The Way Forward for Democrats
Introduction
The Democratic Party faces a critical juncture. The elected representatives are failing to uphold their oaths to “protect and defend the Constitution from enemies, foreign and domestic.” Their response to the current threats to democracy and the dismantling of government institutions has been underwhelming. If this situation is not addressed soon, America risks suffering the same fate as the Weimar Republic in Germany under Adolf Hitler.
Current Situation
Although Democrats do not currently control the White House, Supreme Court, House, or Senate, this does not mean we are powerless. Recent events provide clues to effective action.
Governors’ Actions:
- Janet Mills, Governor of Maine: She publicly refused to comply with Trump’s new discriminatory transgender athlete rules, leading Trump to declare that Maine would receive no federal funding.
- Josh Shapiro, Governor of Pennsylvania: He successfully sued the administration over $2 billion in funding for his state, making it clear that he would withhold all payments to the IRS from Pennsylvania if the money were not provided.
Effective action
A governor has the power to redirect federal taxes collected in his/her state. Unless or until collective demands by the governors of the following states are met, all federal taxes collected by businesses and organizations will be redirected to each state treasury. These states collectively hold the power of the purse: Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
Why this will work: This tactic worked in Pennsylvania because, for Trump, everything is transactional. The above-named states each pay out more in federal taxes than they get back, meaning, this will sharpen the pain felt by Republican states, all of which receive more from federal taxes than they pay in. This will erode their support for Trump. He will not let that happen.
Additional states: Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Kentucky, and North Carolina may wish to join this effort because they each have Democrats in their State Houses. The more extensive the protest, the better chance it will succeed.
Details: Participating governors must be fully committed. They must have a spokes-governor, so they speak with one voice. Simultaneously, each participating state must call out the national guard for a State of Emergency just prior to contacting President Trump. This will ensure that the military in each state is under the control of the governor and cannot be called out against them.
No money withheld from the federal government will be replaced but, instead, it will be used by each state for its needs. All the states will then be able to fund programs typically covered by federal government commitments. Hawaii and California can start recovering from their devastating fires. When demands are met, federal tax money will again flow to the IRS. If demands are not met, federal tax money from these states will end entirely. The longer it takes, the more money will be withheld.
Your part
The only way we keep our democracy and institutions is through unity. This boycott by our governors must be supported. Call your governor today, tomorrow and every day, urging them to take action in defense of our democracy.
10 things that need to be done (my list of demands)
In actual dollars the U.S. government spends more than any other country in the world. On a per capita basis, we are 5th and yet our citizens receive far fewer benefits of that spending than our neighbor Canada (17th in per capita spending). Even I believe we spend too much money and, politically, I am somewhere to the left of Bernie Sanders. If you want a more responsible, efficient government, let me help.
- Stop withholding federal spending that has been approved and budgeted for.
- Stop Musk from cutting federal jobs
- Enlist the help of Democrat and Republican lawmakers to reorganize departments to find actual savings.
- No tax cuts for the wealthy and no tax increases for the bottom 20%
- Eliminate all subsidies for wealthy individuals and corporations. These corporate subsides alone account for more than $80 Billion in savings. There are plenty more.
- Ensure the Defense Department accounts for its spending (It has failed the last 7 audits). Any unaccounted spending from its 2025 audit, cut from their budget, a potential savings of $200 Billion annually.
- Break up the monopoly of Defense Contractors to prevent price gouging, which adds more than 25% to every contract.
- Rehire all IRS staff tasked with tracking down rich tax cheats and making them pay, which could account for more than $150 Billion annually.
- No cuts to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits. Remove the salary cap on SSI and Medicare deductions to make them solvent for the next 75 years.
- Trump and Vance must sign letters of resignation that will take effect if, for any reason, free and fair elections do not take place in 2026 and 2028.
Conclusion
The Democratic Party stands at a pivotal moment in history. Our elected representatives must rise to the occasion and fulfill their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution. The actions of governors like Janet Mills and Josh Shapiro demonstrate that we are not powerless. By redirecting federal taxes and taking a unified stand, we can exert significant pressure and bring about meaningful change.
