I am not going to talk about RBG. She was an amazing lady who was integral in moving the country forward. Much more knowledgeable people than I have waxed eloquent about her.
Her passing has caused both parties to wallow in their hypocrisy. From my point of view the Republicans, in holding up a nomination for nine months on the false grounds that a president should not place a new justice in a presidential election year then turning around and choosing to place a judge within mere weeks of the election, are the more egregious of the two. They can do this because their base doesn’t give two shits about looking like hypocrites, as they have proven for the last four years.
This is where they want our attention because this is a fight they will win. This is the “might makes right party” and, as they have pointed out, they aren’t doing anything the Dems didn’t want to do four years ago. Worse, the Dems are helpfully parroting the talking points the Republicans used four years ago which only further highlights the hypocrisy of the Democrats. Instead they should be focusing on the Republicans and demanding that they adhere to the standards the Republicans, themselves, set. At a month and a half until the election the points the Republicans made four years ago are even more salient to the current circumstances.
Right before midterm elections, which were about as successful as I anticipated, I wrote about the Damned Dems. I noted the lack of leadership, the way they keep pushing for a center that the Republicans draw further and farther right, their refusal to stand up for their own party members, the way the party has not only failed to take advantage of a robust grassroots expansion it is seemingly trying to undermine it. None of this has changed. If anything, things have gotten worse. As expected, the party threw itself behind a moderate. Though this time, at least, there seems to have been minimal upper level shenanigans to ensure their choice came out on top. Then there is the lack of support, or even understanding, of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The Republican Party represents social conservatives, white evangelicals, and people for whom the rule of law is more important than justice. Quite frankly, even now in 2020, I don’t know what the Democratic Party stands for or who they represent.
The Dems policy of outreach seems shattered. They state they want to reclaim the loyalty of the (white) working class, yet they consistently talk down to them and implement policies that are for “their own good” without interacting with or listening to them. Before the pandemic, the top three jobs in the US were cashier, retail salesclerk, and fast-food worker – none of which offer a living wage. Then there are the deaths of despair. In rural states and blue-collar districts, the suicide rate in the US is up over twenty-five percent (25%) since 2000. The white working class is suffering from a spike in drug overdoses and alcohol related deaths. The American working class is literally being killed off by current policies. And still Democrats fail to insist that workers be included in the discussion.
While the Republicans cater to their base the Democrats ignore theirs. The Democratic Party is far more diverse in age, race, and gender than the Republican Party. But, especially at the top, it is still very rich and very white while the base is made up of people of color, particularly Black people. Perhaps because Democrat elites feel that the Black and Brown people who make up their base have nowhere else to go, they rarely interact with us. Oh, they speak a great deal about us. But not to us.
What they are forgetting is that people are not, necessarily, motivated to go vote against someone. We have to look forward to voting for something. Getting back to normal is not much of an inspiration when normal is a white supremacist patriarchy. What the Dems need to realize is that the last Democratic president to receive a majority of the white vote was Lyndon B. Johnson. That was before I was born and I’m almost 50. As the US becomes more diverse the white vote becomes more important to the Republicans but less so to the Democrats. Obama won a majority of the popular vote in 2012 with less than 40% of the white vote.
I am not advocating for the party to abandon white people. That would be both stupid and amoral. What I am saying is that if the party focused on those things that would push the country forward, and make it better, it would probably grow in those demographics that it has lost and shore up its base. I’m prochoice but I think the party should stop focusing on abortion and start focusing on maternal health and parental support. Focus on stagnating wages and exploding debt. The vast majority of Americans not only believe in climate change but are feeling its impact. How about some practical ideas on slowing or averting the worst of the incoming disaster? Talk to the people in low lying regions, to the fishermen, to the farmers whose crops are going up in flames.
Speaking of farmers, standing up to the ever-enlarging monopolies that increasingly run our country would be a nice thing to see. Every industry is dominated by a scant and ever decreasing handful of companies that are now cross pollinating. Their leaders becoming engorged as they suck the people dry. What kind of country allows entities to amass hundreds of billions of dollars while failing to provide basic needs to the poorest in its population? There are parts of the United States that lack fundamental plumbing facilities and clean water.
The Nazis were inspired by many aspects of America. Our crushing segregationist policies. Our blatantly racist immigration laws. But the thing about which they were most in awe is how we could maintain such cruel policies while still maintaining an air of shiny innocence on the world stage. That rosy veneer has long since peeled off and it feels as though we are Hans Christian Andersen’s infamous emperor galivanting around blind to the flaws that others can plainly see.
Merriam-Webster defines love “warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion,” while infatuation is “a feeling of foolish or obsessively strong love for, admiration for, or interest in someone or something.” Infatuation may draw us into rash and unwise decisions, but it is grounded in fragile illusion. Today the indictment came down in the Breonna Taylor case. I love my country. I love it enough to see its flaws and love it anyway. To want it to be better. To work to make it better. But I love my daughter more. I love myself more. And I am quite unwilling to follow the path of so many of our leaders and sacrifice both of us for the dream of a better tomorrow.
Sources
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2016/02/05/130647/what-about-white-voters/
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-america-taught-the-nazis/540630/
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/653196/caste-oprahs-book-club-by-isabel-wilkerson/