Dear Democratic office holders and office seekers who are still for “reaching across the aisle” and “finding common ground” with the current GOP – these quotes are for you:
I hate my opponents, and I don’t want the best for them, I’m sorry.
– Donald Trump at the Sept. 21 Charlie Kirk memorial service. (He’s not sorry.)
Joe Biden is a bumbling, dementia-filled, Alzheimer’s, corrupt tyrant who should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America.
– Hate mongering Trump ally Kirk on his TV show
If you look at the problem [of domestic violence], the problem is on the left. It’s not on the right. When you look at the agitators, you look at the scum that speaks so badly of our country, the American flag-burnings all over the place — that’s the left. That’s not the right.
– Trump. (He uses “left” and “Democrats” interchangeably.
Rightwing violence is far more prevalent and deadly than leftwing violence.)
There is something wrong with them [the Democrats]. If you gave them every dream right now ... they want to give away money to this or that and destroy the country. If you gave them every dream, they would not vote for it.
The Democrat [sic] Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.
– Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff
We stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is noble. And for those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us. What do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness, you are jealousy! You are envy! You are hatred! You are nothing! You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up humanity.
You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk? You have made him immortal. You have immortalized Charlie Kirk and now millions will carry on his legacy. And we will devote the rest of our lives to finishing the causes for which Charlie gave his last measure of devotion. You cannot defeat us. You cannot slow us. You cannot stop us. You cannot deter us.
We will carry Charlie and Erika in our heart every single day and fight that much harder because of what you did to us. You have no idea the dragon you have awakened. You have no idea how determined we will be to save this civilization. To save the West, to save this republic. .
– Miller at the Kirk service
The Democrat [sic] Party does not fight for, care about, or represent American citizens. It is an entity devoted exclusively [his emphasis] to the defense of hardened criminals, gang-bangers, and illegal, alien killers and terrorists. The Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.
– Miller
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Anyway, this 75-year-old lifelong small town western Kentucky Democrat is with Jess Piper, who says now isn’t the time for “passive or reach-across-the-aisle politics.”
Piper authors “The View from Rural Missouri” on Substack.
I’ve been posting – and will continue to post on my Facebook page – her meme that warns:
Democratic voters don’t want passive or ‘reach across the aisle’ politics while we are fighting literal fascism.
Look at Texas Democrats. Fight like that. We’ll reward you at the polls.
Stand up. Link arms. Draw a line in the sand. Tell the Republicans we won’t put up with this shit. Fight back.
I was reared Presbyterian, one of the “Frozen Chosen.” Presbyterians are charier with “amens” than our Baptist brothers and sisters. But “amen, amen, amen.”
I’m getting tons of thumbs ups, hearts, and positive comments on the Piper post.
Don’t get me wrong. I won't stay home on primary or general election day. Even a “reach across the aisle” Democrat beats hell out of the alternative.
Even so, this Democrat, like Piper, is fed up with candidates and officeholders from our party who issue nothing but “strongly worded” statements against the latest Republican attempt to turn our democratic republic into a banana republic, and who prattle platitudes about how Democrats must “take the high road” while the GOP rides the low road of authoritarianism, racism, sexism, misogyny, toxic masculinity, nativism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, religious bigotry, militarism, union-busting, and social Darwinism.
I’m old enough to remember when Republicans joined Democrats in advancing little “d” democracy for millions of our citizens. In the 1960s, landmark civil rights bills passed Congress with bipartisan support. So did legislation that created Medicare and Medicaid.
In 1970, Congressional Republicans and Democrats approved a measure to create the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. In 1990, Congress approved the Americans With Disabilities Act; again, the vote was bipartisan. The Trump-led Republican party is bent on gutting all that historic legislation.
I also remember moderate and even liberal Republicans, including Sens. Ed Brooke (Mass.), Clifford Case (N.J.), John Sherman Cooper (Ky.), Mark Hatfield (Ore.), and Jake Javits (N.Y.); Rep. Millicent Fenwick (N.J.); and Gov. Nelson Rockefeller (N.Y.). In the MAGA GOP all would be deemed much despised RINOs – Republicans In Name Only.
Reaching across the aisle goes both ways. But with the MAGA GOP, compromise equals surrender, and Democrats aren’t the loyal opposition. In the MAGA world, Democrats are to be demonized wholesale and made the mortal enemy in a holy war of good versus evil.
Hate is the stock-in-trade of authoritarians. Benito Mussolini’s Fascist dictatorship in Italy was the model for Franciso Franco’s Fascist dictatorship in Spain and for Adolf Hitler’s Nazi dictatorship in Germany.
While Hitler and Mussolini, both populist demagogues, were consolidating their power in the 1930s, American writer Sinclair Lewis wrote It Can’t Happen Here, a dystopian novel about a populist demagogue who became president of the United States.
Americans who read the novel were convinced “it couldn't happen here.” But with an authoritarian wannabe in the White House, aided and abetted by the likes of Stephen Miller, one could make a strong case that it’s already happening.
Michael Tomasky already is.
“The United States of America is no longer a democracy,” wrote The New Republic editor. “It’s not a totally authoritarian state. I’m obviously writing these words of dissent, as are hundreds, thousands of others like me. We’re still having elections, so far. Most courts are still functioning normally. At many levels where the White House can’t just do turnkey autocracy, there is ferocious resistance. And there is a defiant public making their voices heard, alongside a not-insignificant faction of Trump voters who are growing disillusioned with what they’re seeing. And as the polls tell us, the mad king is failing to win people over, and public opinion, at least much of the time, still matters too. These facts can reassure us.
“But far too much evidence has now been amassed in the un-reassuring direction. A tipping point has been reached.”
--30--
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