Unity is our strength. By supporting our governors and demanding action, we can preserve our democracy and ensure that our institutions remain intact. The proposed measures, from stopping indiscriminate federal job cuts to ensuring accountability in defense spending, are essential steps towards a more responsible and efficient government.
Together, we can make a difference. Call your governor today and every day, urging them to act in defense of our democracy. Our collective efforts will pave the way for a brighter future for all Americans.
Into the Storm
Trump lies.
The first tragedy occurred less than two weeks into his second term. On the heels of firing 400 FAA senior officials, the TSA head, and 3,000 air traffic controllers, 67 innocent people died in the worst midair collision in 16 years. Trump knowingly murdered these people because of his greed and incompetence. He will lie about his guilt and complicity.
He lied about fixing inflated food prices. No cuts to Medicare and Social Security he said. Cuts to every social program including Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are on the table, another lie. He has ordered tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China (our three largest trading partners). This will send prices soaring. There are executive orders to end constitutional birthright citizenship, kill clean energy, double down on climate changing fossil fuels, end job protections for civil servants, sign Transgender people out of existence, withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accords and the World Health Organization and much more. Project 2025, which he denied knowing anything about, is coming to every neighborhood in America.
Pete Hegseth, a drunken abusive philanderer, who merits advancement solely because he is a white Christian male Fox News celebrity, now heads the Department of Defense. Others, who choose Trump over the Constitution, run the Justice Department, CIA, and Department of Homeland Security. Elected Democrats helped confirm these clearly unqualified appointees.
Registered Democrats across this nation will watch as an unqualified psychopath bent on revenge is confirmed as Director of the FBI, a Russian asset/agent as the head of National Intelligence, and a brain worm addled anti-vax, conspiracist will lead the health department… with votes from apathetic Democrat Senators. Members of the 1932 Reichstag snickered and joked about Hitler’s unqualified nominees.
Politically we are careening headlong into tornado alley.
Incarcerated January 6 offenders, Red Hats (Hitler’s Brown Shirts), were freed with a blanket pardon. It was ‘too hard and time consuming’ to separate out the violent offenders. This same mindset consumes immigration raids. Legal, illegal, and citizen alike are being collected and deported. No one ‘has time’ to check documentation.
What happens when they start rounding up LGBTQ+ people, Muslims, atheists? Then anyone who dares speak out? How long before foreign countries stop accepting plane loads of people not from their nation? Before concentration camps spring up? And extermination facilities appear in those camps? Remember, lurking around out of sight, unelected, is Stephen Miller who has the same amiable sensibilities as Hitler’s henchmen: Josef Mengele and Adolph Eichman.
Elected Democrats will be powerless to stop a national abortion and contraception ban. Red capes and white bonnets will follow as pregnant women are forced out of the workplace. Cancellation of the minimum wage, 40-hour work week, overtime pay, vacations, sick leave, and the right to Unionize will soon follow. Then Americans will find themselves forced to fill the jobs of deported immigrants at any wage under any conditions.
Who will stop this madness? The courts? A drooling syphilitic half-wit can see how ineffective the courts have been at containing pre- and post-inaugural Trump and his agenda.
The truth about what he wants.
I believed him when he told followers at a campaign rally, “You won’t have to vote anymore.” We have had the last free election in America. The appearance of Constitutional adherence will continue only until loyalists are in place deep into each government agency and at the head of each branch of the military. Then the charade will be over. Trump and Vance will be free to shanghai the rest of America into Project 2025 using police, military, and the courts as weapons. They will not stop until America is returned to a mythical version of the 1950s, a walled-off white Christian Theocracy.
WAKE UP! This nightmare you are experiencing is real.
Stop pretending that we still live in a democracy. Our elected representation has no power. The struggle for our rights, our liberties, our very lives has begun. It is playing out in our cities right now. Soon there will be battle lines down the middle of every street in America.
