Reading over the past few days of posts this morning, I realize that I’m being more dour and pessimistic than is really necessary. Yes, the world is going to hell in a handbasket and we are in perilous, unprecedented times. The Republican threat to democracy is modeled on some of the other modern neo-fascist states like Hungary and that’s not something we’ve experienced here before, at least not in this specific way.
Having said that, all is not lost. After all, Joe Biden did defeat Donald Trump and while it may be disconcerting to consider that it was even close in some states, it was a healthy victory. Seeing as they have a highly effective propaganda operation, more money than god and help from foreign competitors who love seeing America in chaos, we should remember to take heart in that. They were unable to carry out their efforts to overturn the results in states with Republican election officials and the courts stood up as did many individuals who had a lot to lose. Maybe that won’t happen in the future but we should at least be somewhat comforted that the system was sorely tested and it did survive. We’ve been warned.
And as frustrating as the Washington has been this past year, it’s important not to forget how much as was accomplished in a very short time under extremely difficult circumstances. Setting aside a successful vaccine rollout that has only been stymied by brainwashed MAGA followers who stubbornly refuse to save their own lives, they managed to pass two huge pieces of legislation, the American Rescue Plan and a major infrastructure plan. Voting rights legislation and Build Back Better passed the House and are still on the docket in the Senate, despite the frustrating roadblocks of the DIVA twins Manchin and Sinema. Just this week, they managed to get the debt ceiling raised despite insane GOP opposition and hold Trump’s chief of staff in criminal contempt of congress through what is turning out to be an aggressive January 6th Committee.
Doing that with the narrowest of margins is not a failure. Neither is the fact that the economy is actually doing quite well, despite the inflation caused by the disruption of the pandemic. The jobs numbers are phenomenal and the supply chain issues are resolving.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are just lying and lying and lying as usual, stoking culture war grievances and filling their voters’ heads with nonsense about Dr Suess and Mr Potatohead, CRT and the Big Lie.
This sort of idiocy makes you wonder if this isn’t really a problem of lead in the water:
Will all of this result in Democrats winning the election in 2022? History suggests not — people tend to vote against the party in power in off-year elections. But these are not normal times. Trump is going to be out there fighting with Republicans as often as Democrats in his quest to wreak revenge on all he believes betrayed him. If Democrats play their cards right and make sure the country realizes that if the Republicans take over the congress their first order of business will be to impeach Joe Biden, they may just gulp and do the right thing.
Anything can happen.
Whatever the case, Democrats have not been doing that badly and they may just pull off the rest of the agenda before all is said and done. It’s certainly worth staying engaged and pushing hard to see that they do.
I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your continued loyalty to this site. It’s an old-fashioned medium now but I think it still has something to offer. So, we’ll be here every day keeping an eye on all of it and trying to synthesize what’s out there in this cacophonous media world to make sense of it all. If you would like to help us do that you can support us by hitting one of these buttons or using the address on the left sidebar.
Happy Hollandaise everyone!