Saturday, January 18, 2025

For Democrats, the Days of Gentlemanly Old School, Status Quo Politics Are Over

As long as Americans still have the right to vote, my "x" will now find its way next to the names of candidates who demonstrate understanding of the situation we now face, and how we got here, and who are willing, not only to make sure that they understand the electorate and the needs of the American people and are willing to sacrifice their own prestige and position to get it for them, but who are also willing to resist, at every turn, and in every way, the authoritarian bigotry and agenda of the far right wing extremist agenda of Trump and MAGA Republicans.  

Is Trump the existential threat to American Democracy that has been a long running theme in Democratic Party politics now, going back to at least 2016?  I believe he is.  I want to know if the Democrats I plan to support, and for whom I will vote, really believe this to be the case.  And I want to see them respond accordingly now that he has been elected.  If he is an existential threat to democracy, then compromise will simply lead to the accomplishment of his agenda which, in spite of his rhetoric, is Project 2025.  

I'm Not Sure Democrats Know What They Want, or How to Get It

As I read through the analysis of the election results being reported by various media outlets, I'm not sure how much trust I place in those evaluations.  It's been a topic of discussion here, in the past.  We do not have a free press in the United States, we have corporate media whose bottom line is profit.  And that, unfortunately, makes it very difficult to trust what I hear and read.  

For the past four years, since the day Trump got on the helicopter and left the White House grounds in January of 2021, following a seditious attempt at destroying the Constitutional provision for the peaceful transfer of power, and a demonstration of a hatred for the United States from internal anti-patriots we have not seen since the Civil War, he has been covered by every outlet of the mainstream media, every day.  Many of them, chasing down his sensationalism and deliberately perverse, anti-social mental illness, were looking for ratings to boost their profits, which is what most mainstream media has become.  At any rate, he got far more coverage than any ex-president has ever received.  

There must be research that's been done somewhere by now which proves this point.  They kept focusing attention on him, a de-facto candidate until it became clear he was going to be the GOP nominee, and then they gave him more free time than any presidential candidate in American history.  And even with all of that coverage, as favorable as 95% of it was, he did not show any appreciable gains in support, nor was there some kind of major shift in voter support in his direction.  Maybe there was some around the margins, among black men, Latinos and younger voters, as the media reported, but I live in an urban area, and if that was occurring, it wasn't visible.  

My Own Analysis Drives My Politics

We lost this election for what I see as a few simple reasons: 

1.] The Republicans blamed the Biden Administration, and Democrats, for the post-pandemic inflation, and conversely, the Biden Administration failed to gain control of that narrative and promote their messaging in a way that effectively countered what Republicans were saying.  There's a lot of deep-seated ignorance in this country about how the economy operates, especially when people associate the price of gasoline or eggs with some kind of Presidential policy.  

2.} The Republicans tapped into the fear and bigotry of white, middle class, suburban Americans and continue to harp on their long running themes, including their "replacement theory," exaggerating what is going on at the border, and scaring people with false information about allegations of crime that they commit.  Racism plays a huge role in that, something Republicans have been able to use, and Democrats, once again, fail to counter in their messaging.  The Republicans focused on a few narrow themes that got lots of attention, and the Democrats couldn't counter the false and misleading information.  

3.} While it seems laughable to me, at this point, given the wholesale licentiousness that is so characteristic of Trump and all of his cronies, and the blatant ignoring of it by prominent Republicans who claim a high degree of Evangelical self-righteousness, Republicans used Democratic party and candidate support for issues focused on the rights of LGBTQ persons to gain advantage among ignorant haters.  They don't focus on the denial of rights so much as they claim Democrats are willing to tax the middle class into beggary to pay for privileges for LGBTQ persons.  Not true, but once again, they got that message to land with a lot of voters outside their extremist base, and Democrats were, once again, rendered inept and incompetent in countering that misinformation.  

4.] Money is the biggest influence in election results.  The ability of billionaires who control 99% of the wealth of the country to contribute ridiculously huge sums of money, far outstripping the ability of 99% of the population to raise an equal amount.  Elon Musk bought this election for Trump, and let's be honest, it wouldn't have happened if that kind of money, to pay for the focused, concentrated messaging they got from it, had not been available to Trump.  