“When in the course of human events…”
I am more afraid than I have ever been, but there is no going back. Our only hope is to move forward and Into the Storm. To quote Benjamin Franklin, “We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.” I will not fire the first shot in the coming conflict, but once fired upon, may the gates of hell open and swallow them whole.
To our freedom, to this democracy, I pledge my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor.
Thomas Crown
Dear Democratic leadership: Do you want to win in November?
The 2024 campaign has begun. Joe Biden, despite his accomplishments, is flagging in the polls. We Democrats have 20 Senate seats up for re-election and the Republicans in charge of the House holding the nation hostage over the budget and trying to impeach this entire administration. It would not surprise me if they started hearings to remove Commander, the president’s dog. But you already know this.
Do you want to win in November?
When I ask if you want to win in November, I do not mean simply keep Biden/Harris in the executive branch. Nor do I mean keep a one seat majority in the Senate and pick up a few House seats. I mean clean sweep WINNING: A Biden/Harris blow out re-election win, a comfortable majority in the House, and half-dozen more seats in the Senate?
Fundraising that will yield enormous results in November.
Asking me 4 or 5 times a day whether I am voting for Biden, not Trump, will not help us win. Do you know how many of those emails/texts I have opened? Two! The hundreds more you sent I deleted unopened. What a waste of campaign effort?
How many more campaign dollars could you collect if every email/text you sent was opened? A simple modification will achieve those results while, at the same time, finding out what we, on the streets, suburbs, and in the countryside, really support. Instead of obsessively incessantly offering us a Biden poll, ask “Do you favor taxing the rich?” In the next email ask, “Is healthcare a right?” Then, “Should abortion be legal everywhere?” “Do you support unionization?” “Raise the minimum wage?” “LGBTQ+ rights?” “Should America remain a democracy?” “Is our economy working for you?” “Did the Infrastructure bill affect your community?” You have also not asked about gerrymandering, taking donations from corporations, trading stocks in Congress, Washington D.C. or Puerto Rican statehood, childcare, student loan forgiveness, or tuition free public college. This list is endless.
At your current fundraising pace send every Democrat and left leaning Independent at least two hundred differently titled emails/texts before a repeat. We will open all of them because, more than anything, we want you to know how to best represent us. Tallying the results will give you a real platform and effective talking points.
More than 40% of Americans are no longer registered Democrats or Republicans because both parties stopped listening to the people. We need you to hear us.
Speaking of talking points
While negotiating the budget, every hearing and budgetary press conference should feature these talking points.
1.The Republicans are not/cannot be serious about our debt/deficit if taxing the rich is not on the table.
2. If the Republicans want budget cuts, start by ending subsidies, tax loopholes, and tax credits for the wealthy and rich corporations.
Cuts to the IRS, CFPB, Medicare, or Social Security are not on the table. If they threaten to shut down the government, let them. Dare them to do so.
I have been a Democrat for more than 50 years. I know you Democrats in charge are shuffling around staring at your feet, running your fingers through your hair, mumbling, “What if we make a mistake? What if we lose?” There is no time for that nonsense.
Stop it.
The Republican Party is already doing everything in their power to hand us an election landslide by threatening to shut down the government, banning books (including the dictionary), arresting women for having miscarriages, balking at support for Ukraine… the list is extensive.
There are two issues that certainly garner more than 50% support among voters: legalized abortion and democracy in America. Spend more of our campaign war chest making sure the abortion question is on the ballot in all 34 Senate races, especially the toss-up states. Meanwhile, run TV and social media ads that embrace, “Voting for any Republican is voting for a national abortion ban.” and “A vote for any Republican, is a vote to end democracy in America.” If you cannot bring yourselves to adopt this ‘take no prisoners’ attitude, fix that by hiring those who have and do. Embrace the unthinkable: invite the Lincoln Project to craft your messaging.
Address immigration with action.
