This morning, I awoke to hearing an interview of Senator John Fetterman on the radio. It was this interview:
To be clear, I don’t know Fetterman from any other US senator, and I have no engagement with him politically. What I heard in this interview was a case study of why the Democrats have been so utterly ineffectual in countering Trump - they still think this is “normal politics”, and are treating Trump as “just a minor political disagreement”.
Several times in the interview, Fetterman said “well - Trump can’t run again in 2028”. I wanted to scream when I heard that. Seriously - he said that … out loud … after so many clear signals from Trump that he doesn’t give a damn about the law, conventions, or other factors that represent a limitation on his personal powers.
Then he walked through a whole bunch of issues - and he correctly identified that Trump has “filled the zone with 3’ of sewage”. Sure he has. What the good senator is overlooking is, of course, that the issue is in fact not the sewage, but the willingness of Trump and his allies to spew it. It is another variation on Goebbels’ “big lie” - pure propaganda and a smokescreen for their real objectives. To borrow from the work of Paul Ekman, lies succeed because nobody does the work to identify them - Trump lies constantly, and the Democrats in particular haven’t bothered to even so much as call them out.
Democrats have convinced themselves that what we are seeing right now as little more than a “kindly argument over the height of the hedge”. It isn’t. The Trump Administration is actively moving to break the system of checks and balances that have held the abuse of power by any one branch of government in check.
DOGE isn’t going to “make a more efficient bureaucracy”, its sole job is to break the bureaucracy and render the administrative aspects of government so ineffective that whatever privatized hellscape Musk is dreaming up will seem like a good idea. Public health - nah - don’t need that (until the next outbreak of major disease…); food inspection? - who needs that? Vehicle safety? Has anybody else noticed that Musk’s “CyberTruck” is basically a return to the standards of the 1950s, where looks and mass were the solution to things, and well if you got in a crash, good luck to you.
Democrats need to realize that what is being installed in Washington is not “a neighbourly disagreement”, it’s closer to the arrangement that Putin has with his oligarchs than it is to any kind of recognizable democracy. _IF_ there is any kind of election in 2028, it will not in any way be a “fair” election - it will be an election where every kind of cheating will be rampant - all in the name of ensuring that whoever is elected will be a willing accomplice to Trump.
If you think I’m joking, just remember that in the days following his loss in 2020, Trump was calling up governors and other state level officials demanding that they twist the results in his favour. You think that’s gone away? I don’t.
Senator Fetterman argued that going after Trump for his conduct “didn’t work”. Democrats DIDN’T go after Trump for his conduct. They were too busy worrying about alienating Trump’s supporters. Trump’s supporters are the people who needed to have the stinking pile of Trump’s misdeeds dumped on their front lawns at every turn.
Democrats LET Trump win by not calling out his misdeeds at every fucking turn. While he was playing duck and weave to avoid being held criminally responsible for his actions, what were Democrats saying? NOTHING. They held their tongues - on the basis of “it’s before the courts”. Yes, it’s before the courts - that is true. That doesn’t stop the Democrats from calling it out for what it is. Trump had no regard for the rule of law - in fact his game playing itself demonstrated that.
Trump said during the campaign “you won’t have to vote again”. Did the Democrats take that and run with it? Nope. They sat there worrying about offending his supporters.
Democrats have themselves tied in knots over the idea that if they take a hard line on something, they’re going to “offend” their opponents. The Democrats are worried about offending someone if they complain about DEI, Critical Race Theory (CRT), or Gender Ideology. Most of Trump’s supporters haven’t read a book in decades - they have no idea what these things are. The comeback for all of them is “So, you support oppression and discrimination against those you don’t understand?”
A guy like Trump will weaponize everything in sight. Democrats need to realize that it doesn’t matter what they say, a chronic liar will always find a way to turn it around on them. They need to take a hard line and call Trump’s actions and words out at every turn. Not “oh, he’s just exaggerating”, or “it sounds bad, but he probably won’t do it”. No. If he says it, assume he’s going to do it in the most detrimental way possible and hammer him with it.
In the legislature, use every legislative delaying tactic you can find - don’t worry about being painted as obstructionist - the GOP has been doing exactly that at every turn since Obama was elected in 2008. Every stunt they have used, you can use too.
Get mad. Show some emotion. This isn’t a dispute over the height of the hedge. It’s far worse than that - and Americans deserve far better than the half-assed “well… maybe his supporters have a point” nonsense we’ve been getting. His supporters don’t “have a point” - they’re either just as conniving and malicious as Trump himself, or they’re willing fools conned into believing Trump’s version of “The Big Lie”.
Nothing less than democracy and freedom are on the line now. It’s time for the Democrats and other parties in other countries to wake up to that reality and play hardball.
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