November 16, 2021

  • The Awakening

     

    November 2nd, 2021 was nothing if not a sign of an awakening. What has been awakened, you may ask? Fear and resentment. The “Better Angels of our Nature” - as President Lincoln described our best collective instincts and characteristics – have taken a backseat to a cultural backlash led by our worst inclinations as a people. A year ago, half of the voting population rejoiced at the defeat of Donald Trump in his reelection bid. However, the defeat of Trump in 2020 was merely a hurdle in the continued rise of fascism in America.

     

    The American people turned out to vote in 2020 in large part to try and thwart this societal cancer’s emergence, but all they did was treat the symptoms. Fascism still has a groundswell of support in the United States because the root causes of the collective bitterness which produces authoritarian tolerance have in no way, shape, or form been addressed. Congress is broken, seemingly incapable of working to seek more adequate remedies for what ails us, and as a result our illness merely festers and spreads.

     

    Earlier this year, President Biden ruled out a wholesale student loan debt forgiveness, bowing to pressure from the monied interests. His claim was that he wasn’t sure that he had the authority to cancel student loan debt past a couple billion dollars worth, if that. Why not just cancel all student loan debt and dare the courts to stop it while working with Congress to codify such? Sure, Biden never once promised to do this for everyone, but he campaigned on canceling $10 billion worth, right? Who did this relative inaction help in the end if not the wealthy few?

     

    The president campaigned on a living wage, but has largely let the Democratically-controlled Congress off the hook in passing it, alongside other measures, such as improvements to the Affordable Care Act, Climate Action, Paid Family Leave, or even a permanent extension to the temporary changes made early this year in expanding the Child Tax Credit. Why isn’t Biden utilizing the bully-pulpit to demand action alongside the rest of us?

     

    What about expanded protections for labor unions? Why do the Democrats continue to let down their most loyal constituents? Where is the proverbial beef?

     

    Or is it as many of us on the left suspected all along? Is Biden simply just keeping his promises to the few like when he promised attendees at a banquet that “nothing will fundamentally change”? Is this just “more of the same”, or rather “business as usual”?

     

    Why do the Democrats think that they have lost the support of so many working class voters? Are they content with ignoring the economic needs of the people? Or, do they suppose that ALL or MOST of these people abandoning them are racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic? Is it as easy as painting all non-Democratic voters with a broad brush of idiocy and bigotry?

     

    No, it’s not that easy. However, there are absolutely some signs of hatred and tension along those lines. Cultural backlashes to progress happen all the time. In fact, there is ALWAYS a backlash. Why is that?

     

    People are not born to hate each other. It is natural to fear what we don’t understand, but that fear is nurtured to become hate. The greatest weapon against hate is education and love, but the Democrats apparently have no sincere interest in either. Instead, they prefer to lash out at anyone who dares to disagree with them without trying to think from the perspective of someone else.

     

    Let’s not make the mistake of thinking that Democrats are the only ones who demonize their opponents or mock people for disagreeing. Leftists do it too and so do rightwingers and Republicans overall. The key difference in the importance of each group’s use of negativity in response to opposition is that selfishness is more appealing when you mock people for caring.

     

    Republicans mock people who disagree with them, but they succeed in growing their ranks because it is easier not to care about others than it is to care. It is cheaper to say “fuck it” and to ignore the problem. It is less taxing on one’s energy. Selfishness requires very little energy. Selflessness is not easy at all, because caring requires work, requires activism, and requires time and money. This is the key reason that people backlash against cultural progression towards a more compassionate society.

     

    Then again, cultural improvement also creates backlashes because it is always accompanied by a call for introspection. People don’t like to be told that the way they think or act is wrong. Telling someone that present conditions are racist is offensive to the tender sensibilities of the individual who willfully tolerated such horrid conditions for so long. Forcing us to look inward to address the de facto bigotry of a system and even culture that we helped mold and sustain is as abhorrent a demand to that person as is asking a teenager to admit their mistakes. It is our human nature in our fight or flight responses to danger in action.

     

    For the better part of the last 13 years (at least), we have been routinely confronted with our collective shortcomings as a society. The racist birther movement as a reaction to President Obama’s election was an early sign of the moment in which we live now. The discussions we’ve had since – from birtherism and the shooting of Trayvon Martin to Black Lives Matter and the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse – have only scratched the surface of the many scars which remain from our nation’s birth and the Civil War. Unfortunately, the sins of our forefathers are being visited upon us now because numerous subsequent generations in the intervening centuries have kicked that damn toxic can down the road.

     

    Yet, here we are, in the midst of a deeply divisive battle over our collective conscience, and the Democrats – a party ironically born during a populist and racist reaction to the status quo in the 1820s – is visibly lost in trying to navigate these currents of history pulling us towards whatever is over the edge.

     

    Unfortunately for the Democrats and for the rest of us, the edge of the waterfall appears to show a very steep decline. 2010 was a warning, 2016 was another warning, and 2021 may be our final warning. The abyss awaits.

     

    Are you ready?

     

    Tonight’s Conclusion

     

    I will absolutely have numerous people disagreeing with me in my assessment here, but the writing is on the wall and with history as a guide there is serious danger looming in the near future. 2022 may well spell an electoral apocalypse for the Democrats who have done very little since winning power in 2008 and then returning to power in 2020 to mitigate the pain from the failures of our economic, political, and educational systems. This is undoubtedly contributing to the resurgence of the fascists amongst us.

     

    The fascist message of hate and divisiveness is far more seductive in luring the minds of the scared and angry masses towards rightwing parties when compared to the disorganized message of the Democrats.

     

    Brace yourselves not only for Republicans to wipe out A LOT of Democrats via an historic set of landslide victories across the country next year, but also for an increasingly probable return of Donald Trump to the presidency in 2024, if the Democrats don’t get their act together.

     

    Onward.

     

    #NotMeUs #OurRevolution #DemExit

     

    Purchase my manifesto, “The Pillars of Unitism”.

     

    Until next time…

     

    TAKE CARE