I do not agree with Governors Abbot and DeSantis sending migrants to cities run by Democrats. It has, however, brought attention to the crisis at our southern border. Unless we can magically end all global conflicts and human rights abuses, people arriving at the border will continue. All these negotiations and press conferences should include the labor shortage in America and what Republicans support: putting children to work and keeping all immigrants out. Citizenship for DACA should be in every negotiation. Do you want to blunt Republican immigration talking points? Publicly encourage every Democrat run city in America to take in as many immigrants as they can while negotiating for funds to make that possible.
We can have a substantial victory this November! We will have a substantial victory in November… if you stop worrying and start daring to act!
I sent this letter via snail mail to Sen. Chuck Schumer, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Jaime Harrison, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Henry Munoz III, Rep. Cedrick Richmond, Ken Martin, Virginia McGregor, Chris Korge, and Hillary Clinton. If you wish to send any a letter here is the address:
430 South Capitol Stret, Southeast
Washington, DC 20003
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Election 2024 is at hand
Last November I posted “The Visibility Initiative Project” that pointed out Hitler’s rise to power in Germany as the result of good people being silent and invisible. Since then, Donald Trump has threatened to corral immigrants in concentration camps like vermin and promised to be dictator on day one of a second term while denying he had read Mein Kampf, the source of these talking points.
As Trump supporters go about their daily lives, everywhere they look, they see only MAGA hats and shirts and yard signs. To them this confirms what they saw today on Fox News: They are the voting majority in the United States and election 2020 was stolen.
They are visible! Meanwhile, resistance to the rise of Hitlerian fascism in America remains invisible outside the media.
Democracy is on the Ballot…
A vote for any Republican is a vote for a Trump fascist government, a national abortion ban, and an end to progress on Climate Change. There will not be a box to select that says “democracy.” There will only be names of candidates and ballot initiatives. Choose wisely.
Being visible is a key part of not allowing us to slip into that authoritarian government. My site, BlueWavePolitcs, is one of a multitude of sites that can provide you with apparel and kitsch so you can be seen. Stand up. Stand out. Be visible.
New designs on my site can help you speak volumes without saying a word. In your everyday comings and goings people will notice and say they like your sweatshirt or tote bag. That idea will be planted. It will germinate and bear democratic fruit for the coming election!
Here are innovative designs that scream “democracy” now available on sweatshirts and tote bags:
There is a slim possibility that Democrats will make a clean sweep in November capturing both the Senate and House of Representatives… but not if we remain invisible!
If you have ideas for designs or would like to help with this project, contact me.
Visibility Initiative Project
People like us, living in a vibrant liberal democracy, remained quiet, in the shadows. They, in their silence, in their invisibility, allowed Adolph Hitler to rise to power in pre-WWII Germany. Hitler came to this position after being imprisoned for attempting to overthrow the government of Bavaria. He accomplished this feat by manipulating the narrative about political and economic issues confronting Germany, and riding on the voiceless timidity of the citizenry.
Sound familiar?
Perhaps they didn’t want to have a brick through their window or to be yelled at on the subway or to be threatened or bullied at work. As a result, 6 million jews were slaughtered, all of Europe became a conflagration, then the entire world caught fire.
Here we are again.
A man, who by election 2024 will have been convicted of attempting to overthrow our government, could once again be elevated to our highest office. Are we going to remain silent? In the shadows? If we do, abortion will be completely banned, the LGBTQ+ community will be marginalized and imprisoned, trans people will continue to be murdered in the shadows, the rich will own America. Democracy here will vanish.
Please join the Visibility Initiative Project. As with my continuing bumper magnet project, I believe that when enough of us stand out in a crowd, voter turnout goes up. Democracy survives.
Go to my store front, Blue Wave Politics, (or a similar one) and become conspicuous. Pick an issue you support and suit up for the coming battle. Give these outstanding items to friends, family, and neighbors who share your vision for a better America. You may get your car keyed. You may get yelled at or confronted, even shunned by some, but the only way to deal with MAGA bullies is to stand up prominently. As the holiday season approaches, overtly commit to continuing democracy beyond the next holiday season.
