By Washington Correspondent Nellie Bly with Meta-Content Generator A.J. Liebling
It's been a reliable media standby for over half a century. Sometimes it was true:
but most times it wasn't:
Which is it this time? We'll go with Too Soon To Tell.
For those of you just awakening from your coma, we'll remind you that American Government is being actively subverted and destroyed by the regime of a bent corrupt Russian-owned bigoted demented sex criminal.
You would have thought that in response to this outrage, Democrats would quickly and uniformly coalesce around adamant and total opposition.
And if you put a honeybee on that at +140, you lost!
Very many Democrats have responded to this crisis of democracy as if they had been pithed:
Source: NBC News
Sure, as the panzers sweep across the Meuse and toward the channel, why not call for unity with the Wehrmacht? It worked out great for the French.
How did that bipartisanship work out for “Hot Mess” Klobuchar?
Judging by what happened one hour after that beautiful bipartisan moment, we'd say not great.
The struggle between the collaborators and the resisters came to a head last week, when Democrats failed to block a bent Republican resolution to fund the government, with added sprinkles of racism (not letting DC spend its own money) and subversion (letting Apartheid Leon move appropriated dollars around according to his whim and ketamine dosage).
The resisters have demanded the head of Pops Schumer, who orchestrated the armistice by leading enough Senate Democrats to join Republicans in letting the funding bill proceed to a vote.
Schumer and his apologists attempted to paint the craven surrender as protecting Democrats from being blamed for a government shutdown. In fact the Fifth Column Democrats had orchestrated those bad options by not uniting around a demand for a clean resolution that didn't screw DC and didn't give Apartheid Leon a roving commission to blow up any government he chose while the demented nominal President busied himself signing orders he didn't read or understand, like Gov. Lepetomaine.
Imagine if Democrats had posed the choice in that manner, which would have placed the blame for any shutdown on Republican whackjobs and Trump taint polishers. Schumer admitted to being terrified that the Tangerine-Faced Traitor might be content to keep the government closed for many months, even if that meant letting Social Security recipients starve to death.
We doubt it.
We'll submit that the debate over whether it's time for Pops Schumer to join the condo board at Glades of Del Boca Vista West II isn't the right one to have.
The right debate is how to oppose the continuing Republican assault on democratic government and the rule of law.
Let's start with a general principle articulated by our old buddy Lord Randolph Spencer Churchill (Winston's dad): “The duty of an opposition is to oppose.”
It worked out pretty well for Winston. Maybe the Democrats should try it.
We submit that it's more important to decide on resolute opposition than to fight about who will do the opposing. The time wasted on trying to crowbar Pops Schumer out of his position could be better spent on crafting and delivering a unified opposition message.
The Vichy Democrats usually interpose two objections to the strategy of opposition. Neither persuades.
They argue that public opinion is with the Tangerine-Faced Traitor as evidenced by his 1.5% electoral plurality and various polls purporting to show that majorities of voters approve of some of his evil plans.
California Gov. and former Kimberly Gilfoyle spouse Gavin Newsom has argued that Democrats should bow to public opinion trending against allowing trans kids to play sports, a problem that has thus far had no effect on 99.9% of athletic teams and gotten almost no traction with the cis athletes who are the supposed victims.
Of course this policy just represents licensed cruelty against almost all trans kids, like Rebekah here who wants to play field hockey with her friends without submitting to genital inspection:
Besides the transparent gratuitous cruelty, Newsom's pandering to supposed public opinion constitutes a path to failure. Given the choice between the party that offers unlimited happy hour doubles of transphobia and the one that serves up diluted transphobic spritzers, who are bigots going to choose? And what will happen to the Democrats who think that tormenting teenage trans girls is horrible? Will they say, “The hell with it; I'll be happy to abandon my principles because someone who used to bang Kimberly Gilfoyle tells me to?” We doubt it.
We think they'll be alienated and susceptible to the song of third party sirens. And we know what happens to those who chase after that song.
But there's a deeper error here. Public opinion is not an immovable mountain. It can be molded and changed by what we do and say. Just ask Ukrainian Prime Minister Zelenskyy. He used to be popular among Republicans. Then his favorability dropped 42 points. Gee, what happened?
Chasing public opinion without trying to influence it is the political equivalent of what in football used to be called the prevent offense. It can't ever work.
A second equally specious argument against total opposition to the Republican attack on America is that Democrats must “pick and choose” battles.
Why? That advice works when you want to coexist in some sort of harmony, like marriage or work or raising children. Who give a f*** about harmony with Republicans?
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| Dems, listen to Churchill! This one. |
Republicans sure didn't follow that policy in opposing every single thing the last three Democratic Presidents did. They didn't feel they had to compromise or work with Democrats on any issue. They simply screamed about every Democratic initiative, from universal health care to fostering equal opportunity to preserving the Earth to blocking Democrats from filling judicial vacancies. Why didn't they have to pick and choose?
The argument against picking battles is more than tit for tat. For example, the battle-choosers start by throwing the most vulnerable overboard, like Rebekah, in favor of various unnamed economic issues, which usually turn out to be the pet causes of Vichy Democrats (balanced budget, anyone?). That's both wrong and counterproductive.
Second, it muddies the waters. If the public is told by Democrats that lots of stuff the Republicans want to do isn't so bad, who can complain if they believe it?
Why don't Democrats as part of a campaign of total opposition tie every single thing the Republicans want to foist on us to a few simple principles:
1. Allowing a ketamine-demented plutocrat to rampage through the Government proves you can't trust Republicans to govern or to protect your interests.
2. Republicans are too cowardly to oppose their demented criminal President and protect our Constitution.
3. As for immigration and minority rights, we don't need lectures on violent criminals from the felon who pardoned 1,500 violent insurrectionists or lectures on protecting girls from the threat of trans field hockey players from the guy who was found to have raped a woman and boasted about spying on undressed underaged girls in their beauty-contest dressing room.
4. Republicans are destroying jobs and economic growth by imposing tariffs, killing jobs, and borrowing $4 trillion to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
5. Republicans are subverting US national security with insanity like threatening our allies and sucking up to Vladimir Putin.
That's five points. Even Pops Schumer can hold on to five talking points.
Is this hard?
Will it work? Why not give it a try? At worst, Democrats will shore up their progressive base and get them excited about the midterms.
It might even move public opinion in favor of Democrats.
The state of mind of Democrats after the 2004 election was not good. The party remained divided between those who had supported and opposed Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Beyond that, Democrats were on the defensive after 9/11, fearful of perceptions they were weak on terrorism specifically and national security generally. ...
As we now know, the sense of Republican strength and Democratic weakness that was so pervasive on Election Night 2004 was ephemeral. Within months, Bush gave Democrats a unifying issue with his clumsy, immediately unsuccessful efforts to “reform” Social Security. His Iraq war became an increasingly unpopular quagmire. His administration’s feckless handling of the Katrina catastrophe on the Gulf Coast became a symbol of an administration that seemed inept and heartless both at home and abroad.
This isn't hard, Democrats. And as bad as things were under Bush Minimus, they are a hundred times worse now.
That ought to scare Democrats into array.
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