Democrats Stumble in Race for Senate
So I do realize here that citing an article from The Hill is falsely emphasizing a conservative bias and emphasis, but this one covers the spectrum of Senate elections coming up from the perspective that a Democrat deciding to step down is conceding the race to the other side. In recent days, on several talk radio programs, I've heard Democratic party strategists drag out that tired, old repetitive narrative of already counting the votes based on the last Presidential election and making plans to protect the turf at a time when being aggressive and bold is a necessary strategy.
This is one of the reasons people are frustrated, why the Democratic party is suffering from low approval ratings, and why it seems that, in the face of a destructive demagogue, it doesn't appear anyone in leadership is standing up in an aggressive and bold enough manner to indicate they believe Trump really is a threat to American democracy and to the rule of Constitutional law. When the political tools were in their hands, they wouldn't take the aggresive, bold steps necessary to put an end to this, and that's why we are here now.
They're sending out their fundraising letters and emails. My social media is loaded with appeals, including from out of state candidates looking to pick up some help from blue state Democrats. The rhetoric is pretty much the same as we've been hearing for a while.
Talk is Cheap
In the days following Trump's defeat in 2020, there was a sense that justice was headed in the right direction and that the country had been saved from political and constitutional disaster by getting him out of office. We saw the crimes he was willing to commit and the lies he was willing to tell in order to try and stay in office, which horrified most people, and as a new Congress took control, opening a full investigation into those crimes, which included the organization of, and incitement of an insurrection aimed at disrupting and possibly stopping the peaceful transfer of power established by the Constitution, and it appeared everything was going to work as it should, and by the time the midterm elections rolled around, he'd be nothing more than a bad black mark on American history, sitting in prision writing memoirs as incoherent as his speech.
How that didn't happen, in spite of Democrats having the power to make it happen, and in spite of what he did being out in the open is the result of partisan politics causing the unraveling of beliefs and convictions held by Americans for 240 years. Washington, in his farewell address, has been proven to be correct in his warning the American people against becoming partisan. He saw political partisanship connected to the elitism and inequality of status and wealth of monarchy as evil, and the newly formed American Republic, based on pure Democracy of the principle that all human beings are created equal as the best way to defeat it.
IF any political figure in American history got something completely correct, that was it.
The accountability that comes with a free, independent press has gradually been eroted by the corporate ownership of media that no longer tells the truth. There's a religious ideology which, over time, has separated a segment of the population from the rest of the culture and then created a social and political environment that allows those within its grip to be manipulated and used for political purposes because they have been convinced that their "worldview," which lowers the value of human existence based on racial inequality and a false perspective of material wealth, is the right one.
The two years that Democrats were in power in Washington, with majorities in both houses and a President in the White House, produced a remarkable series of legislative accomplishments not seen in any presidency in several decades, in spite of the fact that Republicans abandoned all of the principles and protocols of functioning in a bi-partisan government decades ago. Democrats finally realized that they didn't need to compromise, and that there was a power in accomplishment, especially after the disastrous and incompetent way the GOP and their President handled the pandemic, and they used that to pass legislation and put an agenda in place that brought the country to a level of economic prosperity it had not experienced in more than 60 years.
And because the news media is so unfair, biased, and owned by corporate interests whose politics are opposite those of the Democratic party, most Americans were kept in the dark about what the Biden Administration achieved.
But the Priority Should Have Been Bringing Trump to Justice
It's possible to walk and chew gum at the same time. The overriding priority of the Biden political agenda was what to do with the former President, who had committed some spectacular crimes for which he had never been held accountable, to get into office in the first place, while he was in office, and especially in his attempt to stay in office after being decisively defeated. No legitimate evidence, even of the kind he was convinced existed, to prove there was "massive election fraud" which cost him the 2020 election. In fact, everything that turned up not only proved the ballot counts to be accurate and representative of the wishes of the electorate, but revealed attempts by his supporters to cheat and steal votes.
Trump got four years of free campaigning, in the news coverage he got on a daily basis from the media, who gave his loony conspiracy theories and his words and deeds far more attention than they did to the real achievements of the Biden administration. The Democrats didn't seem to be aware of this happening, and if they were, didn't make an effort to counter it in the mainstream media. Of course, in the conservative media silos, people were never informed of the truth, and were led to believe outlandish lies.
But the way to solve this problem was within the power of the Democrats during those two years, 2021-2023, when they held the power in both Houses. Of course, Trump was impeached for the insurrection he incited, but there would never be enough honest Republicans in the senate to convict, and everyone knew that. The Supreme Court, setting down their partisan neutrality and letting their corruption come to the surface, ruled 6-3 that a sitting President is immune from prosecution for crimes he may commit while executing the duties of his office. That should have been a signal to Democrats to do something that was well within their power, and ability at the time, to do.
We would not be here now if they had the boldness to take the risk to amend the Judiciary Act, increase the number of seats on the Supreme Court by 5, or 6 to get an odd number, allowing President Biden to appoint judges to fill those seats at once. That's called "packing the court," and it is something that has been talked about, and done, at times when the court's ideology got away from the power of "we, the people."
