I’m getting a lot of desperate emails from the Democratic
Party, democratic candidates and progressive groups requesting money and
reporting some scary data about outspending by republicans. It does scare me that they are so
scared. It does seem like the
supreme court’s ironically titled “Citizens United” decision has opened the way
for a Putin-style power grab by a somewhat unpopular and quite destructive and
nasty republican party. I have
probably been dwelling on this theme too much over the past few years. I love America so much and it is so sad
to see everything that is good here squandered in such a sad way. But here are a few thoughts:
1. The emails I get from the aforementioned liberal
voices feel like too little too late.
Democratic politicians have been so consistently weak, even in the face
of great advantage and victory, that it is hard to really want to dash to their
aid. I’m just not sure what they
are going to do with my money.
Furthermore, I can’t figure out how they can’t defeat a party that
blatantly and openly voted to eliminate Medicare two years in a row, not to
mention many other things that would seem to be great political gifts. And once they get elected, they behave
even more weakly. They don’t seem
to realize that they do have an effect on the discourse. If they assent to the whole libertarian
hogwash, then all they are to us is pale republicans who have only vestigial
concern for the wellbeing of the non-rich, but no will to do anything about
it. “Sure government doesn’t
create jobs, but could we use it to create just a few jobs, please? No, ok, well, could we do a few less
bad things, please?”
2. I’m not sure I get the whole republican thing. What is the end game? Can anyone tell me? Is democracy really that loathsome
to them? I don’t see a dictator or
strongman behind this whole thing; so it just seems like mass hysteria in the
direction of how jerky can we get away with. But oh how many people are hurt by their policies. I guess because they’ve set themselves
mainly as opposed to anything from the democrats, and the democrats cave so
much that the republicans have to be ever nastier and meaner to find anything
to decry about the democrats.
It’s all kind of like watching a very slow rockslide or
something. I’ve watched this decline
(of both parties, public discourse, the well-being of most Americans) happen
for almost 20 years, and I kind of knew what was happening, but at each turn I
think the next thing isn’t going to happen.
3 comments:
well said.
It's clear that there is only one party in power in America today; the corporate party. Politicians do the bidding of their campaign contributors. Period. And with a few individual exceptions, candidates who get elected are doing so with the funding from Wall Street and massive corporations.
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