Perhaps there was a time in American politics when “both sides” were able to come together for the greater good of the country. That time, if it ever existed, is gone.
For his part, President Joe Biden has been tap dancing between the moderate and progressive wings of his party, while continuing to placate those who champion bipartisanship. That won’t work and most know it. What Democrats need to understand is this is no longer an option. Republicans killed it. They broke every unwritten rule, and they will not stop until they hold ultimate power. They don’t care about America. They are nihilists. They believe in nothing. Any expert on the subject of authoritarianism will advise that it is not possible to negotiate with fascists. The GOP, in its current form, has completely gone down the path of transforming this country into an electoral autocracy, says Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. It wants to rule against the will of the people. Washington keeps focusing on Democrats who aren’t siding with their own party on infrastructure, the filibuster and a host of other issues. Why? Because they have such a rail-thin majority that every vote on every issue is akin to a nail-biting drama. Usually, it is seen as virtuous to “listen” to what the other side has to say and try to come to an agreement. This is not one of those times, and it hasn’t been since the corporatization of America. We are not a place of ideals or “thinkers.” The U.S. has merely become a nation of division, money, power and obviously racism. The media and some others tried to “normalize” the GOP for too long, and it led directly to Donald Trump. They are still doing it, even now. For more than four years, many prominent public voices continued to deny that Trump led a neo-fascist movement that posed an existential threat to American democracy. Too many Americans, to protect themselves from trauma, or to evade personal responsibility for their inaction or indifference or passivity, have also consistently denied the dangers of Trumpism,” said Chauncy DeVega of Salon. Even after Trump's attempted coup and his followers' attack on the U.S. Capitol, public opinion polls suggest that tens of millions of Americans would prefer to throw the horrors of Trumpism and the events of that day down the memory well. That includes the government. Why would Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi try to establish a committee to investigate the events of January 6th as if everything was normal? We knew how that would turn out, and most likely she did as well. She was playing a political game that had no winners except for the GOP. No one cared she tried to work them. Now they use it as a battle cry to appear on Fox “news” and gripe that they, with the exception of Liz Cheney, aren’t involved. All of this played right into their hands. They can now pretend they are the victims and the deep state is after them. It lays out the perfect narrative for white grievance. They cannot be reasoned with. As if Pelosi and Democrats would have accepted having Jim Jordan and others who voted to overturn the election on the committee. Democrats must now use every tool in their arsenal to fight Republicans right now, before the 2022 midterms. We can ask nothing from Republicans, considering what they have become. They ask nothing of the left, and they lie and mock and degrade Democrats as much as possible. “Never before since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock has our American civilization been in such danger as now,” said Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940. At the time, he was right. Now, with the monetization of America and the GOP, we are in even greater peril, as the very fabric of our democracy hangs in the balance. We have facts that are falling on deaf ears. Republicans vote against progressive political agendas, but then are happy to take credit for whatever passes into law. The examples of their treachery make for a long list. It’s dangerous and will lead to our eventual demise. Without a win in 2022, our American experiment could disintegrate and only be studied as a cautionary tale for other nations.
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