The holidays are a great time to give gifts that distinguish. Be bold!!
Support the Visibility Initiative Project.
I have added many more ways to express how you feel. More items will appear. Additional designs for other critical issues are on their way.
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Kevin and the no good, very bad Republican agenda (part 1)
This is the second in a series of articles. In “Kevin McCarthy and Republicans and Debt Ceiling, Oh My!” it was clear that Kevin and the Republicans did not believe what they were telling the American people about budgetary restraint. If we look beneath their rhetoric, we will find what their real agenda is and who that agenda serves.
Taxes
Rather than let the debt-ceiling deal begin closing the gap between revenue and expenditures, McCarthy announced his intention to cut taxes. How is that fiscally responsible? Simply, it is not.
Historically Republicans seek to reduce taxes. George W. Bush cut taxes for the rich twice and added a tax rebate in 2008. Donald Trump ‘reformed’ the tax code making another windfall for the rich. Both presidents billed these cuts for the rich as the way to stimulate the economy that would pay for themselves. Together their cuts contributed $11Trillion to our $31T national debt. They did not pay for themselves.
Imagine receiving one of the above tax cuts for your widget manufacturing company that has already laid off half its employees because no one is buying your wares. Would you use that tax relief to re-hire workers to make more widgets that are already NOT selling? Of course not! Your furloughed employees will spend their tax relief on food, clothing, and housing, not widgets, further reducing demand for your products.
Since the lion’s share of tax cuts accrues to the top 5%, what do businesses, large corporations and the rich do with their tax rebates? One thing large corporations do with significant tax cuts is stock buybacks, something that was illegal until the Reagan administration. Buybacks cause the stock price to rise, thereby increasing their wealth and that of their rich shareholders.
Tax cuts for the rich and large corporations do not stimulate the economy. They ONLY make them richer and the poor more so, increasing the wealth gap in America.
Regulations
Cutting regulations has been a mantra of the Republican party for my entire adult life. Recently, Norfolk Southern lobbied the Trump administration to get reduced safety regulations. The wheel bearing failure that caused the derailment and subsequent disaster in East Palestine, Ohio is the product of those hamstrung regulations.
In fact, it is more profitable to ignore safety rules. Just as it is cheaper for a company to dump waste into the nearest river than to dispose of it properly, cheaper to spew air borne waste into the atmosphere, cheaper to use inexpensive nonfood fillers in our food. It is more profitable to build whatever you want, wherever you want than to go through an expensive approval process and follow building codes. It is more profitable to pay workers as little as possible, not offer health benefits, nor provide safe working conditions.
Cutting regulations increases profitability and mostly benefits the richest among us while endangering the lives of the rest of us.
Small Government
Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform once famously said: “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
What is so appealing about a smaller government? In the recent negotiations over the debt-ceiling Speaker Kevin McCarthy initially asked for a 22% across the board reduction in spending (not including the military). The bill specifically targeted an increase to the IRS budget from the Inflation Reduction Act passed by the Biden administration. Some of that IRS increase was meant to restore cuts by previous administrations. Most of it, however, was earmarked for collecting taxes from the rich.
Lopping 22% off federal funding would reduce the enforcement power of every regulatory agency, not just the IRS. If you cannot curtail or diminish regulations through legislation and lobbying, the second most effective means, achieving comparable results, is to make the rules impossible to implement by making government small enough to drown in a bathtub.
Slashing funding, in addition to crushing enforcement capabilities, reduces the effectiveness of our social safety net. This translates into less money available for unemployment insurance, SNAP benefits, Veterans benefits, Medicaid, child tax credits, school lunch programs, Pell grants, and other programs for the poorest among us.
In the end reducing the size of government becomes a downward spiral feeding on itself. Smaller government is less effective. Now Republicans can tout that our government is not working, therefore, more cuts should be made.
The difference between cutting regulations and reducing the size of government is that, by circumventing laws and regulations, one can be prosecuted for doing so… if only there were funds for that.
