Our Democracy, Part 1

The Capital Besieged

I was going to post today about something altogether different but yesterday’s events prompted a turn…

Just to get this out in the open, I am a registered Democrat, and the philosophy associated with that party most closely aligns with how I see that a society can best function. Your average American who votes Republican has bought into the longest-running economic con game in political history. Conservative’s use fear tactics (such as the world is dangerous, only our ‘leader’ can protect us from scary immigrants, that our Christianity is under attack by godless heathens) to induce poor and middle class people to vote against their economic self-interest and in favor of a wealthy elite that becomes wealthier by exploiting them.

On top of that, for over forty years the GOP is on record for wanting to dismantle and destroy Social Security, the EPA, OSHA, NASA, the Centers for Disease Control, the Dept. of Health and Human Services, Medicare, Health Care, collective bargaining rights, the right to vote, safety and health regulations, banking regulations, the EPA, the Department of Education. They are also on record opposing equal pay for women, claim that granting basic civil liberties to LGBT folks is an assault on their religion, and are anti-minority, anti-science, and anti-worker.

Well, we may be at a crossroads right now after four years of unprecedented thievery and chicanery from all levels of our government, the puppet strings controlled by a man whose candidacy consisted of ethnic slurs, racist slanders, misogynist insults, instigating violence against Muslim Americans and Mexican Americans, a disdain for the Bill of Rights, and contempt for the poor, a philandering, failed casino magnate, a slum lord, a beauty pageant operator, a stiff artist who doesn’t pay his debts; a strutting braggart who claims to be a business genius, but who managed to lose nearly $1 billion in a year, keeps declaring bankruptcy, and refuses to release his tax returns; a man whose public persona is as crude and arrogant that I’ve ever seen or heard. And his most blatant and sexist remark, “When you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything,” seems to have had no consequences.

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

And then his minions stormed the Capital Building yesterday carrying flags glorifying his name and also of one that represents white supremacy. This one man, along with several GOP elected officials, has inflamed the right-wing movement in this country and has brought out the worst impulses of his followers across the country. Before his Twitter account was shut down yesterday, he ranted, “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol because you’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength and you have to be strong.” He told his supporters shortly before the joint session, “We will never give up. We will never concede. You don’t concede when there is theft involved. Your country has had enough. We will not take it anymore. We won this election, and we won it by a landslide. This was not a close election. We will stop the steal…I’m going to be watching because history is going to be made.” He also urged Pence by saying “If not I’m going to be very disappointed in you” and vowed to “primary the hell out of” members of Congress who didn’t go along with his bid to overturn the election results, calling them “pathetic” and “weak Republicans.” Then, hours after the insurrection began, Trump released a video statement urging his supporters to go home, while telling them, “We love you. You’re very special.”

Bree Newsome Bass, an American filmmaker, musician, speaker, and activist from Charlotte, NC stated it’s impossible not to note “the obvious difference in terms of how police have a coordinated, overtly militarized response to any kind of protest that is challenging racism in policing or racism in the government versus what we witnessed yesterday in Washington, D.C. It is very clear that the primary function of police forces in the United States is to enforce racism above enforcing public safety.” Bass is best known for her act of civil disobedience on June 27, 2015, when she was arrested for removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state house grounds in the aftermath of the Charleston Shooting.

The debate about what took place yesterday has just begun, and now that the Democrats have won not only the Office of the Presidency but both the House and the Senate, it will be interesting to see how elected officials who have been backing the orange clown will either double down or stick their tails between their legs. Stay tuned.

Before we go, here is today’s philosophical moment…