Before I begin on the Democrats, allow me to make this assertion: The Republican Party, for as long as this baby boomer can remember, are but a pack of wolves. They devour anything that is for working stiffs and the poor. Recently, the Republicans are pushing this lie that their reinstatement of Trump’s tax cuts will “Help small business and working people.” Meanwhile, the overwhelming benefit will be for the Super Rich and Corporate America, and not Mom and Pop.
Onto the Democrats. Factor out but a minor percentage of both their legislators and supporters and you have a party of pragmatists. This writer’s definition of a pragmatist is the guy standing in front of the firing squad asking for a blindfold. The leaders of this party believe all that matters is to get out and vote… nothing more… oh sorry, except to send donations. Let’s go back to 2006 when, during the height of the Bush-Cheney ( or is it Cheney-Bush?). The Cabal’s phony war and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, the Democrats took over the House of Representatives. Rep. John Conyors, he of the Judiciary Committee, had promised a year or so earlier “Once we take over the House and I am chair of the Judiciary Committee, we are going to have major hearings on the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.” Then, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave the order that “The hearings are OFF the table.” Bye Bye all chances of holding the Cabal responsible for, in my 70+ years of existence, the equally horrific foreign policy act by my nation as the Vietnam War!
So, in my little hamlet of Port Orange, Florida, population at the time of around 60,000, we organized weekly street corner demonstrations against the Iraq invasion and occupation. We stayed at it from before the 2004 presidential election right up until Obama became the candidate in 2008. Once he was the front runner of his party, the 25-30 folks we had on that corner each Tuesday at rush hour now became three or four of us stalwarts. The BS Democratic Party mouthpiece MoveOn.org refused to get behind regular street demonstrations. No, now it was time to spend all energy in getting Barack elected. Meanwhile, many of us on what is called The True Left wanted Medicare for All. Mr. Obama said he liked the idea of a Public Option, which in essence was just that in a more pragmatic (here we go again) manner. Then, when Obama was out receiving campaign donations of $21+ million vs. $7+ million for John McCain from the Health Care and Insurance Industries, he changed course. No public option on the table for his Bully Pulpit. Just the Affordable Care Act, another (here we go again) pragmatic program, which helped stop some of the bleeding but not the cause of the wound.
Bill Clinton gave us the Welfare Reform Act which made those folks in dire need feel like interlopers inside the empire. He and his wife really screwed up any idea for Medicare for All, didn’t they as well? You see, those who walk the line between doing good and doing what the empire wants always fall on their faces… or rather their supporters do. Thus, Obama as President during the middle of the terrible Sub Prime Crisis left it up to his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to run his “best and the brightest” meetings while Barack went home to dinner with his family. Emanuel twisted arms and came up with more TARP money gifts to the Wall Street predators, instead of what Ralph Nader and many conservatives and progressives demanded: Putting the toxic Wall Street companies into Receivership. Uncle Sam could have paid pennies on the dollar for those shitty assets, and then sold them to highest bidders down the road.
When it came to the phony Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Obama and his party leadership did squat about the lies and misinformation the Cabal issued to justify those invasions and occupations. We are still suffering as a nation from that mess. Now we have Trump 2.0 or shall I say Trump-Musk 1 and what will the pragmatists on the other side of the aisle finally do? Will they push out all those empire serving hypocrites from their party and rally Americans for real, viable change? Kamala Harris actually took in more money from the big donors and still lost the election. Her party’s leaders and their lemmings said it was because she was a woman and of mixed race (wasn’t Obama mixed race?). No, she lost because Kamala kept dancing to the same Neocon tune that Sleepy Joe sang to. Working stiffs nationwide could not see any difference between her and Trump 2.0. Harris, Biden, the Clintons, Obama et al. forgot what FDR accomplished to save the Capitalism that they all love, by sticking it to the Super Rich with his New Deal. Because of their failings we can today see how Trump and his party are pushing us back in time to that glorious Gilded Age and 21st Century Feudal America.