Smaller government benefits only the rich while forcing the poor further into poverty.
Kevin and the no good, very bad Republican agenda
Republicans, regardless of their rhetorical misrepresentation, enact tax cuts, eliminate regulations, and make government smaller to benefit the rich. They support the same actions at state and local levels, as well, to the same effect. The rest of us do not economically matter.
One more thing
The richest among us will support whatever form of government that best supports them whether it is a dictatorship or a democracy. If we are to continue our American experiment with Democracy, we must take our country back from the rich. We must force them into their proper place in a democracy: Serving the Common Good.
Electing Democrats is the only way forward for democracy. Show your ‘followers’ as you drive around your community where you stand. Put one of these on your car:
Kevin McCarthy and Republicans and the Debt Ceiling. Oh, My!
Kevin and the Republicans
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy continues to hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage in exchange for federal budget cuts by the Biden Administration declaring that our deficits are too big, our national debt is going to burden our children and grandchildren, and adding the old saw that, if I/we ran my/our household budget(s) the way they run the government, I/we would go broke.
By their actions neither Kevin nor the Republican Party, now or ever, has believed any part of that position except that we individuals would go broke if we ran our households the way the government budget does. Republican administrations run budget deficits by spending money on the military, big business subsidies, and tax cuts for the rich, all of which run up the debt and cause inflation (Why do you think the stock market kept going up during Covid lockdown while the economy tanked? Stock price inflation). The national debt nearly tripled under Reagan and doubled again under George W. Bush. Since Reagan’s election, Republican administrations have accounted for 57% of our entire national debt that, already, encompassed debts from a civil war, two world wars, the conflict in Korea, and Vietnam War spending.
Kevin and Modern Monetary Theory
Republicans only complain, becoming self-righteously the party of fiscal responsibility, when Democrats run the government. By their actions, the Republican party practices and believes the tenets of a liberal/progressive economic theory: Modern Monetary Theory. MMT is a neo-Keynesian economic theory that has it roots in the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes, a British economist whose economic ideas were used during the Great Depression in the New Deal by the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration. Simply stated: “MMT asserts that monetarily sovereign countries which spend, tax, and borrow in a fiat currency that they fully control, are not operationally constrained by revenues when it comes to federal government spending.” (Modern Monetary Theory: [MMT]: Definition, History, and Principles)
In other words, if you can print acceptable currency in your basement, you cannot go broke or go catastrophically into debt. This is exactly how the Republican Party treats federal spending when they control the government.
Kevin and the Debt Ceiling
Hence, the Speaker’s rhetoric on government spending is empty and meaningless. This is nothing more than a hostage situation. If we do not pay the ransom (make the cuts), they promise to kill the hostage (the full faith and credit of the United States).
When the government is no longer contractually able to pay its bills (in default), the federal government will shut down. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, tax returns, and student loan payments stop. Military personnel will not be paid. SNAP benefits will end. Pell Grant installments will not go out. The CDC, NIH, National Parks, National Museums, passport offices and most other government offices will close. Most government employees, not just nonessential ones, will be furloughed without pay (the government is the single largest employer in the country). Interest rates will spike. Steep inflation will hit fast. It will damage our credit standing around the world. It will weaken foreign faith in the value of the U.S. dollar. If they hold out for only a few days, it may throw our economy into a deep recession.
Kevin and H.R. 2617
If his goal really is not about ‘fiscal responsibility’, then, what does Kevin hope to achieve by kidnapping our credit standing? If we look at HR 2617, the debt ceiling bill just passed in the House of Representatives, it will give us a clue to the Republican agenda.
If we make this deal with the devil as it stands now, it will mean steep cuts in social programs (veteran programs by 22%), tougher work requirements for SNAP benefits and other government aid, a roll back on climate change initiatives, no student debt relief, cutting the newly raised IRS enforcement budget to catch rich tax cheats, limit rural America getting broadband, cut payments to farmers for disasters and supports for rural tenants, and more. It would roll back spending to 2022 levels and cap spending increases to 1% per year for the next decade. Two-thirds of the bill is dedicated to ramping up oil and gas production.
