2017: Year of Liberation for Democrats/Progressives/Lefties- IF we want it.
"Do not interrupt your enemies when they are in the process of defeating themselves." ~variously attributed to Sun Tzu, Napoleon, etc.
Let's start here: The GOP has majorities in the House and Senate. A GOP-branded circus is about to take over the Executive branch. The Clown-in-Chief will appoint the a new Supreme Court justice, which will be approved by the GOP Senate.
Let's add another reality check: Mass communications/entertainment media are completely free of any regulated obligation to do anything other than pursue the splashiest short-term profit margins possible, in order to make their chief executives and major shareholders even wealthier.
And another: A network of right-wing funded organizations has effectively seized control of the most popular social media channels for the past few years, resulting in yeast-like growth of fake news, hate-mongering, and RW propaganda spin on every conceivable issue.
And a final one: The GOP's goal of turning the education system over to its capitalist Oligarch owners for privatization is almost achieved, through decades of degradation of the public education system, leaving large numbers of poorly-educated (at best) voters vulnerable to the propaganda of the Right.
Put all of these facts together, and to me they read like this:
There is NO conventional political or ideological strategy that can be applied within the context of any branch of the Federal Government that will effectively "stop" them from doing whatever the fuck they want to do, and there is NO conventional media-based educational, hearts-and-minds-focused strategy that is likely to change the minds of those who believed it was a good idea to vote for Trump, for any reason.
Got that? a) We can't stop the GOPpies in the Federal government from turning the U.S. into a fourth-rate world power and a complete laughingstock and/or catastrophic threat to everyone else in the world. And b) We can't "get the Trump voters to see sense/face facts/perceive reality."
This is, in the weirdest possible bass-ackwards way, GREAT NEWS!
Because here's what it means, if we accept those two things: We can stop being distracted, divided, and disabled by our attempts to accomplish the un-accomplishable.
'But Bright,' I hear some of you saying, 'isn't it our obligation as decent human beings to at least make the attempt to stop the GOP from trashing democracy and dismantling the Constitution and maybe fucking up the whole WORLD? And shouldn't we, as compassionate individuals, at least try to throw at least those Trump voters whose reasons seem marginally less horrific than outright apocalyptic hatred a lifering of accommodating understanding?'
No.
We shouldn't.
It is, repeat after me:
A
WASTE
OF
VALUABLE
TIME
AND
RESOURCES.
Here's why:
We don't HAVE to try and take down the GOP. They are already well on the road to total self-annihilation as it is. Think about this. There are so many built-in conflicts of interest, greedy self-aggrandizing assholes with wildly differing agendas, foreign powers that hate each other backing their own horses in various branches of government, and apocalyptically incompetent buffoons about to be set loose in complicated, interlocking arenas of influence, that even something with an inertial drag as massive as the Federal bureaucracy can't save their asses.
We STAND BACK, and let them do it. We attempt to stop them, we give them someone to blame for their own failures: us.
(Someone out there right now is whining about how "But if we do nothing to try and stop them people won't love us, either!" Take a deep breath, and THINK. First, "people" don't love us already, and second, getting blamed by the massive RW propaganda machine for messing up the GOP's Magic Pony Delivery Schedule isn't going to win us any new friends, either.)
We will find the leaders we need to unite around (and I assure you, it will be leaderS, plural,) not in the halls of power and the smoke-filled rooms, plotting strategies in Committee meetings and court challenges and duelling press releases, but in the streets. In the places where we least expect them. In states, and cities. On school boards, in churches, in art and literature and entertainment. In the places where conscience resides, in the small-scale laboratories of compassion and hope and progressive change.
And as the GOP crumbles, without help or opposition from us, the pain they will unleash, especially if we've given them no scapegoats to portion out the blame to, will make the case we cannot make to those Trump voters who are salvageable.
And if, in the mean time, we stop bickering among ourselves and pretending we have "A Plan" or "An Answer", and simply demonstrate by who we are, and what we do, that we care about our neighbors, our neighborhoods, our town and cities, our communities, our states, our country, and our ideals, then they will find their way into the discussion with us.
And not "A Plan" will emerge, but many plans, many efforts, many attempts, a blizzard of push-back and change-pressure and hope and determination and focus on the basic principles of liberal and progressive self-government and participatory democracy. It will power the swing of the pendulum, again, away from the Randian greed, self-aggrandizing ego, zero-sum-game school of politics.
If we seize this opportunity, and walk this path, we will be ready for that swing back, and be able to rebuild an America that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren can sustain and balance in a sadder and wiser world.
So, think about it.
The easy paths of expediency and laziness got us here. The big guns of hate and fear, manipulation and gamesmanship are on the other side.
I believe commitment, compassion, vision, and participation will lead us out, if we are strong enough to take that road.
determinedly,
Bright
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