How many last straws can Trump manage to have? Botching the preparation for the coronavirus has cost the stock market many thousands of points and escalated fear nationwide. Trump won’t be able to dodge this one with a well-crafted phrase or off-the-cuff dismissal like he does with climate change. And the billionaires that have insured that he kept power are not amused. A more competent puppet wouldn’t have ravaged their portfolios so thoroughly.
But the red-hat set aren’t feeling so cocky either. While their 401Ks are taking it in the shorts at the moment, layoffs are looming in virtually every industry. Whereas climate change denial has been easy when everything shifts incrementally, the stark realities of the coronavirus crisis has pitched them out of their comfort zones.
In a world without sports, we find ourselves sampling #PreApocalyptic waters. When societies and nations collapse due to climate change and sea level rise migrations, resource wars, paranoid hyper-nationalism, and economic collapse, sports will be the first thing to go.
Weeks from now when thousands have died and NO ONE is spending money traveling, every community in the nation will be hit by one or the other hardships. The number of disgruntled Republicans tiptoeing off the Trump train and easing into the #SilentCenter will be in the millions, perhaps tens of millions.
And now is the perfect time to shed the spotlight on how these folks have been played for decades. But rather than jumping on the chance to scream, “I TOLD you so!” progressives need to ask them, “You don’t have to become a Democrat, but would you please consider how it might help you to vote blue for a couple of election cycles if your goal was to take your party back?”
Although they may only choose to align with Democrats when they enter the voting booth, it may only be with their help that liberals and left-leaning independents can turn back our current state of #RepubloFascism that now directs the wheels of politics.
Both left and right have raised the rallying cry of, “Take our country back!” It’s time to realize from whom we must reclaim it. It is the forces of corporatism, oligarchy, and crafted deception that stain our flag today.
This is why Peace Party Populists uses the term RepubloFascism. Although some Democrats have been essentially silent partners in this, it has been largely Republican legislation that has handed huge corporations and billionaires this disproportionate power to determine policy, budget, and regulation of industries. Right now every aspect of passed regulation bears out the GOP Prime Directive: “Move all the money to us!”
Although many will see the #RepubloFascist label as an affront to right-leaning voters, progressives need to establish that most conservatives are victims of this deception too. They didn’t vote for deregulating environmental rules so that coal producers can have toxic, open-air coal ash pits near local waterways.
Woke conservatives and progressives essentially share the same foe, the #CORPservatives who commandeered the GOP for their rich masters. Their actions and rhetoric prove that they are in servitude to corporations and billionaire donors. Led by de facto chair of the #OathBreakersCaucus Mitch McConnell, Republicans have chosen to ignore the law, the spirit of the Constitution, and personal integrity to place party over a just democracy.
And with their motives completely out in the open, it’s time to find the growing common ground on how Trump and the GOP are #ThirdWorldingAmerica. They ware willing to #MakeAmericaMediocre and destroy our international reputation to keep power.
They must be defeated in November. So despite past vitriol, the task ahead will require understanding that true patriotism means burying the hatchet, focusing forward, and aligning to turn back corporatism to restore America’s greatness.
Despite the residual effects of continual online battles with right-wing trolls, progressives need to #GetYerGandhiOn and remember that there are millions of kind conservatives elsewhere whose doubts about Trump can be confirmed and substantiated by us. We should be the ones ready to heal our nation and guide whom PPP calls #TrueCons through the grief of being betrayed by their leaders for decades. PPP notes that #HateMakesNothingGreat, and that goes for folks across the political spectrum.
True patriotism doesn’t include hate. Yes, by consoling former Republicans, liberals can gain perhaps 10% in what should be winning margins this year. But we do it for all of us, for our children’s children, because that’s what our country needs to survive the coming decades.
Peace Party Populists challenges these folks to #VoteBlueNoMatterWho even if they don’t want to consider themselves Democrats. They need to do it to take their party back, first by purging those CORPservatives and second by allowing Democrats to win a majority so they can pass and sign #HR1, the We the People Act.
Only through that legislation’s mandates of public not private financing of campaigns, the overturning of Citizens United, and the ending of partisan gerrymandering can moderate, woke, conservative candidates compete against massively funded incumbents in the primaries.
And if McConnell is sent packing and Democrats sweep into power in November, let that day be seen as our #REindependenceDay, the day that we turned back RepubloFascism and began the process of restoring democracy to its full potential. Progressive policies will be enacted nationwide at the state and federal levels. Just taxation of the exceedingly wealthy will provide funding for progressive goals such as universal healthcare and free college tuition.
Government will be restored to its full capacity and once again act to aid society. And with public funding for all campaigns in place, Democrats will have no reason to pander to lobbyists or fear being primaried by well-funded corporate Dems.
By the halfway point in this decade, TrueCons will have purged the last of the CORPservatives and will be on their way towards recreating their party in an honorable incarnation.
As progressives, we must remember that it’s not conservatism itself that has brought us here. When hate, unchecked corporatism, blatant hypocrisy, and crafted lies are all taken out of the mix, conservatism operating from a factual foundation has a place in politics. It cannot, however, be based on division and judgement. For those that see their conservatism as spawned from Christianity, they’ll have to reject the Swiss-cheese version of Christianity that the GOP uses, conveniently leaving holes where The Golden Rule and “Judge not, lest ye be judged” used to be.
And if it is the abortion issue that has fueled their evangelism, they’ll have to accept that consistency would dictate that a baby’s life is no less precious once the child can actually cry. That means that generous maternal and paternal leave, low or no cost healthcare, a $15 minimum wage, and low cost daycare contribute to happy and secure budding families. So most of what matters after birth is fought for by Democrats and ignored by Republicans.
Also, if the goal is minimizing the number of abortions, then Planned Parenthood should be an ally because access to contraception and education do exactly that. Without all of the above, evangelicals can’t claim to be pro-life. They are only siding with oppressive authoritarians and thus anti-choice.
When evangelicals fully understand these dynamics and see who really values families, then perhaps other progressive ideals will make more sense to them. And there’s a lot of room in the political center for them to explore. They too will then see that voting blue for awhile is required to rid their party of CORPservatives and allow more moderate candidates to compete on a level playing field in the primaries.
Everything we want America to be can only happen if we vote for Democrats all the way down the ballot. Anything else is just selfish. Purity tests only satisfy the ego; they don’t solve problems. Are you listening, Bernie voters who won’t vote for Joe and visa versa? The big picture now includes survival of the species. It has to be respected.
