Democrats Who "Get It"

The Republican party abandoned commitment to the will of the people, compromise, integrity and trust as a way of conducting itself as a political party during the Reagan administration.  Pushed onward by its own media outlets, and commentators like Rush Limbaugh, the Republicans have consistently been trying to make government fail for more than four decades.  They have taken advantage of Democrats who still believe in those old tools of Democracy.  The comparison has been made that this is like Democrats bringing a knife to a gunfight.  That's about the size of it.  

So last week, after Gavin Newsom made a blistering post that mocked Trump, calling him out for his hipocrisy in pushing for congressional seats by gerrymandering in Texas, which amounts to breaking the law if the Constitution still is the law, Scott Jennings, conservative Kentucky columnist and close political operative who helped Mitch McConnell carve out his dynasty, got all twisted up over the fact that Newsom proposed to do the same thing.  It seems that Jennings thinks it is perfectly fine, and expected, for a hard core conservative like Greg Abbott, to push for gerrymandering congressional seats in Texas but it is a political scheme when Newsom decides to do the same thing?  

Newsom gets it.  And when Democrats wake up and take action that doesn't follow their normal adherence to decorum and politeness, and they call things like they see them, it makes Republicans angry, and they don't know exactly how to handle Democrats who fight back.  Newsom's mocking criticisms of Trump, which nail his character flaws, dishonesty and his incessant, pathological lying, are outside the boundaries of political decorum.  

So what?  Trump's are too. 

Trump does things that are, from a political perspective, unethical, devious, and sometimes unconstitutional and illegal, except for the fact that he gets a pass from a judge here and there in the court system who he appointed and who operate under the corrupt impression that their primary responsibility is to return the favor, rather than uphold the law.  So he gets away with it.  

So, if that's the way it is, then there shouldn't be a problem with Newsom doing it too.  All's fair, right? 

Maybe Newsom is motivated by a possible run for President, maybe he's just frustrated with the way politics are going, and I really couldn't care less.  After seeing Democrats in Washington retreat behind their fences, to protect their own turf, make sure they get their paychecks and pensions, and taking the approach of hunkering down and seeing if they can survive the next three years, I prefer Newsom's approach.  If they're protecting their turf, then they're not looking out for my interests.  So I'll ignore the fundraising appeals, and put my money where it might actually do some good. 

And I would suggest that the turf protectors look around.  I'm not alone, by any means.  There are millions of voters just like me, frustrated to no end by political passivity that has opened the door to a second Trump presidency which was fully and completely preventable.  We can see the Democrats who "get it."  

The Texas Legislature's Democratic Party Delegation

Talk about taking bold, but risky political moves, the Texas Democrats who fled the state and took refuge in Illinois, Massachussetts and New York in order to break quorum and prevent Republicans from passing legislation to gerrymander the state really earned that reputation.  If these people had been serving all of us in Washington, back in 2020, when we had majorities in both houses, we would have been able to pack the court, overturning Citizens United, the ridiculous Presidential immunity ruling, restored Roe and set the country back on the track where judges serve as court officers, not as legislators. 

This group has probably done more for Democratic party morale than anyone else since Trump took office for the second time.  It's the kind of act of defiance that convinces people of the seriousness of the wrong being done by the other side.  And it works.  There is nothing illegal, in Texas law, about breaking a quorum, a procedural rule that can be used exactly this way, and would have been at some point by Republicans if they had been facing a similar situation.  They've done worse, in Texas.  

These Democrats get it.

David Hogg and "Leaders We Deserve"

I had high hopes for the DNC when they chose David Hogg as assistant chair.  But it sure didn't take long for the establishment to get rattled by someone who was willing to be bold and take some risks in order to win elections and get things done.  That's apparently not the M.O. of the DNC, which seems to be stuck in the trend of rewarding longevity and propping up the old line status quo.  How dare some younger person who hasn't been a fixture and a name in Congress come along with ideas to win elections that actually work!  

My enthisiasm over the moribund DNC was short lived.  Ken Martin, an establishment guy who wants to pander to the establishment, managed to find a way to push Hogg out.  But that's probably best for everyone involved, especially Hogg who will no longer be dragged down by the albatross of the DNC.  He'll get more done on his own, while they continue to push papers and twiddle their thumbs and remain irrelevant. 

David Hogg gets it. 

Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio Cortex and "Fighting Oligarchs" 

These are two Democrats who have always "got it."  Call them populists, Democratic Socialists, or liberals, it doesn't matter.  They have a realistic view of politics, they understand the opposition and the social agenda that it pushes, and they can see where that wouldn't be to the advantage of the American people, so they are bold in their actions, which are risky.  I'd say the foot traffic to their rallies is evidence of the popularity of their views among working class Americans, since that's who they are talking to, and for whom they are advocating.  

I'd vote for either one of them, for any office on my ballot.  As much as I like Hillary Clinton, I'm sorry, in some ways, that Bernie didn't win that nomination.  We'd never have had a Trump Presidency if that had been the case.  

Bernie sure knows the oligarchs.  Perhaps one of the least accomplished, dullest, useless members of the Senate is West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito.  She is the daughter of a former Republican governor, Arch Moore, and she has nothing in common with the people of West Virginia who elected her except that she was born in West Virginia.  She got her education at an elite private school, Holton-Arms, in Bethesda, Maryland, and her college degrees from Duke and the University of Virginia, along with being a member of the elite Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. 

Bernie recently held a jam-packed rally in Wheeling, West Virginia, appearing with the loud, rude, bold, risk-taking Senate candidate Zach Shrewsbury, a marine corp veteran from a coal mining family, who represents real West Virginians.  This is a long shot for sure, but Bernie is popular in West Virginia, ironically, and Moore-Capito has been an absolute zero on issues that have affected West Virginians recently, including the loss of medical care and hospital closings in rural counties, and she backs Trump, who has basically turned his back on the coal mining industry.  

Bernie gets it.  So does Zach Shrewsbury.  He's laying it on the line and has nothing to lose. 

I don't think I can recall anyone being mentioned as a potential Presidential candidate, or running mate, as young as Ocasio-Cortez.  But these are different times.  Conventional wisdom would suggest she pair up with some establishment candidate and take it from there, but I'm not so sure that an establishment candidate gets us where we want to go.  Then, there's the speculation that being a woman was the one thing that created just enough of a narrow window to defeat Kamala Harris, so Ocasio-Cortez has the same problem.  I'm not buying that.  

AOCs record shows us she's a thinker when it comes to politics.  There are ideals and a political position, far to the left by American standards, which she represents.  But she understands how government works, and she understands that she is a representative of those who elected her, not the other way around. She represents one of the most economically, socially and ethnically diverse districts in the country.  It's the communication that's important, she knows how to talk to people and convince them she's listening to them.  That's a gift.  

Her presence, "Fighting Oligarchs," is what the younger voters want to see.  They're not interested in the protocols or in keeping the status quo.  She gets it. 

Sometimes, I Wonder if They Get Me?  

I'm a long time Democrat.  I cast my first Presidential ballot for Jimmy Carter in 1976.  I've been a contributor since 1980, and I've served as a delegate to county and state conventions, and to three national Democratic conventions, where I proudly cast my ballot for Michael Dukakis, and Bill Clinton twice.  

We are in a Constitutional crisis that is getting worse with every day that goes by.  We have a weak minded, demented, morally bankrupt, corrupt, grifter in the White House who has no ability to be President of this country, and who is using this office for his own benefit. It's not just his bad politics that are destroying the country, it is his incompetence in dealing with the day to day duties of his office that are killing it.  

Unfortunately, looking ahead to the future , we should be able to see that we cannot endure until there is a chance to make a change at the ballot box.  This man is engineering the means to steal elections, and it is likely that he already has done so.  He led an insurrection against the Capitol, an act of sedition, that has gone unpunished, and he pardoned the other conspirators and perpetrators.  He stole classified documents from the White House and its hard to tell what he did with them.  He's unfit to be President.  

The Democratic party establishment had the means to keep him from ever being elected again.  But the attorney general that President Biden selected wasn't even competent enough to get this guy into court one time.  There was never any real pressure applied, and we couldn't get anything effective done in this regard even when we had control of both houses of Congress, because he didn't want the situation to look too political.  

That's where you lost me. 

Don't worry.  I'm not voting Republican.  I'm just not voting for, or financially supporting, any Democrats who were part of that status quo crowd back in 2020 who wouldn't break the filibuster to let Biden pack the Supreme Court to make sure Trump paid for his crimes, and that Citizens United was overturned.  Oh, yeah, and we would get Roe back. 

I'm not voting for or financially supporting any Democrat I see who isn't getting behind resistance to Trump and taking some real steps to raise the level of pressure to force some Republicans, as impossible as it may seem, toward impeaching and removing Trump from office, now, not later on.  Marching and speaking at protests is nice.  Actually taking a risk and doing something bold would be remarkable for an American policician these days. 

We need to get rid of Trump, legally, legitimately, quickly.