The New Republican Party

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.