"Too political," said the President, whose years in the senate also led to his over protection of the filibuster, which would have had to be abandoned in order to pass the legislation through the Senate by simple majority to pack the court. He was correct in his assessment that such a move would be seen as playing politics by the other side. They've already abandoned the basic protocols of statesmanship, that was a casualty of the Reagan years. So why they felt they needed to protect Trump by holding to these outdated political tools is beyond me.
Packing the court, and abandoning the filibuster would have had long term effects that changed the way things get done in Congress, but if it had been done when it was first brought up, at the beginning of Biden's term, there would have been plenty of time to make sure the risks were minimal. But we would not be seeing the destruction of our Democracy now had this been done.
With a packed court, Roe would have been saved. Citizens United, which is responsible for much of the influence billionaires now have over government they are buying piece by piece, would have been overturned. The Presidential immunity ruling would have been overturned, and the ruling that the appeals court issued just before the Supreme Court ruled, would have become the law of the land, and no President would be above the law.
With a packed court, the justices could have wiped out all of the delaying motions Trump put up to avoid going to trial for insurrection and for stealing classified documents, expidited both trials, made sure no corrupt Trumper like Aileen Cannon got close to being in charge of the cases, and had his bags packed for Leavenworth. Looking at the political reaction to the miserable failure a second Trump term has already become, this might have helped Democrats keep control of Congress for two more years. And who would the GOP have run for President who could have won the election at that point?
Nobody.
So Why Concede The Senate Already? If Party Leadership is "Tired," Then They Need to be Replaced by More Energetic and Ambitious Leaders
It seems we're going to let the pollsters and the pundits choose and execute Democratic party strategy for the midterm elections. It's going to be based on old political analysis and conventional practices, not on the urgency of the disaster that we are facing. Well, most of them aren't going to feel it like the rest of us. They've used their political position to make sure their bank account can weather the storm, and they'll just hunker down in their big homes and beach houses and watch those of us on Social Security, Medicare and fixed incomes, who trusted them to be responsible,, suffer.
When Trump was re-elected, and the full scope of the disaster was known, and people discovered that Project 2025 was real, and moving forward, even though that's not what they voted for, the next possibility for change turned the focus to the 2026 midterm elections. Maybe, in blue states, we can hold out until then, but if Democracy is going to be saved now, 2026 is the final opportunity and even that might be too late to undo the damage.
The most sensible rhetoric at this point is actually coming from the DNC. David Hogg is proposing to help raise money to replace Democrats with some new, bolder leadership willing to take risks to save the country from fascism. Of course he's been attacked by the establishment, which affirms that what he wants to do is probably the right thing to do and it will work. The head of the DNC, Ken Martin, who has been a disappointment as far as I am concerned, at least is giving some lip service to a "50 state strategy," which is also a step in the right direction.
The DNC has been so ineffective for so long, I'm not sure it can do much good now, but if, with some new-found energy, it can contribute to a move in the right direction, I might even be tempted to send a contribution.
We need leaders who won't concede Senate races a year and a half ahead of time. There are signs of early collapse of Republican support, which should be like blood in the water for a shark. That's the way Democrats should be acting now. Those two congressional races in Florida were damning repudiations of Trump, given the size and scope of the Democratic vote that turned out, and the ground that had been made up in just a few months.
Senator Schumer's letter, which I got last week, isn't anywhere close to what we need to motivate voters and get the kind of results out of this election that we need. And age isn't necessarily the problem, since 83 year old Bernie Sanders does not appear to be slowing down. That's where the energy is going and that's where Democrats need to look for leadership to get things done and avoid the same old same old same old politics and political punditry that have led to this failure of will.
The polls clearly show that there's been enough of a shift of support for Republicans to cause Georgia Governor Brian Kemp to decide not to challenge Jon Ossoff for his Senate seat. That's a clear sign that Ossoff is leading in the internal polls that the parties trust to make these kinds of decisions. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has been thought to be another potential challenger, also steered clear of entering the race.
A brief google search will turn up news stories indicating that Republicans have concerns about the vulnerability of several of their Senators, including Susan Collins in Maine, whose public polling indicates disastifaction and vunerability, Ashley Moody in Florida, where recent special elections showed a huge shift in voter preference, backlash for what their governor and Trump have accomplished in the state, big concerns for what is happening with Iowa Senator Grassley, and though it might come as a surprise, Mitch McConnell's open seat in Kentucky, up for grabs, is a toss-up.
I'd also think that if Democrats could get a solid candidate with some energy and Bernie Sanders' backing they could take Shelly Moore-Capito out of her seat in West Virginia. She is one of the most disconnected senators in Congress from the needs of her constituence, yet they seem to be completely in the dark when it comes to her voting record against their interests, particularly rural health care. It was West Virginia's other senator, Joe Manchin, working with the Biden Administration, that re-opened one rural hospital in West Virginia, in Williamson, and helped keep the hospital in Welch, in McDowell County, open as well. Moore-Capito voted against appropriations that opened those doors.
So let's not concede just yet.
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