5.] The Democrats shot the biggest hole in the bottom of their election boat with all of the controversy and panic that was allowed by party leaders to go unchecked following the debate between Biden and Trump.  Trump actually came out of that debate, in the opinion of a majority of Americans, looking worse than Biden did.  Trump had a lead in the polls, "razor thin" as they characterized it, which he lost after the debate, and might have lost even more had Democrats handled it without all the confusion, caterwauling, wailing, attention focused on big donors getting their way, and the appearance of being a party in disarray.  

Ultimately, it was too late to change candidates that late in the campaign.  And frankly, looking at some of the exit poll analysis, where Harris and Walz lost votes in battleground states this time around, Biden held leads following the debate.  

My conclusion here is that the same themes keep coming up for Democrats.  We lose when it comes to messaging, and media coverage.  Part of that is because our candidates complicate the issues and try to put too much information in their message.  This is America, and with a population of 320 million, and an electorate in which perhaps a fourth of the actual voters are reasonably educated enough to understand all of the issues and the implications, messaging needs to be simple, to the point, and focused on those specific things which have a high level of acceptance and popularity.  Transgender surgery coverage is not at the top of the list.  Crime, the perception that immigrants are responsible for it, and the price of gasoline, are high on the list.  

Back to the Original Question:  It's Not Whether Trump is an Existential Threat to Democracy, but Whether Democrats Serving in Office Believe That He Is

One of the easiest ways I've found to weed out contact lists in my social media accounts is to engage in a discussion of Trump politics, and bring actual facts into the discussion.  Most of those kinds of people will disconnect from you pretty quickly, and my response is that they likely had nothing of value to contribute anyway.  The tendency of virtually all of these people is to focus on the one thing that Trump did that also was on their agenda, which was the appointment of highly partisan justices to the Supreme Court and getting Roe overturned.  And then, to completely ignore the criminal aspects of his Presidency, from the indisputable evidence that Russians helped him win in 2016, from the Mueller report, to his cover-up of his affair with Stormy Daniels during Melania's pregnancy and Barron's infancy [some lovely licentiousness there for conservative Evangelicals, huh?], to the Trump Insurrection, one of the most unpatriotic, un-American acts ever committed by a sitting President, to his stealing classified documents and the pressure he put on the Georgia Secretary of State to "find votes" that didn't exist for him. 

And now that we've seen Project 2025, heard his lies about his involvement with it and his support for it, and will see it enacted in the executive orders he issues on Monday, most of which will be struck down right away, the deniers must admit they are not troubled by these things.  

It's not possible to trust Democrats who are not troubled by these things.  Compromise and negotiation in a democracy is at the heart of its ability to work, but it is not possible to compromise or negotiate with people who do not believe in compromise or negotiation, and who are supporters of an agenda that they won't compromise on its implementation.  That's not democracy, that's not consistent with American Constitutional Democracy, and it is antithetical to the whole idea of the United States of America.  That's why it must be opposed, along with anyone who supports it, or who thinks that something can be gained by compromising with it.  

What makes me doubt the belief Democrats have in their own rhetoric, that Trump is an existential threat to Democracy, is that opportunities to make sure he ceased to be a threat were squandered, when action was possible to prevent Trump from ever being able to run again.  Congress impeached the man for incitement of insurrection on January 13, 2021.  And while the Senate, of course, refused to convict, the groundwork was already in place to get a conviction on this charge.  

How serious should this have been taken?  Serious enough to break the Senate filibuster, and pack the Supreme Court to ensure that no potential immunity rulings or derailments could come from them, especially given their propensity to be so highly partisan and the appearance of owing favors to Trump for their appointment.  Then, after the Congressional investigation concluded, using the full force and power of the Presidency, get that case into court, cutting the red tape, stopping the delays and getting Trump tagged as an insurrectionist.  Bold moves, but a group of Democrats, serious about the threat Trump posed, should have been able to get that done.  That's certainly my expectation. 

If opportunities to demonstrate the same kind of boldness, and of strong conviction, to protect this nation and its Constitution, to which they all swear an oath, present themselves again, those Democrats who demonstrate boldness of the kind I've just described will get my vote and my support.  




No comments:

Post a Comment