Americans are exhausted. The last four years of this administration has worn us all out. By now, everyone has Twitter fingers. Even the Washington Post's fact checkers must have carpal tunnel syndrome from trying to keep up with Donald Trump’s tens of thousands of lies. It’s tempting, when all is said and done -- after all Trump's thwarted attempts to stay in power fail and the Biden administration begins -- to try and return to the “normal” we all crave; to bring back the way things used to be. But that “utopia” never existed for everybody, and the time to pretend it did is finished. Trump will be gone. Whether he is prosecuted or not, he will leave. We hope, as citizens, that he will pay for his crimes and his family will be held accountable for theirs. However, that remains undetermined. Yes, he will continue to do rallies, claim to run again if he is not prosecuted, but that’s not a point we need to focus on any longer. The enablers remain. We cannot forget the GOP's authoritarian tactics, the white nationalism, the full-scale attack on democratic institutions and democracy itself. We will continue to be fed lies and propaganda without Trump. Fox News, One America News, Newsmax, Breitbart and all the others smaller websites that specialize in disinformation still exist. The Daily Caller, Daily Wire and Gateway Pundit haven't gone anywhere, and their nonsense will continue to appear on Facebook feeds across America. Will a certain percentage of Americans ever trust the mainstream media again? America was already headed down a dangerous path before Trump arrived. There has always been a fringe element; the anti-vaxxers, the science-and-climate-change deniers, and all of it has been perpetuated by private industries like those owned and operated by the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch and others in the name of power, greed and control. We now have a judicial branch, including the Supreme Court, that is anything but apolitical. We have a legislative branch politically owned by lobbyists and special-interest groups. The list of anti-democratic practices in our “democracy” is endless. We even have one senator in Lindsey Graham who is trying to subvert democracy with witnesses! Still no outcry from the GOP. Joe Biden wants to unify the country, but we cannot reach across the aisle any longer. There has to be a cry from the citizens for a massive overhaul of our government, and it’s needed right now. Let’s face the truth about the GOP, once and for all. They are not democratic any longer. They are authoritarians. They don’t believe in free-and-fair elections or the rule of law. They are modern-day versions of Russian oligarchs. They are behaving like every, single dictator that has ever been in power. If you think I am being hysterical, stop and think for a minute. Ask yourself, what do these people actually stand for? It isn’t for the citizens. It isn’t for justice. It isn’t for civil harmony or racial equality. It isn't for gender equality. It isn't for the humane treatment of immigrants and refugees. All authoritarians in the past have successfully divided their citizens. Some went so far as to encourage civil war and, in extreme cases, commit mass genocide. Now, Republicans certainly aren't committing genocide, however, their willful and intentional mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic has directly led to 260,000 American deaths in just eight months. The GOP has proven itself to be completely incapable of governing. The left, given all its flaws, tries to govern and help citizens. The Democratic-led House of Representatives passed the Heroes Act six months ago. What has the Republican-led Senate done about it? Nothing. In just one month, millions of Americans' already paltry unemployment benefits will expire. Why not help them? Why not become more progressive and push toward a true social democracy, as adopted by most western cultures since the end of World War II? What is so wrong with healthcare for all, justice reform, a tax overhaul, an FDR-like approach to worker’s rights and more safety nets? The time to try and reason with the GOP is over. A new GOP, yes, we can reason with them if they are willing to govern. But as it stands, this group, not a chance. Donald Trump is no longer our problem. The GOP is.
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