Democratic Congressional representatives are getting a lot of advice from political strategists and voters about whether to cooperate with the Republican majorities in both chambers.
"Obstruct! Refuse to cooperate with the tools of dictatorship!"
"Vote with them whenever possible to keep the idea of bipartisanship alive!"
You can make a case either way. If history is any guide, we'll get a blend of both approaches. Success may look disappointing as we slog through the hard times that the new regime's policies are going to unleash on all but the richest of us, and the fortunate laborers close enough to be trickled on directly. The result will provide many anecdotes to confuse voters.
With the country's divisions referred to as Red (right wing) versus Blue (Democratic, progressive), I predict that things will get redder before they get better. Purple states will turn completely red in the midterms, as voters there are convinced that their continued tribulations are the fault of the surviving Democrats. The Republicans have had an aggressive strategy of gerrymandering, while corporate donors and right wing think tanks have directed them to take control of state and local offices as well. The messaging is dense and widespread.
Two major factors help the Republicans to prevail. A Democrat who votes in favor of Republican bills, because they might be able to insert amendments to reduce the harm to targeted groups will lose Democratic and allied swing voters who might sit out the next election, even if they won't vote outright for Republicans. Republican-leaning swing voters will use Democratic cooperation as an excuse to vote Republican because the Democrats apparently approve of the policies anyway, so what purpose does an opposing party serve? Republicans have long championed the idea of one-party rule, as long as it is their party.
When I was young, growing up in a sane Republican household, I picked up on the fact that my parents would vote for a Democrat if that candidate had better ideas than the Republican in that particular election. Because my father worked with officials from both parties during his tours of duty in Washington, and because he was not a barking mad partisan, he would examine the policies offered by any candidate and vote accordingly. The Republican Party's degeneration turned him officially into a Democrat in his early 90s, when he finally couldn't take it anymore.
Gone are the days when conservatives were simply people who wanted to progress at a slower pace, who needed more convincing before signing onto the proposals eagerly touted by progressives. That sort of conservative was always in the minority, but they had some influence. Maybe it was only to secure votes to advance their party's power, but they could choke it down. That's all gone now. Anyone like that has been purged from the party. Voters are encouraged to be angry, and contemptuous of anything "liberal." Politicians who want to lead them have to reflect this vitriol and fervor.
Voters ultimately have the power to shape their candidates. Gerrymandering wouldn't work if there weren't enough like-minded voters to weld together into weird-shaped voting districts in the first place. The fact that so many states have right-wing leadership reflects the depth of hostility that has been cultivated in the decades since the 1970s. Lots of factors have contributed, but the worst one was that conservative leaders in politics and business realized that the dark side has way more immediate power than the harder path to "peace, love, and understanding."
Side note here: one reason that the authoritarians are not worried that they will face a successful uprising if they stomp on our heavily armed population too hard is that the armed and dangerous folks will be fighting each other and the kooks and weirdos that they hate, not joining forces with them to tackle the real evil in the seats of power. Up in the seats of power, those folks will just watch the carnage and then hire whoever is left afterwards at subsistence wages.
Voters have the power, at least for a little while longer. It seems like the hardest challenge is to get enough of them to believe it and to want it. Casting a single vote seems undramatic and futile. Rallies and speeches stir up great emotions, but then it just comes down to marking a piece of paper and hoping that enough other people marked their paper the same way. And after the election you have to wait for whatever changes you wanted, while they make their way through the legislative process. All the while, a constant argument rages on all media, legacy and modern, to make you angry and doubtful.
Democratic politicians in areas with strong conservative presence face particular challenges between the ends of the political spectrum. Think of Joe Manchin. Now John Fetterman weakens the pure Democratic bloc by looking for ways to balance the pressures he had to overcome to get elected in the first place. Because the Democrats did not manage to gain a solid Congressional majority, they couldn't pile on the programs heavily enough to demonstrate to the public that their methods were undeniably delivering the improvements that voters in both parties said they wanted. Democrats are back to compromising on bills that they should have been able to reject outright. New Hampshire's delegation has similarly made hard political choices that disappoint the "resist at all cost" faction. It still may not be enough to keep them in their seats as each comes up for re-election over time.
It's discouraging to observe how social justice and acceptance of minority and difference are driven by the whims of fashion. In our local schools, our tiny handful of Black students have faced virulent racism from white fellow schoolchildren who think that it's fun and funny to say really horrible things. The little white twerps have never experienced a fully racist society. They have no way to understand all the ways in which a white supremacist society would make life worse for everyone. That doesn't matter when they are willing to add to the voices spreading that crap, making it a factor in political debate. It's the same with any prejudice. It trickles down to idiot kids who spout it to seem tough and cool. Symbols proliferate. Adults who believe similarly feel more and more comfortable spouting the horseshit and pressuring politicians to act on it.
The next couple of elections will give us some idea whether enough voters are tired of fighting about skin color and genitalia and are ready to participate in longer-term planning for the general welfare, and planetary survival.
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