Can the Democrats Meet History's Challenge? Promise Amidst the Darkening Skies
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It took a pandemic to hold the most democratic, fair, and accurate election in American history. When more people vote, more Democrats win. The GOP/MAGAs know this all too well, it is also why Trump keeps talking about “75 million votes… “ More people voted, more than ever, Joe Biden and a couple of Senators in Arizona and Georgia won. They, along with some others, can attest to the benefit. The Republicans took notice and vowed to never let this kind of democracy run roughshod over the right proper leaders of this country again.
That Republican vow left Americans facing two nation-threatening, historic challenges. The Republican populist attack on democracy itself is one obvious problem. The Democrats’ failure to address the criminality found amidst that Right-wing MAGA element is an equally obvious problem. That the two are entirely related isn’t sufficiently appreciated.
Every well-read American knows about the state-by-state crackdown on voting: Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Florida, and many others. On Friday, I wrote in PoliticusUSA that the leader in the clubhouse as Trump’s heir apparent, Ron DeSantis, just proposed a new law enforcement agency, an agency devoted solely to voting and elections. We know, and DeSantis knows, that POC, the poor, and new immigrant citizens, will often do everything possible to avoid contact with any law enforcement officer, for damned good reasons.
We all know how “good ideas” get around in Republican-controlled states. DeSantis’s new proposal (It is nowhere near law, yet), perfectly fits the new autocratic tendencies we see from the right. If it is successful, expect many of the cash-starved red states to find the money needed to follow Florida’s lead.
Given enough power, the Republicans, or - more accurately, the MAGAs, can virtually ensure that the Democrats continue to win the popular vote in presidential elections while the Republican wins the White House. Since 1992, the Republicans won the popular vote for president exactly once. Republicans don’t have enough votes. Instead of meeting voters’ expectations, they prefer to clamp down on certain voters in certain states.
This same movement will continue to ensure Democrats are under-represented in the Senate and House. A compliant (and stolen) Supreme Court, will sign off on laws that help cement Republican control, despite being a sizeable minority.
Powerful minority control of a government goes by several names, autocracy, fascism, dictatorships. As I often say, Russia has laws and elections, too. They simply play a different role, a meaningless one.
Two votes, just two, in the Senate, could vitiate the entire Republican plan and ensure future elections look more like 2020. Federally implemented voting standards would ensure real elections. If the Republicans want to win, they can propose and follow through on policies the majority wants, the opposite of their current “platform.”
Just two votes could and likely would, change history, for the better, making a democratic republic more democratic, two votes. But the two votes aren’t there and as of now, the Republican plan marches on, never satisfied.
Now the promise. Only two votes, theoretically Democratic votes - could transform the most undemocratic rule and institution in traditional western democracies, the United States Senate. Those two votes are vulnerable, even Manchin’s stand against ending the filibuster.
Why are they vulnerable? Because the Republican state by state war on voting would make it near impossible for a Democrat to win in Arizona and West Virginia. (Principles here are out the window, Manchin talked about compromise and has had a crash course in Republican “compromise” of late). It is possible these two senators will eventually see that they cannot win their own states if Republicans continue to pass these laws.
Even more promisingly, President Joe Biden, the “known-centrist,” has not shied away at all in proposing a “21st Century New Deal” in his Build Back Better, which is radically progressive and radically popular with a majority of Americans.
Hope:
If the Democrats can come together and simply refuse to let the MAGAes to implement their favorite “wedge issues” (CRT, Defund the police. etc), while concentrating almost solely on selling the entirety of the Build Back Better, especially those elements that provide critical relief to the historically marginalized POC, the poor, and immigrants, those two necessary votes might necessarily have to join the other Democrats, entirely.
The DNC must also flood the zone in Arizona and West Virginia. The DNC cannot allow a football game televised in Arizona and West Virginia without a commercial explaining what the Democrats have to offer if only allowed to get there. If it gets to the point of really playing hardball, independent Democratic PACs can enlighten the people of Arizona and West Virginia as to which companies and industries find their Democratic senator so “valuable.”
Democrats control the White House, the House, and could control the Senate. It is not hyperbole to say this may be the last time the Democrats enjoy this sort of advantage. It is an understatement to say that the planet and democracy require Democrats utilize this control.
But there is another problem, an equally immediate problem, and one that goes hand in hand with that above. Republican criminality.
Looking into the future, it is almost impossible to see anything but minority control with solidified advantages: a Constitution that favors rural white states, increasingly limited voting rights, extreme gerrymandering, vastly disproportionate representation in the Senate, and now the new problem, a movement more than willing to break the law when necessary. If Trump and the MAGAs taught us anything, it is that all expectations regarding the rule of law are meaningless under a true MAGA president. He pardoned the people who protected him! Unheard of.
