Feebes and Ninnies
Democrats are chumps. We keep talking about kitchen issues and policy positions. Our “leaders” spend good money after bad on polling to decipher the public perceptions. None of that noise matters! Sure, umpty-squat percent of Republicans strongly agree with the Democratic policy on meter maids. Everyone you ask prefers the Democratic positions, which only holds true until someone says “Democratic” out loud Modern Republicans vote tribally and emotionally. Doesn’t matter if they loved every Democratic Party position; they’ll still vote party-line Republican. They’re happy in their tribe, and they vote tribally. The only real deciding factor is whether there’s a “D” or an “R” behind someone’s name.
We already know who the Republicans are and what they represent because they told us. It’s Democrats who are the chumps.
Voting is Emotional
I have zero sympathy for idiots, and establishment Democrats are bone-stupid. American politics is like watching another damn Chekov play. They could save themselves by their own actions, and yet somehow, tragically, they never quite seem awake, sliding down that Existential ladder into irrelevancy. That’s my life.
Party Democrats mush-mouth about “the tragedy of gun violence” as if that wasn’t just a rebranded “thoughts and prayers,” and they never say anything new! They’re so goddamn boring that I can’t breathe. Progressives at least talk about evidence-based gun policies and the strength of public opinion. Listening to a Progressive is that long, deep airgasm after you take off your COVID mask. They have so much to say!
Republicans? They shriek about “taking away your guns” as if someone was going to rip off Republican dicks along with their trigger fingers. (And at an emotional level, that’s closer to the truth.) They bellow nonsense and hand out mental masturbation fodder at every rally.
And their bullshit works! Republicans win because of their emotional appeals. Dems are weak, girly-men. Republicans are studly guys who Get Things Done! Pay no attention to reality; the only manly answer is to vote tribally; vote Republican!
Is your candidate repeating crap and disproven lies? Good for them! That isn’t stupid pandering; it proves you’re a real man and not some damn RINO.
Voting has become entirely emotional. We’re not seeing rational choices based on self-interest. It doesn’t matter whose ideas are better. Hell, even the facts don’t matter. Fuck reality: I’ll vote tribally, thank you very much.
Disappearing Republican Policies
Do you really believe the Republican Party has no policies? Sure, they pretend to snuggle deep into The Donald’s nether cheeks. And yeah, they’ve given up on the pretend stuff: balanced budgets, free markets, international trade, limited central government, and all that happy horseshit. They never believed that crap anyway
But do they stand for stuff? You bet they do.
Old Party Democrats (“Centrists,” my ass) mumble about the necessity of, say, consumer protection, privacy, economic development, education, school safety, the sanctity of our environment, healthcare, the judiciary, and more. The first problem is that they want to be all things to all people. Terrified of upsetting anyone, they avoid any policy prescription beyond “Vote for us” and “send more money!” Thanks for emoting, but I don’t need your help feeling irate and powerless. What do you want to do about it?
But worse, powerful special interests co-opted the Democrats decades ago. The best we can say about the Democratic Party is that they’re not as entirely corrupt as the Republican Criminal Enterprise.
That’s not ringing my chimes, Dems.
Progressives (bless their hearts) have actual, concrete policies. Bully for them! That’s a ton better than just putting their hand out for donations. They worry about the efficacy of federal programs and propose new ideas about governance. Progressives are willing to take the heat and stand up to blatant corruption! (Got to love Katie Porter in particular.) Progressives are so much more palatable than the doddering Democratic gerontocracy.
Republicans, true to their brand, call Dems girlies, fags, and Nancy boys. They call anyone LGBTQ+ “against the laws of God!” like good closeted Evangelical homosexuals and scream breathless hypocrisy about the “sanctity of life” while cutting money to poor children. Yeah, the same guys who pulled infants out of their parents’ loving arms and dropped them into cages. Concrete and fucking wire cages! They pretend to be devout Christians while instructing their followers to harass, harm, and kill people. They’re against most Christian values. Feed the poor? They cut hate school lunches! Talk about the pro-child-poverty party!
Republicans are openly White Nationalist, racist, misogynist, Bible-thumping, pro-death, anti-trans, anti-free-market, anti-democratic, Sovereign Citizen-loving, pro-disease thugs. They revel in being bullies and breaking laws. Being a traitor to the nation is an electoral plus for today’s GOP.
And people vote for them BECAUSE of that! What part of this equation is beyond Democratic understanding?
Democrats point to Republicans deliberately breaking our electoral system, undercutting voting rights and electing people who campaigned on the promise of overturning any election that Republicans might accidentally lose.
Republicans scream about the stolen election, hacked voting machines, Hugo Chávez, and ballots from Asia.
Tribal voting works super-well. The FiveThirtyEight site projects that Republicans will probably win a majority in the House and the Senate in 2022.
Life in The Cherry Orchard
We’re living in hard times. I originally wrote, “We’re facing hard times,” but that wasn’t true. We’re not ‘facing’ anything. I have no idea why, but we turn away before doing anything, even the stuff that’s literally killing us.
Yes, the Climate Crisis is real. Expect climate deaths to rise exponentially and a flood of climate refugees. We can do things now that will save thousands. Now. Right now. Instead, we’re pretending it’s not real. Republicans are doing it because someone pays them to say those things, so that, at least, makes terrible sense. Democrats, though, are just going along. It’s too hard to do anything about our impending demise, they mutter before wandering off to afternoon tea.
Yes, guns are killing Americans. That’s because we’re emotional children who can’t settle minor emotional differences with anything less than an AR-15. So, rebuilding our society to be smarter, kinder, more generous, and more capable would help. (I would say we should be more Christian if the idea didn’t make me spit.) But in the short term, stopping the stupid gun flood would help. Just limiting stupidly-large magazines would be a nice step, but forget about that, too.
Republicans are Winning the New Civil War
Yes, Republicans hate America. They’ve been at war with fair democracy since Carter. Can we stop fucking up that part? Because they’ve won half the war already. They already control lots of state legislatures, where they’re happily implementing their brand of authoritarian Evangelical theocracy. Minority parties holding supermajorities in both state houses? Check!
They don’t even have to win. Remember the doctor who treated that 10-year-old girl? The abortion was safe, legal, and appropriate in Indiana. Pfeh! Like that matters! Republicans lied about it. They doxxed the doctor. The Indiana AG threatened to sue her. The doctor hired lawyers, dropped out of many affairs, fearing (legitimately) for her life, and every other doctor in the brave US of A just got the same fuck-you message. Legal doesn’t mean ‘safe.’ Not in our country.
And the people who vote tribally are proud of themselves.
Republicans have staged more than one violent insurrection, and they’re planning more. Didn’t you notice how every Republican “gun rights” plea somehow falls back to supposed ‘tyranny’? Are we waiting for them to say, “Because we need ‘em to shoot those unholy Dems!” Because they’re saying that part out loud, too.
It feels like most Party Democrats missed that part. What am I, their caretaker? Please, old aristocrats, you must sell that Cherry Orchard if you don’t want to lose everything! All I can see are doddering idiots, quacking about how things can’t have changed, that both sides are doing it, or some other moral cowardice. And they do nothing, just like always.
There is no common ground between sides. Hell, there’s no middle ground at all. Policies and arguments stopped changing votes a decade or two ago. People vote tribally. And our leaders (“Democrats over 80!”) seem weirdly unable to grasp that their world has changed. Polls project that we’ll lose our democracy in 2022. Unless we change what we’re doing, Republicans will win their revolution. America will stop being a democracy.
Wake the fuck up. We don’t have much time.
