[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
If the 2020 election were held today President Trump and the Republican Party would be crushed, an epic electoral count wipeout in the 360 range and the Senate taken back by the Democratic Party. The President is a babbling, racist lying menace while hapless Republican Senators are trapped, the Republican base is forcing them to go down with Trump, there are zero indications any outcome will be different in November.
In the maddening, exhausting American political environment, why, all of a sudden in 2020 good competent transparent government will be all the rage, instant laser attention will be paid to President Biden’s competence and plans and god help him if he tells a lie, that would be terrible!
But that would be nothing if--god forbid the horror of it all—he did something liberal! Maybe something awfully environmental like eliminating internal combustion by 2030, lord help us, do everything possible to make sure the Democrats are centrists, if the Republicans regressed into radical proto-fascists and we just sat there, well, shut up and never mind, don’t let the Democrats be liberals!
Not only will the instant double standard be enforced with ethics, honesty and transparency, but President Biden and the Democratic Party will be ruthlessly held accountable for results, too, all the Republicans can do is pass tax cuts but hey, why are you not getting it? Of course Biden and the Democrats are immediately expected to move on immensely complex, difficult problems and show real progress, Republicans patriarchs are always given a pass for being incompetent bloviators, that’s so 2019.
Lord help us, the mountainous amount of work and challenge ahead of us is seriously daunting, the United States is in serious trouble and will not make it to 2050 on our current course, no way. In no order of importance, we face critical problems in racism, climate change, taxation, health care, inequality, economy, pandemic, infrastructure, and democracy mechanics. In other times just solving one would be expected enough for one term of Presidency, we are really in it.
All of this is to say as circumspectly as possible for our soon-to-be-majority Democrats to start thinking with much bigger vistas of possibility and rhetoric, starting knowing very soon the Party will completely have the power to implement real sweeping blessed change—if we take the opportunity.
Jane Hamsher—remember her? I can still feel her searing bitterness at the 2008 election and the instant Obama turn to timid centrism and Mitt Romney’s health care plan, all the yearning and energy of good liberal causes and people shoved into a veal pen, here, have some milk, maybe we’ll get back to you.
I earnestly warn President Biden and the Party not to take that path again, the country in no way can survive with it and it will definitely rip apart the Democratic Party, the liberal activist wing will not stand for it.
We cannot afford to lose the talent and power of Elizabeth Warren, wherever she ends up give her taxation and finance reform. Hire Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz at Treasury, what’s stopping us? AOC can break up Facebook from the House, Stacey Abrams gets democracy mechanics, please start finding and grooming Democratic Party performance stars in a widely shared effort, it’s our only hope to get out of this terrible mess.
I and the country desperately need the hope and the assurance of such an easily attainable future, these babbling Republican idiots are crushing my soul and the country’s spirit. Incredibly vote-by-mail is now a democratic evil, even as the President and his press secretary do it. The President smashed the employment rate and yet still crows about how great he is when it drops 3 points—in a mistake.
Reality, truth, logic and good faith mean nothing to these evil incompetent liars, go ahead, take a call from Putin and call in the 82nd to bayonet American citizens in Washington DC, can’t you see how great it all is? In a terrible, terrible way President Trump is indefatigable, no low horror of failure or death or stupidity ever stops him, I’m great, it’s all great, give me another four years and we’ll rename the place Amerikastan for Vlad, it does have a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Yeah, comrades.
Please, President Biden and Democratic Party, know that very soon complete power to smash in real liberal change will be yours, it’s not fair what you’re expected to handle but oh well, start planning, announcing and recruiting right now, citizens desperately need something to look forward to and the country won’t survive without it.