Consider all the other laws and norms broken in Trump’s first administration. Now consider what awaits a second, whether Trump is president, DeSantis, Hawley, Cotton, whomever. Given what we’ve seen so far from the Biden administration’s DOJ, future Republicans at the highest levels of government need not worry about any criminal consequences. The door is open.
We saw much of the Trump administraton’’s corruption in front of our faces. But will the real lid ever be blown off? It is critical that the country knows the full story before casting a ballot in 2022 and ‘24. A minority party attempted an insurrection! And that was simply the bookend of a lawless administration. What was Jared doing in the Russian embassy setting up a safeline to Moscow before Trump was even sworn in?
It is true that DOJ doesn’t hold press conferences regarding its investigations and cases.
But we are now over a year from the election and getting close to a year in the Biden administration. If the FBI and DOJ were digging deep into the Trump administration’s action, we would expect to have heard of search warrants, at least of low-level staffers, by now. Compare what we know about Rudy compared to what we know about any January 6th organizers, whether within or outside the White House.
The bits of information we do have are terrifying and come from fearless journalists and authors, along with an equally fearless and committed House Select Committee. Neither of these entities have anywhere near the power vested in the FBI to investigate possible crimes, nor DOJ’s ability to obtain search warrants and charge people with crimes. (The committee can refer possible crimes to DOJ but DOJ still has the ultimate call.)
Without serious investigations, revelations, and arrests, the country will not get any “sunshine,” so often said to be the most effective weapon against corruption. Exposing the Trump administration’s worst corruption, including possibly coordinating an insurrection, may make it near impossible for anyone semi-moderate to vote Republican again. This, of course, impacts two votes in the Senate.
Hope:
Despite the disappointment in Garland’s DOJ, there is real hope. On Friday, Liz Cheney, second only to Rep. Benny Thompson in committee rank, said that we have only seen the “tip of the iceberg” with respect to the House investigation and that they had interviewed over 150 witnesses, many of them anonymously. On Friday, they also interviewed Trump’s biggest supporter in DOJ during the relevant post-election period, Jeffery Clark, head of DOJ’s Civil Division and the man pushing acting-Attorney General Jeff Rosen to sign letters regarding fraud, while also calling Georgia, among other activities.
But even more important than Clark, one hundred and fifty witnesses? Some anonymous? Consider which type of witness would prefer to remain anonymous? Moreover, consider the pace and seriousness an investigation must have to have already interviewed that many witnesses.
The House is up against a deadline and they damn well know it. If the elections were held today, for reasons related to the above and others, the Democrats would get vaporized in the House and lose control. If and when that happens, no matter how compelling the evidence, no matter how obvious the criminality, no matter, no matter, no matter, on January 4, 2023, if the Republicans control the House, “Speaker McCarthy” will end the investigation. Period.
No one seems to appreciate this fact more than the committee, the pace alone tells us near everything we need to know regarding whether the investigation will be complete and thorough enough to refer people to DOJ, who - if the evidence is strong enough - will be almost forced to prosecute.
From our view, seeing only the tip of the iceberg, there is reason to have abiding faith that the committee will get to the bottom of what happened at a point in time while we can still do something about it.
So there it is. Two (how fitting), two historical, nation-defining challenges facing the democrats. We cannot know how it will end, there are too many variables. There are disturbing elements we can “feel” with respect to the legislation and senate rules, and there are disturbing elements we can see with respect to allowing the Trump administration to get away with all of it.
We have three good means to bring about the promises above.
First, of course, our president, Joe Biden, seems committed to doing all he possibly can, even throwing out that “consensus-building, back-slapping, moderate” reputation.
Second, for perhaps the first time ever, nearly every single Democrat is on the same page. at least economically and they must continue to resist getting sucked into fighting the GOP’s beloved wedge issues, such as CRT and “Defund the police.” Democrats seem to realize that there’s fck all we can do about the social issues without real democracy and economic justice. Importantly, our economic programs are specifically designed to help the marginalized communities that define us as a party. Most important of all, our policies are wildly popular with all but 35% of the country, no matter the identity.
Third, the DNC and every other Democratic organization only have to change two votes. Not eleven, not seven, two. Flood Arizona and West Virginia with money, money in our economic programs, and money in our political advocacy programs. Make Manchin and Semina’s lives so miserable that joining their party again is easier than facing the next day.
Is it fair? Is this the way it should be? Of course, not. It is embarrassing and ridiculous. But we have a democratic republic to protect and that’s worth some slimy, old-school, politics. Just get it done.
Are the Democrats up to the challenge? No one has ever lost money betting on the Democrats being their own worst enemy. On the other hand, the stakes have never been higher, and we’ve never had a president with more experience dealing with Congress. The country has arrived at the crossroads that has seemed inevitable for forty years. But one can just “feel,” that we won’t get another shot, not one like this.
There are deeply disturbing storm clouds ahead, but there is good reason to believe we can ride out this storm and make it to a sunny. calm, and fair future.
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My hope is that we continue to build. JM
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