noise.
And Elizabeth Warren is a one-woman Banzai! Charge of a senator, I just love
her to pieces! Cute, smart and tough, she’s my kind of woman. Good luck, you
two! How’s the weather out there on the tip of the yardarm?
Nor do I expect much help from the electorate in
general, although there are positive signs. Congress recessed recently and our
brave Republican statesmen, mostly men, went back to their home districts to talk about the great work
that they’re doing to get rid of the hated ACA, pesky regulations, Medicare,
Social Security, and undocumented immigrants. They’ve been met by angry mobs
who evidently believed until a few weeks ago that the ACA, which they dearly
loved, was different from “Obamacare,” which they totally hated. Being
disabused of this notion, they are justifiably afraid of going forth with preexisting
conditions into whatever world the Republicans have planned for them. They’re
still waiting for those mining and manufacturing jobs, too.
The Republican Senators and Representatives, for their
part, blame the hostility on paid ringers planted by, I don’t know, the Democrats?
George Soros? President Obama’s name is also mentioned as an organizer. The
concept of truth is being followed closely into the sunset by the concept of
reality itself. Marco Rubio cancelled his Town Halls saying that people were
just being rude and stupid, and besides, he spoke to his “constituents” before
the election and they voted for him, so he doesn’t need to speak with them
again.
And therein lies a huge problem with the Republican
style of governing: by “constituents” they mean, “the people who voted for us.”
They don’t even understand that they represent all of the people in their state
or district, not just Republican voters.
Several of the officials abused in their Town Hall
meetings complained that the people at the meeting weren’t Republicans. This
matters to them. Democrats, and others, are not meant to be represented, they
exist to be demonized and ground into powder. Does anyone else see that this is
a huge problem?
I would love to see these disabused Republicans finally
abandon the party that has treated them like ignorant puppets for thirty years,
and that has done nothing for them. I would love to see them finally wake up
and vote for America’s interests and their own interests, instead of the
interests of individual Republican politicians, large corporations and the
extreme upper range of wealthy Americans. I suppose that there’s a chance that
they will see the light and change their allegiances. That would be great.
What I would love to see most of all, though, would be for
the Democrats to wake their own sleepy asses up and mount a real effort to
oppose this Republican coup. This is the real challenge for the Democrats. Come
on, boys and girls! You can do it! Put together a strong, clearly written platform
of things that people really like. Like fair wages; health security (based
maybe on extended Medicare); Social Security that retired people could actually
live on; sensible tuition for higher education and a return to low-cost
government universities for the children of working class parents; a reasonable
tax policy that would enable the rich to lavishly enjoy the profits of their
labor, or even of their investments, while contributing their fair share to the
wellbeing of the country; opposing the privatization of prisons and national
assets; criminal justice reform; reduced levels of government snooping into
everyone’s private lives; and a cooperative foreign policy. And then the
Democrats would need to work vigorously to sell themselves and their platform
to the American people, ALL of the American people. All of that Gerrymandering
has given the Republicans what looks to some people like a lock on at least the
House of Representatives for decades to come.
But all that the Democrats really have to do is get Republican voters to
change their minds, to see an alternative that they like better, to vote for
the politicians who back the program that they like the best. (N.B. We’ll get
none of the things on this list from the Republicans, none at all. They operate
on a different wavelength.)
These are things that mainstream Americans strongly
believe in; they are all in tune with traditional American values. All that it
would take would be for the Democrats to get in gear and go, go, go.
Departing from tradition, I will forgo my usual gloomy
predictions in this conclusion. I’ll just wish the Democrats luck. Bernie,
Elizabeth, Al, maybe Barack, you can do this. Now Go!
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