iemanja

iemanja's Journal

March 20, 2017

I supported the status quo

Meals on Wheels
The EPA
NEA and NEH
The State Department
The Voting Rights Act
Equal Rights
Equal pay for equal work
a DOJ that prosecuted hate crimes
A DOJ that enforced voting rights
A DOJ that defined freedom from rape as enforceable under Title IX
A White House that valued diversity rather than White Supremacy
ACA
A President who didn't insult our allies
A time when the US held elections without interference by a foreign power
When the government respected science
When hatred of immigrants and Muslims wasn't promoted from the Oval Office
When we had a president that respected all Americans, regardless of race, gender, religion or sexuality.

Now that status quo has been shattered, and there is nothing I want more than for it to be restored.

March 9, 2017

You have no moral high ground

Which part of the constitution? And where does it say the Democratic Party is responsible for punishing the opposition in the constitution? I'd like to know the specific provisions you believe the Democrats failed to enforce? And how is it you determined that congress rather than the courts are responsible for protecting the constitution? That would come as quite a surprise to constitutional scholars and middle-school civics teachers.

Democrats did stand up in 2001: The Congressional Black Caucus, the Democrats that "progressives" consistently ignore, when they aren't calling them establishment. They are the ones who always stand up.

Let me see if I understand this argument: Your view is that a sizable portion of the electorate was angry at the Democratic Party for failing to impeach every Republican President since the 1980s, and because of that they decided to elect an incredibly narcissistic, unstable Republican with a White Supremacist agenda--a fascist? I would ask for evidence but I know none exists. No one was polled on those issues. This is yet another of a string of posts in which the author projects on to the election their own views. Given that yours date back decades before the election, they stand out as particularly strained.

I think there are a few themes that run throughout the arguments that third-party and "leftist" Trump voters were justified: 1) a contempt of government. Liberals and Democrats typically have seen government as having the capacity to do good. The self-described "left" now shares the right-wing antipathy toward government; 2) self-entitlement: We have a population that thinks nothing of wishing and working to inflict the very worst on the nation in order to exact revenge. The Trump supporters we saw at rallies wanted revenge on the non-white male population they believe have too much; some self-proclaimed progressives (who are in fact regressive) chose to deliver the country to fascism out of their anger at the Democratic Party and Democratic voters. Their reasons seem to vary. Some share the Trumpster resentment of women and people of color, some are simply indifferent to the suffering of others. They site different justifications, from TPP to now Iran-Contra, but the common thread is an intense desire to punish. Their anger at the Democratic party justifies punishing the poor and vulnerable through the policies Trump made clear he would enact during the campaign. Better to have a president who orders raids of schools and community events, stops cars (well within the US borders) demanding proof of citizenship, and implements a Muslim ban, all part of a project to whiten America?

One thing most of the anti-Democrats have in common is white male entitlement, an entitlement so impenetrable that no number of human lives endangered can compete with their anger. We see people certain that their own resentment matters more than anything, that government should channel their EMOTIONS and exact revenge on the those they so despise. That the populations must hurt by their protests votes are overwhelmingly women and people of color gives them common ground (even if only in practice rather than intent) with the right-wing Trump voters who resent the very same people. It is not self-labeling that determines what someone is but their actions. They collaborated with the alt-right to impose a fascist regime, and they succeeded. Fascism is as fascism does.

You have no moral high ground. There is NOTHING moral about the notion that self-important rage justifies inflicting suffering on the most vulnerable. Far from it. It is a worldview based on ego. A public that acts out of narcissism elects a narcissist who manifests their same indifference to human suffering. What matters is self, and that is an approach that shares far more in common with Ayn Rand than leftist ideologies based on community and collectivism.

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