Comments

  1. John Harshman says

    This is oddly short on specifics. How exactly are we to accomplish that goal? Constitutional means? If so, what? Unconstitutional means? If so, isn’t that a problem itself?

  2. robro says

    Constitutional means?

    Silly. That’s means the dominant power in Congress has to seriously investigate the matter and take measures to deal with it. The problem is complicated because some in Congress may be mixed up with the storyline. According to some reports, Rinat Akhmetshin has done “opposition research” for people in Congress, including work for Democrat campaigns. Remember the reports of Ryan and other Reps joking about one of their own getting money from “Russians”? “Nothing to it. Just joking. Didn’t know we were being recorded.” Sound familiar? Ha ha. No chance those yokels are going to dig into this snake pit when they’re slithering down there with them. Besides, they’ve got important things to do first: cut taxes, reverse Roe vs. Wade, defund Planned Parent, kill climate research, erase public education, put prayer back in schools, destroy the safety net, gut healthcare, funnel billions into the pockets of the rich…you know, make America Great again.

  3. ragdish says

    Although your heart is in the right place, “refuse fascism” is unfortunately an empty platitude that in the end accomplishes nothing. Real change occurs with citizenship instead of respecting an individual’s right to not vote. Real change will occur when democrats recapture the hearts and minds of the entire working class. And I have yet to hear of a single democrat who can do that and unite the Left as a whole. Let’s face it. Even if Trump and Pence both are impeached, Paul “the Medicaid butcher” Ryan would be president. Trump/Pence fascism would be replaced by Ryan fascism. Instead of “refuse fascism” why not “don’t refuse your vote”?

  4. Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says

    The nearest organized protest, according to their site, is in the Bay Area. I don’t have enough confidence in this to go there in the traffic and heat.

    If there was one in Sacramento I’d be there with a big “NOTHING YOU SAY OR DO HERE MATTERS UNLESS YOU SHOW UP AND VOTE” sign. >.>

  5. F.O. says

    Berlusconi in Italy was the same: he survived unscathed scandal after scandal.
    Eventually (after about twenty years in power?) he just lost the election to the center-left, center-left that continued to push neo-liberal, fuck-the-poor, “social slaughterhouse” reforms.

  6. says

    @#6, F.O.:

    Berlusconi in Italy was the same: he survived unscathed scandal after scandal.
    Eventually (after about twenty years in power?) he just lost the election to the center-left, center-left that continued to push neo-liberal, fuck-the-poor, “social slaughterhouse” reforms.

    In a sense, we’re in a worse place than that, because for the last 20 years or so the whole fuck-the-poor social slaughterhouse stuff has been present as though it really was left of center. It didn’t take Trump to put us there, we started off there.

    Given the way the DNC is working (for a given value of that word, at least) in 2020 we’ll have Chelsea Clinton running for President with Milo Yiannopoulos as VP (trying to bring in Republican votes will, as in 2016, be the highest priority for the Democratic Party) on a platform of paying failing Wall Street traders bonuses directly out of tax revenue, invading every country with a vowel in its name, and fighting hunger by eating third-world babies, and anyone who questions whether it is a good idea to vote for this will be vilified. Heck, I’m already seeing people who supported Clinton in 2016 start going deliberately regressive, because they want to punish the left for not supporting her enough.

  7. blgmnts says

    With the American Left (which is left of Overton-Window-centre at best) praising Merkel (supported W’s Gulf War, Fuck-The-Poor austerity nationally and EU wide, acceptance of refugees mainly because corporations like the exploitable labour, relatively high taxes on low incomes, no real minimum wage because those who are most vulnerable to exploitation are excluded) all the time, the DNC will probably see no need to move to the left.

  8. EigenSprocketUK says

    FWIW, the UK’s centrist party has done very badly in the last couple of elections. Lost lots of ground in the last 20. No-one really got behind their, variously, centre-left ish policies to watered-down versions of the right-wing’s policies with most of the fuck-the-poor removed.
    On the other hand, the unexpected resurgence of the Labour left surprised everyone.
    Maybe the DNC will get nowhere trying to appeal to the right wing because they will only push their own Overton window out of reach. Maybe the solution is to distil some 200-proof communism out of Bernie and sprinkle a little on everything.

  9. unclefrogy says

    is the suggestion that we need a “Gabriel Bell” to get us past this anti-democratic moment?
    or is it “I am Spartacus!” ?
    uncle frogy