In other words, it is pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps for the poor and welfare for the rich and big corporations with an enormous shout out to the oil and coal barons, two of the many patron saints of the Republican Party. Regardless of their claim to be the party of ‘working people’, consistently, they support only what is good for the richest among us. H.R. 2617 is perfectly in line with their true aims.
Kevin and Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
President Biden should treat this situation like any other hostage situation… and not pay the ransom. Do not give an inch. Do not make budget cuts. Do not negotiate.
After all, Republican government shutdowns have worked so well in the past. Their shutdown under Clinton only helped his reelection. The one to stop the Affordable Care Act under Obama failed spectacularly. Plus, two more shutdowns to build Trump’s wall in 2018/19, not only failed to get the wall built, but ensured Trump’s election loss in 2020.
The longer the shutdown, the closer we will get to Election 2024, the steeper the electoral price will be, the clearer it will be in a vast majority of voters’ minds who should be in charge after the election: Democrats.
We are calling your bluff, Kevin! Shut the whole place down!
We, the Unchosen
We did not grow up to be the President. We did not become pro sports legends, movie stars or astronauts. We have not won Nobel Prizes. Those dreams of greatness faded with adulthood and responsibilities. We chose families and the work-a-day life. We are the Unchosen. We are America.
My father belonged to the Greatest Generation, the one that saved the world from totalitarian rule by defeating Hitler and the Nazis. World War II claimed the lives of 419,000 Americans (60 million worldwide). All but a sliver of those were also Unchosen.
The perilous threats we face today overshadow those of my father’s generation. The global cost of worsening Climate Change, in lives and property, continues to mount. American oligarchs like Charles Koch are lining the pockets of Trump Republicans to make certain their income streams are uninterrupted by mitigation measures. Other oligarchs, likewise, make similar investments to avoid being taxed, thereby, assuring government coffers are too empty to take effective action on this extinction level event that is climate change.
The conservative U.S. Supreme Court, having diminished women’s control over their own bodies, blunted government efforts to allay our climate crisis, reduced efforts to control deadly weapons, and opened a breach in the wall between church and state, are prepared to vacate rights to contraception and same sex marriage, while allowing wholesale discrimination against certain minorities.
A re-elected Trump would hold Putin and Xi in such high esteem that, one could easily imagine him ceding Ukraine to the Russians and gifting Taiwan to China in exchange for one-third of the world pie, the triumvirate of nuclear nations, crushing democracies and ousting tinhorn dictators around the world along the way.
In November of 2020, we, the Unchosen, manned the polling ramparts and turned out in record numbers to fight for our seat at the table. We carried the day and took our seat.
Again, the forces of darkness are amassing for the next battle, armed with legalities and loopholes meant to strike down as many of our voting numbers as possible, while scaring up more opposing voters with inflation, immigration, and socialism.
Whenever Trump endorsed candidates declare that the 2020 election was stolen, they are not promoting the Big Lie. They are sounding a dog whistle to publicly acknowledge their ongoing seditious conspiracy and commit to installing Trump or a protégé as President following election 2024, by whatever means necessary. If his candidates are elected this November, they will be poised to install their candidate regardless of the outcome at the polls. If they succeed, 2024 will be the last free election in America.
We must defeat them all, even if it means escalating the civil war that may have already begun.
If we are victorious in this November’s election, we will further advance the transformation that will save us all. If we persist, triumph after triumph in election after election, through the darkness in the decades to come, we will reach the dawn of that better day, a democratic America, having averted the climate catastrophe. We, the Unchosen, will be hailed as the Greatest Generations to have ever lived.
If we fail, there will be no one left alive to notice.
We, the Unchosen, are the only heroes we have. We the are the heroes we need! You may not be a Democrat. You may not like what the Democrats stand for, but this November, they, alone, stand between us and the abyss. Choose wisely.
Vote!