An excerpt from Heather Cox Richardson's April 13 "Letters from an American" -
Just as there is a blueprint for destroying democracy, there is also one for rebuilding it. “Let us now and here highly resolve to resume the country’s interrupted march along the path of real progress, of real justice, of real equality for all of our citizens, great and small,” New York governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt said to the delegates at the Democratic National Convention in 1932 as American democracy struggled to resist fascism.“Out of every crisis, every tribulation, every disaster, mankind rises with some share of greater knowledge, of higher decency, of purer purpose,” FDR said. “Today we shall have come through a period of loose thinking, descending morals, an era of selfishness, among individual men and women and among Nations…. Let us be frank in acknowledgment of the truth that many amongst us have made obeisance to Mammon, that the profits of speculation, the easy road without toil, have lured us from the old barricades. To return to higher standards we must abandon the false prophets and seek new leaders of our own choosing.”“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people,” FDR concluded. “Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order of competence and of courage. This is more than a political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.”
(boldface added), More at the link.
It needs a third party because the other two are a razor blade apart once you get to the leadership.
ReplyDeleteThat is sadly true. I already have my non-party-affiliated candidate:
Deletehttps://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2023/05/dolly-parton-for-president.html
and even if they weren’t, two parties are not a good thing to build functioning democracies on. if you’re always only choosing between this one or that one, their propositions will flatten very quickly into ‘not what the other guys are doing’, which is not how you get productive solutions to problems.
Deleteand if either party only ever either gets to do things or gets to be in opposition, your entire political and governmental culture is lacking compromise, adjustment, negotiating, discussing… all the things that are required for needing to form a coalition to get a majority.
raphael
I'm grateful for Heather Cox Richardson's persistent prudent voice.
ReplyDeleteDemocrats are about to squander a massive opportunity.
ReplyDeleteThe way I see it, the Federal Government was a giant compromise between different administrations. It was the result of an iterative process over a long time. It was ugly, but it kinda worked. And democracy never promised to be pretty.
Biden thought he just had to clean up and bring things back to where they were and everything would be ok again. That was not an unreasonable thought, at the time. Sadly, too many Democrats still believe this.
However with the further, more thorough destruction of the Federal Government, there is not much to go back to. Democrats have a real opportunity here to rebuild the government in the way they want. They can implement the Green New Deal. They can really ram out a lot of the baked-in racism. They can go for single-payer health care. They can make stronger better versions of the EPA and CFPB. They can fundamentally rebuild the military. Preferably on a smaller budget. And use that money for science and education. They can rebuild the intelligence community, diplomacy, FBI, CIA, etc, etc, etc. They can get rid of every compromise they ever made. And they need to start with the judiciary and SCOTUS.
In short, they can learn from the current destruction, strengthen the weak points, and get rid of a lot of the compromises.
But to do that, they need to start working now and come up with their own Project 2025 and come up with a catchy slogan for it. It they build back better, it will be harder to destroy a next time.
Sadly, they are not doing any of this.
I saw Sen Slotkin on Real Time with Grandpa is High. She was talking about how we've found out that a lot of conventions that were thought to be hard rules were being run over roughshod by the current administration. And that someone should make laws to fix that.
And I was just thinking: You are a Senator. Get to work! Who else is going to do it?
Put Bernie, AOC, Mamdami, Warren, Abugazelah, McMorrow, Spanberger, etc together and let them go wild. Don't worry about being too left. Yank that Overton window back to where it should be, knowing that the next administration will pull back to the right anyway.
nepkarel, i usually agree completely with what you write but:
Delete> That was not an unreasonable thought, at the time.
it was.
after trump 1, it was clear as day that the entire system’s stability had been built on the goodwill that everyone involved would play by the book.
the fear of such a thing happening was reasonable before trump’s first presidency. (as i did not tire to point out to american acquaintances, only to get brushed off with arguments that turned out to be the hot air i suspected them to be.)
after the thing had been demonstrated, it was not reasonable to believe you can just pretend it didn’t happen. that’s the same level of naiveté as the hogwash i got told why my fears are understandable for a german, but could never come true in the US, perfectest of perfect nations.
it was clear as day by 2018 at the latest that the only way forward for the US is complete reform.
raphael
That's a lot of 20/20 hindsight. Biden thought the justice system would do its job and toss a bunch of people in jail. In a system where the judiciary is an independent branch of government that trust is perhaps naive, but not illegitimate. I don't think the subsequent utter failure of the judiciary to accomplish that was obvious in 2016 or 2017. The world was occupied digging itself out of COVID.
DeleteIn the end, both Biden and Obama were not aggressive enough to the (war) crimes of their predecessors. This is true. The next Democratic POTUS will have to figure out how to be more efficient. The judiciary needs to be thoroughly reformed. It is not acceptable that the US is not able to hold criminal politicians to account when South Korea, Brazil, France and Italy can. We'll see about Hungary soon.
Sadly, as I indicated above, I do not see any Democratic politicians with plans to reform the judiciary. I would refer them to Elie Mystal, but I'm sure there are plenty of other experts out there as well.
i wouldn’t say it’s hindsight so much because people warned of exactly this *before* trump got elected. because we know this stuff from history. and getting to hold office *after* an explicit demonstration of your governmental structure and practise having been fully subverted without consequence *is* acting from a position where you have hindsight and should be expected to act on it. throwing a couple people in jail is nowhere near a solution.
Deletei don’t know what else to tell you, other than point at the warnings before 2016, and the many notions in 2020 that the US will have at least a decade of hard, substantial work (i.e. *not* business as usual) to do before it can be back at credible and trustworthy. i know of both because i voiced both, 2015–16, and 2018 forward, respectively. frequently. and i don’t have any special insight.
but yes, i agree with your outlook. even beyond the democrats, i believe the US as a whole to be too up its own behind to even consider the level of reform needed.
raphael