Balloons to a Rock Fight
Politics suck. It’s just compromise, which translates to a meh solution that leaves no one fully content nor anyone fully contemptuous of the outcome. Historically speaking, that’s pretty much the way it’s always been. But ‘always been’ does not equate to always will. The reality is, we’re not living in an era of political compromise anymore. Compromise can only work when both parties have some minimal similarities in what they want. That’s gone, overtaken by a broadly progressive Democratic party and an insular Republican opposition. Democrats have an agenda. The Republican ‘agenda’ is to stop the agenda. There’s simply no way to compromise with that.
Instead, we’re suffocating under the heavy hand of opposition at any cost — a time in which disinformation is a more valuable commodity than truth. Republicans have figured out that truth is binary while disinformation is practically infinite. That makes lying, cheating and stealing an endless concotion en route to the only thing they’re after — power: How to get it back, how to keep it and what it can wield and yield.
It’s fucking exhausting. Partly that’s because we also live in an age of hope and dreams. The constant machinations have become an intolerable cacophony of outrageous, ludicrous noise mixed with extreme cognitive dissonance. The agenda Democrats won on was real. It was designed to tackle the most intransient and important issues of the day — climate change, racism, child poverty, access to childcare and higher education, and economic inequities. That’s manna to anyone who cares about equity and life on planet Earth. It’s poison to today’s trumpified Republicans.
Speaker McConnell made it his top priority in 2008 to oppose the Democratic legislative agenda and see to it that Barack Obama wouldn’t get a second term. In 2016, he made it his top priority to fill the courts with right-wing judges. McConnell claims packing the courts as the greatest success of his seemingly endless career. That should be enough of a warning to anyone interested in legislative fairness.
In 2021, the entire GOP face Democrats not across the aisle, but across an abyss. The Democratic party of broad-based 21st century needs vs. the Party of Nyet. Refusal isn’t governance. It’s democratic dysfunctionality. But don’t get taken in — their strategic opposition isn’t just because, or why not. The end game is not only getting back into power by any means. It’s also about staying there — by any means.
Permanent one-party rule runs contrary to our democratic thinking, and yet we dare not underestimate what all the no and voter suppression is about. We may not want to believe it, but we’ve already seen their use of quasi-illegal and totally illegal methods, unbounded intimidation, threats and violence, and a willingness to throw anyone or any value under a bus. This power agenda has not only pushed our ill-prepared and imperfect democracy into uncharted waters. It has congealed into an ongoing putsch that is breaking apart the aspirations of democracy. Indeed, should the machinations succeed — and it looks more likely by the day — the price of failure is higher than any of us may want to imagine.
For example. Under 45 and every other tyrant, we were witness to complete disregard for our biosphere. We don’t have to imagine what would happen under Republican rule. We’ve already seen it. They would continue to ravage the earth, deregulate polluting industries, continue deforestation and ocean acidification, ignore planetary overheating and swiftly bring us beyond the precarious life balance within which humans can exist.
Yes, I’m actually saying I see a straight line between allowing democracy to be kidnapped by the oligarchical party of Nyet and the end of human life on this planet.
In the shorter term, our dreams of a better life for all, equity, education and universal health care would become obsolete pipedreams. Despite Democrats actually understanding how much is at stake, the Party doesn’t seem able to change enough to cope with long-term agenda supported by Republican chicanery and intransience.
Democrats just keep bringing balloons to a rock fight.
