Sometimes, I honestly wish Democrats approached politics with the same heartless killer instinct Republicans do. The reason America is facing this existential crisis is precisely because Republicans behave so differently from Democrats. Democrats frustrate everyone — ourselves included — because we focus on process over emotion. Reacting to one’s emotions is far easier of course because all one has to do is react. Governing can’t work that way. It just can’t. Administering justice in a fair, equal way — completely sans politics — takes a lot longer to administer than the criminal acts being prosecuted took to commit. And, as in our faces as Trump and the GOP’s criminal behavior is, the prosecution of same can’t be in anyone’s face because it has to play by strict rules. And, often, strategically, one wouldn’t want to give away one’s battle plan especially when dealing with criminals.
Stone cold fact: The Republicans are now operating — with two exceptions (Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger) — as a criminal enterprise in the midst of a treasonous, soft coup d’etat. What began as a culture war bent on attaining permanent minority rule became treasonous when the GOP (grudgingly at first) hitched their power-grab to Donald Trump while KNOWING that he was owned outright by Russia. The hold Trump has always had over the GOP’s leadership is less the GOP’s fear of its ravenous base than their own, personal knowledge that Trump was a traitor — and their willingness to overlook his treachery in order to seize and hold onto power. When certain Republicans say they don’t like Trump but like his policies, what they mean is “treason’s okie-dokie with ’em cause it’s making em rich!”
Democrats can never be Republicans because we simply do not think the same way. Democrats often seem like a disorganized rabble because, to a large degree, that’s what we are. We are what E Pluribus Unum looks like. It’s messy with many, many individuals marching to their own drums. That’s why we seem to be exactly as Will Rogers described us a hundred years ago when he said “I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat”. Republicans, OTOH, come from a more homogenous place — whiteness and the need to maintain whiteness as the ruling culture (everyone else and their cultures be damned!) That’s why Republicans are good at marching together, in lock-step. Their purpose is very common.
Despite our “American Dream” ideals, the playing field in America has never been level. Rich white guys like Donald Trump and George W. Bush really do think they put themselves on third base. They dread the thought of competing with the “Pluribus” because the Pluribus is what makes America exceptional. But the Pluribus — America’s diversity — will be our democracy’s saving grace. In places like Germany, fascism was facilitated by homogeneity. Even “good Germans” who remained anti-fascist, did so on the quiet; that wasn’t so much cowardice (though it was) as Germans succumbing to an organic compulsion to “follow orders” because order is culturally important. America doesn’t have that tradition as a larger cultural marker. That’s a product of diversity, of course. Though white culture has dominated America historically, that’s not because white culture is superior (despite what it thinks); white culture was clever enough to articulate the idea that “All men are created equal” but not clever enough to actually get it right in practice.
That’s not failure of the idea that “All men are created equal”, it’s the failure of the idea’s terribly flawed execution.
Because Democrats don’t think in power-grabbing terms, we don’t think about what you’d have to do to power-grab. But, because Republicans had a clear mission in mind — permanent minority rule — they deliberately went after power at the most local level first (like running for school boards) then built upward from there. Control of local politics gave Republicans the ability to gerrymander voting districts so as to more or less foreclose on political victory before any election. Texas Republicans got away with writing and passing absurd, outlandish, offensively anti-democratic legislation because they could. Whether or not it stands up at the SCOTUS — ah, there’s another benefit to working at ground level.
No Democrat would ever (or could ever) conceive of seizing the judiciary or denying a sitting POTUS a SCOTUS seat he was entitled to BECAUSE HE’S PRESIDENT. But Republicans would — as they did. C’mon, WHY did Mitch McConnell (walking point for the Right Wing money’s deliberate assault on the judiciary) deny Obama all those lifetime judgeships and Merrick Garland so much as a hearing? Why did it suddenly become not just “okay” to nominate and confirm a SCOTUS judge with a presidential election on the horizon but imperative? That’s a loaded question of course. Mitch has always operated with the assumption that, no matter what, he will skate through this because of who he is and what he is. Money + power, Mitch believes, will absolutely = permanent minority rule.
Even as it was happening in real time, serious journalists were asking pointed questions about the strange timing of Kennedy’s retirement from the SCOTUS, his son’s job at Deutsche Bank (where he dealt directly with Trump’s account — the one suspected of money laundering), Brett Kavanaugh’s debts being paid off, the bogus background the FBI did on Kavanaugh and his obvious perjury during the confirmation hearings). Because they controlled everything including the Department of Justice, the Republicans were able to contain any and all threats that real investigations would pose. And though we wish Merrick Garland would message more aggressively (hell, we’d be thrilled if he’d message PERIOD!), there are plenty of indications that the DOJ is investigating various things that do matter to plenty of Americans. It’s just soooooooooo slowly that it looks utterly inert.
Republicans regularly accuse Democrats of being traitors but they never do anything about it because they have zero receipts to back it up. Democrats, by contrast, are reluctant to call Republicans traitors — even with a shitload of hard evidence in front of them. Democrats have been seduced into thinking they must be “bi-partisan” even if most Republicans spit at the word”.
The time for seeing the world this way, for even thinking of it this way, is done. You can’t be bi-partisan with traitors and you can’t compromise with evil. The traitors and evil will never compromise. Instead, because you compromised, treason and/or evil gained a significant toehold inside you.
If Democrats acted like Republicans, the following things would already be happening:
1 Brett Kavanaugh would be impeached already for having perjured himself during his confirmation hearing. The same goes for EVERY SINGE JUDGE TRUMP NOMINATED. The Democrats would have already found and prosecuted every last instance of a Trump judicial nominee perjuring himself.
2 Every Republican Who Even “Might Have” Helped Plan The January 6 Insurrection Would Already Be Behind Bars which means insurrectionists like Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene would no longer be members of Congress. Democrats would be pushing hard to identify everyone inside Congress and inside the White House who helped PLAN the insurrection in any way. Republicans would be very clear that January 6 could never have happened without the conspiracy to plan the insurrection that took place January, 3, 4 and 5 (and even earlier).
3 Matt Gaetz Would Be Doing Hard Time Already
4 Bill Barr, Mike Pompeo, Wilbur Ross, Elaine Chao, Rod Rosenstein And Every Other Person Trump Hired Would Be Up To Their Necks In Criminal Investigations
5 Every Republican In Congress Would Have Already Been Placed Under Oath And Benghazi’d Mercilessly
6 Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Kevin McCarthy (among many others in the GOP’s leadership) would be doing hard time.
And, most importantly, 7) Donald Trump’s entire family would already have been prosecuted out the wazoo — and doing hard time for life — with a shitload of additional prosecutions yet to begin. The Trumps would already have lost every building they owned to seizure. Every financial crime would be exposed. Every ill-gotten gain would be lined up as evidence to be used at trial.
After a certain point, one must stop giving people undeserving of the benefit of the doubt any benefit of any doubt. One must start looking at them and the world with eyes wide open. It would be criminal to let those bent on destroying the rule of law use the rule of law to destroy it. Literally criminal. And it would be stupidly wrong-headed for Democrats to assume Republicans are anything other than criminals.
We don’t have to (and aren’t going to) behave like criminals. Both sides don’t do that. Both sides aren’t the same. And the America we want for ourselves and our children is the diametric opposite of the world Republicans want. We may need to “color outside the lines” to solve this problem; we may have to stretch the rule of law up to its breaking point but we must.
The Republicans aren’t playing a game here. They’re playing for keeps. If only our news media could see the difference.