It does not look like the Democratic party, which would logically be the most likely source of resistance to Trump's attempt to subvert the Constitution and establish a Christian nationalist dictatorship, using the Project 2025 playbook, is going to have strong, decisive leadership anytime soon. We saw that in the vote taken yesterday, March 14, on cloture in the Senate, moving forward with the continuing resolution that Trump wanted.
Frankly, we've been seeing this for a while, now. The rhetoric is there, "Trump is an existential threat to democracy," "Trump is making an end run around the constitution," "Trump is....Trump, Trump, Trump." But when decisive action has been possible, caution and avoiding the appearance of politics has been the practice. We have Democratic politicians who say they are defending American constitutional democracy, but their actions say they are looking to protect their own position and they aren't going to take any risks to protect and defend the Constitution if it might cost them some votes down the road.
I took the time to make a bunch of phone calls last week, and found out that some members of the Senate won't take calls or emails from residents of another state. I realize that their electoral support comes from within their state, but the boundaries that run along the ground, separating political entities, don't change the fact that we are all their constituents, and they represent all of us. It's our republic, and they are serving there at our pleasure. That's we, the people of the United States. Finding this out was as big a disappointment as seeing Democratic members of the senate cave in to the whims of Trump and Musk.
If they are "protecting and defending" the Constitution, then how is this unconstitutional intruder still there?
It would have been risky for Democratic senators to vote no on cloture yesterday, which would have effectively shut down the government at midnight. The possibility, though very slim, that voters would blame them for the shutdown did indeed exist, though that would he hard to imagine, since the media attention has focused on nothing but the Republican control of Congress and Trump is back in the White House. The way his supporters think, in their complete ignorance of how government works, he would have been the one to get the bulk of the blame and the polls showed that, for those in Congress who cast their ballot based on polling data. And the Republicans would have shared that with him. Democrats, who were not part of the negotiations over the terms of the bill, couldn't be expected to vote for something in which their input was not sought.
Senator Bernie Sanders said, "This bill moves our country toward authoritarianism by usurping Congress' constitutional responsibility to determine how federal funds are spent, and creates a slush fund for Elon Musk and Donald Trump to continue their war against the working families of our country. This bill puts more and more power into the hands of the White House."
"In order to pass this bill," he said, "the Republicans needed seven votes from Democrats--and they got them. Actually, they got ten. That is sad, and a real failure on the part of Democratic leadership. NOBODY in the Senate should have voted for this dangerous bill."
So, we didn't get protecting the Constitution in spite of the political risks from Democrats in the Senate. That's a sign of what we are in for over the course of the next two years from our political leaders in Washington, at least, in the Senate. Apparently, not all of the elected Senate Democrats see Trump as an existential threat to Democracy, or they are more concerned with their office, their dinner parties, expense accounts, and protecting their own power than they are about what is happening to the American people.
The House Democrats, on the other hand, were very clear about where they stood. With just one exception, House Democrats said "NO!" to this continuing resolution, in which they had no part in putting together, and the razor thin margin the Republicans have is going to be a problem down the road when bigger issues that don't have guaranteed unanimous Republican support come up. Give the credit for that to Hakeem Jeffries, and also to some members who were very bold and right out front on this issue, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Jasmine Crockett.
We Will Have to do This Ourselves
Chuck Schumer, John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez-Masto, Dick Durbin, Brian Schatz, Gary Peters, Maggie Hassan, Kirsten Gillenbrand, Jean Shaheen and Angus King were the ten votes for cloture yesterday. To be fair, they claim that a shutdown would have been worse, and would have strengthened Trump's hand. Frankly, I strongly disagree with that, in principle. It's asinine to vote for something in which no one from your own party was included. Let them handle it, and take the blame for it, if it doesn't work out. Trump is not opposition that understands compromise. We needed to deliver this punch in the face if for no other reason than to show him he has constitutional limits.
But at least we know what to expect for the next couple of years anyway. My first step was to send an email expressing my disappointment, as a financially contributing member of the Democratic party, to my Senator, Dick Durbin. Whether he ever gets the message or not, I don't know.
The second step I took was to send a contribution to the three Democrats running for House seats in New York and Florida. It doesn't seem much effort is being made on behalf of these candidates by the DNC or by those Democrats in the House responsible for election of Democrats. That seems to be yet another lapse in conviction. Yes, these are very red districts, gerrymandered to be exactly so. But these are special elections in which turnout will be key. The whole outlook over the next two years changes if we win these seats.
I have joined the local chapter of Indivisible. That seems to be a group more interested in actually protecting the Constitution and saving American democracy than those who are merely playing the political status quo. I will be at my first town hall meeting, in my neighborhood, on Tuesday night. I'm pretty well insulated in a very blue congressional district, surrounded by other very blue congressional districts, inside one of the bluest counties in the country, so town halls are pretty fun in that regard.
This is our Republic. Sixty-nine million people who were eligible to register and to cast a ballot in the last election chose to stay at home instead. Sixty-nine million! After the massive amounts of cash spent on elections, how is it that sixty-nine million people are too ignorant or apathetic to be bothered? This is where we lost the election. And I'm going to be active and engaged in efforts to get these people registered and to the polls.
And I do not mind putting my 67 year old self into a protest. I've done that before, on several occasions and I know that protests get attention. Standing on the steps of a state capitol, with thousands of others, covered by news media, no violence, but when you've got all the exits covered, they've got to pay attention and when they can hear the protest inside their office or the legislative chambers, it gets attention.
This particular President doesn't like protests, and he can't handle the thought that his ideas are not popular and that he isn't popular. His administration is already in chaos over his inability to make his mind up on tariffs. He wants us to think that the countries on whom he's placing tariffs are taking money from us, "stealing" is is term, in trade deficit, a patently false statement that is a demonstration either of his own ignorance of how trade works, or because he has contempt for the intelligence of his supporters and he thinks they're too stupid to know better.
The Goal is Impeachment and Removal, Invoking the 25th Amendment or His Resignation
Those are all things which would take a tremendous amount of cooperation and public pressure to bring about. But I think they are all goals to keep in mind because the best thing for the United States right now, and for the preservation of our Constitutional democracy, is his separation from the Presidency. His crimes should have already done that, but we clearly don't have a legislative body, or a justice system with the will, or the ability, to carry this out. So we will have to use whatever peaceful means we have at our disposal to bring it about.
The safeguards to prevent this demagogue from ever getting re-elected should have been put in place by Democrats when we controlled the Congress and Presidency in 2000. It would have required a measure of risk taking and boldness, but that would have defined the Democrats in the legislative body as being more concerned with protecting the Constitution than covering their own rear ends. The idea of ending the filibuster and packing the Supreme Court was not just brought up, it was actually considered. But it was labelled "too political." What that means is that those who could have done so were not willing to take the risk to protect and defend the Constitution.
A lot of good would have come out of doing that, including preventing the court from making the ridiculous immunity ruling that is nothing more than a direct, conservative attack on the Constitution. Trump's insurrection trial would have been moved ahead on the fast track, and that would have slapped a label on him that would have kept him out of the White House. Roe would still stand.
So we know that we cannot count on Congress to do this. If this country is to be saved from the destruction of its Constitution and its democracy, we, the people, will have to be its saviors.
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