Democrats should definitely continue their token resistance through the traditional methods of debate and deal-making. Republicans will honor it about the way that Russia honors arms limitation treaties, but it's important to maintain the structure of the system that should be in effect, in case we get back to it at some point.
We could be very close to the point at which the current regime could just start having rivals poisoned, pushed out of windows, or killed in bathtub and stairwell falls, and there would be no meaningful penalty. This is not because law enforcement is completely owned by the dictator and his organized crime syndicate, but because enough police and judges are compromised to slow things down by sheer internal friction and purposeful inefficiency.
Some alarmists warn that the regime is just looking for an excuse to impose martial law. I say that they don't need to, nor do they want to. Trump might be so vain and stupid, but the right underling or puppeteer might be able to explain to him how that makes his life more complicated and could interfere with golf. As it stands now, the regime could open fire on protesters anyway, on some trumped-up excuse. The faithful would back him. The opposition would explode into arguments among themselves about exactly why what he did was wrong, while coordinating exactly zero effective response. Suits would be filed. Charges would be suggested, but probably never brought.
The "armed patriots" who have insisted for decades that they were gathering their forces and arsenals to fight just this sort of tyranny will do nothing, because the tyranny will be acting out their own wishes. They've only ever wanted the freedom to be dicks to whoever they dislike. The regime represents the pinnacle of that. Those assholes stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, to try to keep that bigotry firmly in power. They rejoice at its return.
I wish I could say that there is a concrete course of action, a road map to reclaim democracy. Maybe we get there through the 2026 midterms, if the regime hasn't assassinated all viable Democratic candidates.
Will mass protests turn the trick? They suggest that the country could rise in even greater unrest, but what happens to most of those crowds when a hail of lead tears through one or more of those gatherings? We may find out. On the other hand, the Democrats suck so badly at coordinated public messaging that Gavin Newsom is now laughing it up with Charlie Kirk while Chuck Schumer embarrasses the party almost daily with attempts to be cool. And that's hardly the full scope of silly antics and betrayals. The Democrats all seem to agree on the single fact that the current regime is a threat to ordinary citizens, particularly the ones who don't fit into the narrow columns in which the right wing puts their "free people." The prospect is so legitimately monstrous that the diverse segments of the Democratic coalition are panicking a little bit. Someone needs to do something, and do it fast... okay, let's hear it.
The sad fact is, a better country has always depended on lots and lots of people making the same choice without coercion, to accept each other's benign weirdness and focus on the real problems brought about by the lust for power and wealth that has defined success for far too many generations.
We must resist all of the efforts underway now to homogenize the country and turn it toward global authoritarianism. The same "armed patriots" who grumble about government overreach only care about what impacts them directly. They cheer for Hungary's Orban and Russia's Putin. They're even warming up to Kim Jong-Un. They like what's happening here too much to do anything substantial to stop it now or undo the damage and beef up firewalls against it if democracy comes back to win this round.
Among the majority of voters less inclined to revel in violence, too many still succumb to distractions like transphobia, fetuses, or specific favorite aspects of law and order and playing by the rules. Examples include immigrants who want to get tough on immigrants, and people with student loans who don't want to see anyone else's financial prospects improve because theirs never did. For many generations, each generation did see average gains, even if every individual didn't experience those gains. Since the 1980s, we've increasingly emphasized resentment, jealousy of the advantages that younger generations enjoy, rather than a sense of accomplishment at having contributed to them.
I understand: the little shits don't seem to appreciate how good they've got it. They waste their advantages in ways that we never would. Little bastards...grumble grumble. Also, a lot of the gains in the industrialized, consumerist world came at the expense of future generations who are here now to rebuke us. Dammit! That future was supposed to be comfortably far away, along with the worst consequences of our environmental devastation. We weren't supposed to experience those directly! We were just supposed to cash in on our Exxon Mobil stocks to finance our luxurious retirements.
The Republicans gain and consolidate power by narrowing options and making life seem simple. They rate success on the basis of whom they make unhappy. The Democrats fail because the disparate groups they gather from the many who reject the right wing focus on favorite parts of the tangle of interconnected problems. They add or withhold their support based on those specifics to the detriment of overall progress on a broad, though irregular, front. The Democrats need to make more people happy for more of the time, just to tread water, let alone to gain. Figure out how to do that. When you do, let us all know.
No comments:
Post a Comment