I think the great sin of the Democrats, one that in a way
makes them even worse than Republicans, is that when they gaze upon Trump they
do not ask “Good God, what has become of our nation?” but instead ask “Good
God, what have they done?”
Democrats take no responsibility for the mess our planet is
in, none. As Trump finds a scapegoat in Mexicans, Democrats find Russians and
a basket of deplorables to blame for everything that is wrong. And when Trump
fails, as he will surely fail, as he cannot help but fail, his supporters will
waken a little sadder but wiser. But the Democrats will feel vindicated,
stronger, more certain that their slightly slower path to human extinction is
the only sane path for humanity to take.
On that day they will arise as the new Republican Party, a position
left open when conservative voters decided they had enough of the status quo
and the party of the Bushes. The Democratic Party has been leaning and moving
in that direction for a long time, eager to be Republicans but realizing that
the only justification for their existence has been as an alternative to them. Their
entire attempt to sell themselves has come down to “We are not Trump. If you
hate Trump, you need to vote for us.” On the day that Trump fails—and only
someone completely unconvinced of their own leftist ideals could consider that Trump’s
brand of overt kleptocracy can work for more than a year or two—the Democrats
will be the only alternative.
They will be the only alternative because they have been
clever enough to do away with their competitors. Rather than change who they
are (warmongering corporatists) in order to combat the scourge of Trump, they
have been willing to bide their time until they have an opportunity to take control
on their own terms. The suffering of the poor, the suffering of people in foreign
nations, the suffering of Mother Earth, will all be worth it to them because in
the end they will rise from the destruction unopposed. They will be unopposed
because they have spent the last two years not in combating Trump’s policies
but in joining with plutocrats and the intelligence agencies in order to wipe
out their opposition. Those on the left who actually are against never ending
war and the dominance of corporations over people will have been purged under
the fabricated and fanciful rubric that Russia and not our nation’s own moral
failings are responsible for Trump.
It was a cynical bargain, a Faustian bargain, a path only
utterly corrupted and self-serving politicians who feel themselves to be beyond
any limiters could pursue. All the great thinkers and moral authorities of the Left
will have been cut adrift, persecuted, defamed, or misrepresented in order to
advance the selfish interests of those who are able to rise in the fundamentally
corrupt institution that is the Democratic Party.
And what will happen on the day the Democrats eventually
regain control? Will they decrease the military budget and spend that money on
reducing the debt, rebuilding infrastructure, or helping the very neediest of
us? No. Will they find ways other than war, economic warfare, and intimidation
to interact with nations who do not comply with our wishes? No. Will they lead
the world in bringing about a new green economy? No. Will they do away with
fracking? No. Will they appoint judges to the Supreme Court who will not
support personhood for corporate entities? A thousand times no.
What then will these new Republicans do? They will move to
the right and they will cite such a move as evidence that they can work in a
bi-partisan fashion unlike the old Republicans. They will make a host of
decisions which they will call unfortunate but necessary, explaining as they do
so how, in the end, such actions on behalf of the wealthy and powerful will help
the poor and powerless. They will put a friendlier face on the corporatocracy
and the war machine. No longer will we bomb other nations out of anger but instead
out of humanitarian concerns.
The Democratic Party has cut themselves adrift from their
left wing, from all those who have acted these last decades as their conscience.
Those old voices of conscience—Ralph Nader, Chris Hedges, Cornel West, and
others—have been effectively marginalized and ignored. The new voices of
conscience—Jimmy Dore, Caitlin Johnstone, Reverend William Barber, and others—are
being subtly smeared or censored when they are not ignored by Democrats and the
media which support them. This will allow the Democrats to drift as far to the right
as they wish, in many instances further right than the Republicans themselves.
Given the excuse of Russian election interference and the support of the
mainstream (allegedly) liberal media, Democrats will be able to get away with
the kind of censorship at home and cruelty abroad that Democratic voters never
would tolerate from Republicans.
The new Democratic Party we see emerging will be different from
the Republicans in one crucial aspect: they will still retain the veneer of what
they seldom were but at least strove to be. They will hold themselves up as the
resistance even as they go about doing the work the Republicans of a decade ago
wished to do but could not garner public support for. The Democratic Party will
be the new Republican party, but this new Republican Party will have no
opposition from the Left. The Democrats are doing everything in their power to make
sure of that. And as they busily enact every possible agenda of the Bush
Presidency, they will proudly proclaim that they are not Trump.
