In the United States, our institutions have failed us.
This is most obvious in the recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has progressed to declaring that at least some presidents are kings after having undermined voting rights, taken away women’s rights, and made it impossible for government agencies to do their jobs properly.
But the failure is broader than that. The Republican Party failed us long ago when it hooked up with right wing extremists to try to shore up its small base of rich people. Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt would be appalled. Even Dwight Eisenhower might be appalled. And it still only represents a minority of voters.
Congress hasn’t worked since the 1980s, when the Democratic majority in the House decided it had to work with Ronald Reagan. That wasn’t enough for the extremists, as evidenced by the shutdown games that are now a frequent issue.
The Senate, which should have been restructured decades ago to fix its vast inequality, has been a mess for a long time, but even when the Democrats have power, they avoid fixing the things that make it easy for the extremists to obstruct them.
People complain about polarization, but the problem is extremism enabled by those who’d still like to pretend we’re bipartisan.
The fact that voters turned out en masse to throw out the grifter and his minions in 2020 should have enabled the Democrats to take firm charge and make it impossible for the extremists to ever again be a threat.
Yet here we are. It’s 2020 all over again. Or 2016, with “he’s too old” replacing “but her emails.” The Republicans are putting up an equally old man who is also the convicted felon who came close to destroying the country the last time he got in and yet some polls favor him.
And of course, much of the news media has failed us repeatedly. The major newspapers and television networks want to cover politics like a football game or a horse race. They are not focused on the real problems we face and which would be the best administration to solve them. They’re not even looking at the extremism and absurdity of the Republican candidate.
I mean, all you have to do is compare what happened under each candidate’s term in office. That’s just Reporting 101. You don’t need an inside source to do that.
By the way, when I criticize the news media, it’s as someone who was practically born on a copy desk and who has worked as a journalist as well as being raised in a newspaper family. I know what I’m talking about. The New York Times is engaging in old-fashioned yellow journalism while pretending to be super-neutral. That’s my professional opinion.
So we’re looking at an election where a lot of people are drumming up problems for the President because he’s old. Unfortunately he has played into their hands. Obviously that debate should never have happened, not just because it was a disaster for him, but also because it gave legitimacy to the grifter despite the fact that he lied throughout it.
I do not know why anyone on the Biden team approved a debate that didn’t include immediate fact checking of everything the Republican candidate said. It’s not like the man was going to play by the rules. You need neutral parties calling him out.
I don’t know what Joe Biden should do. I have no idea of the best strategy for keeping the fascists from taking over, except that the Democratic Party better pull together and do something as a group, either put everything behind Biden or get him to step aside for Kamala Harris and put everything behind her.
And of course, go on the attack. Make sure everyone knows the Republican is a felon. Support women’s right to abortion and other reproductive justice. Go all out for labor.
Get united and go out and fight. Give us something to support with enthusiasm. Because we cannot let those fascists with their authoritarian dreams anywhere near our government again.
I’m fine with Biden. His administration has pushed for things that have been buried and left for dead since Reagan got in office and that despite the horror of the Supreme Court. I don’t really care if he’s not always good at the performative stuff.
Though it would be a lovely thing indeed to defeat that felonious, racist misogynist with a Black woman. Winning with Biden would be fine, but winning with Kamala Harris would be glorious. I would dance in the streets.
Do I worry that misogyny and racism might screw that up? Of course I do. I grew up in segregated Texas being told that I couldn’t do things because I was a girl. I’m appalled that we haven’t come farther from those days.
But if the Democrats win again – and if they don’t, the failure of our institutions no longer matters, because they will be driven into the ground and we’ll have to rebuild the country from scratch if we ever get a chance – they have to fix the institutions this time. (Except for the news media, which is not something government can fix and which had better start fixing itself right now.)
We cannot have elections like this every two years, elections driven by a minority of people with too much money who want to see kings and oligarchy, who are racist white supremacists who want to end immigration (never mind that we need it and never mind that those screaming about immigration are the descendants of immigrants), and who would love to return to the days of Jim Crow (if not slavery) and a time when women “knew their place.”
Elect Democrats up and down the line, expand the Supreme Court so that we no longer have the outrageous rulings undermining our democracy, end the filibuster in the Senate so it can get things done, and make the District of Columbia a state. Those are all things that can be done without a constitutional amendment that will strengthen our institutions.
Do I want more? Oh, yes, much more. The Democrats are at best a centrist party. But we’re dealing with people who don’t believe in democracy and are willing to ride roughshod over all of us. Unless we uphold the rule of law and strengthen our institutions, we’re not going to be able to push to get any of the deep change we need. We have to have a functional government to have any chance of doing anything about, say, climate change.
The British finally threw out the government that has destroyed their country with Brexit and so much else.
The French just successfully defeated right-wing extremists with a coalition between the center and the left, which gives the U.S. a good example to follow. Remember that the extremists are a minority.
Brazil is holding Bolsonaro accountable — another good example to follow.
I hope all those things hold up and that we follow suit.
Win the election and fix our institutions so we can focus on making the serious progress needed in our society instead of struggling every election just to keep the extremist minority at bay.
I’m tired of working hard to make things happen only to have our institutions fail us.