Where is the Democratic Party?
As the MAGA show moves forward, Democrats have relegated themselves to the role of spectators and commentators.
Where is the Democratic Party?
As we’re about to enter the second Trump administration, we must admit the Democratic Party is not positioned to respond, as necessary, to present threats posed by the unreality and hypnosis sweeping the nation. What’s become clear, as Party insiders scramble to explain the 2024 election loss with Data and Facts, so as to position themselves for power and financial gain in the 2026 and 2028 elections, is that they’ve entirely abandoned any hope of organizing a serious opposition party. They’ve been sufficiently cornered and defined by the far right. And, instead of fighting back against our present unreality, offering a clear and competing narrative which explains the failures of neoliberalism and the failed American Military Industrial Complex-Fueled Empire, John Fetterman and others are glad-handing with the enemy.
We will see how things play out. Of course, we should never expect a corporatized political organization like the Democratic Party to provide any level of effective opposition, since they have been entirely ineffective at understanding or defining the moment we’re in, at least since the arrival of the Tea Party, but probably back to Ronald Reagan. They don’t seem to view Christian nationalism and white supremacy as serious threats to our democratic norms and institutions. Now, reality is going to slap them across the face. Unfortunately, Party leaders, having utilized their positions for the expansion of personal wealth, will not feel the true effects of that slap, and will instead find themselves, once again, mimicking the now-expected liberal moral outrage at the destruction of civil decency and the rule of law, or whatever.
Democrats, as always, seem to believe Good Faith still exists in the Republican Party.
Fool me once…
I need not explain to the reader all of the caveats which accompany the bombs I’m lobbing— if you’re reading this, my sense is we’re all mostly on the same page, though some might take issue with my focus on targeting the Democrats just days before MAGA is set to take control of our government. That’s a fair critique. But until there is acute pressure placed on the people who have utilized “Vote to Save Democracy!” since 2015, and have fundraised literally billions of dollars on that message, we will not make meaningful progress toward stopping this virus now consuming the nation.
That pressure is going to have to come from us. It will need to be directed to the liberal elite who have become entirely too comfortable in their Ivory Tower of Abstraction while the majority of the nation has encountered suffering at scales not seen since the Great Depression and World War II. Just because fancy technology exists and the “average standard of living” has improved doesn’t mean our population is immune from a well-tuned siren song, which drives and divides the population toward chaos.
And so, I ask again: where is the Democratic Party?
It seems that, today, they’re mostly making Jokes and Observations on Twitter. They’re running up their tab across the Beltway Brunch Scene, texting gossip-as-news with Jake Tapper and Kaitlan Collins and Joe Scarborough, while making the rounds for their regular hits on all the best damn cable news shows. And, in effect, through this approach, they have sufficiently relegated themselves to the role of spectator.
Now we get to watch as policy decisions are hammered out between the far right and the even farther right. Corporations, social media companies, and news outlets are all making the drift rightward. Diversity initiatives are woke and reverse-racist. Fact checking is suppression of free speech. Trans people are evil and sick and shouldn’t exist.
Meanwhile, I ask again, where are the Democrats?
The only questions remaining, in my mind, is how bad things will get and how quickly they will get bad. Well, I should say how much worse things will get and how quickly they will get even worser — because the truth is, of course, things are already bad for tens of millions of Americans. The suffering and confusion and chaos and wandering are all contributing factors to the conditions which have created the powder keg our country now rests upon.
Let’s remember: we’re already 10 years into this thing. It has already been drawn out. Now, it seems they’re set to finalize their publicly produced plans to assume and retain complete control of the American government and military. The implications of these threats remain profound and we must do more than simply observe their actions — we must actively position ourselves against this regime and the oppression they’re pursuing in these riptides of history.
Albany, NY
January 2025
“We’ll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost effective.” — Kurt Vonnegut
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