Read on Twitter
I have been enraged for a while. Every utterance that comes from The Gaslight Administration sets my teeth on edge and whips me to a froth. It's the ignorance, the smug air of intellectual dishonesty, the bald-faced lies and half-truths. I want nothing more than to make them pay.
The only weapon I have at my disposal is my vote. Congress is split, the Supreme Court is remote, and the Executive Branch no longer is an actual functional branch of government, beholden to The People. The Constitution offers me nothing as a means to make amends except the vote.
We want to believe that we still have a working government. We don't. It has all the appearances of one, and we applaud when smart, capable Democrats whipsaw Conservatives and their lackeys in public hearings, but they have no other power. The House is impotent to effect change.
Everyone wants to believe that Democrats must continue to press, bring further impeachments, continue their course of oversight. Fine. But ask yourself what it gets us? It's spitting into the wind and expecting to not get wet. How many more failures do us any favors?
The impeachment of trump did nothing to him or to his administration, because they knew that past that, there was nothing to come. No removal. No vicious fight. Nothing. They ignored it as easily as they've ignored their Constitutional duties. What would further impeachment gain?
The Constitution, as it was set up, was created by men who ASSUMED that men would not change in their education or bearing significantly, that they would always be honorable, and do what needed to be done. It was a foolish bargain. The Founders were mistaken to believe this.
The Founders never reckoned with the poison pill of slavery they implanted in the Constitution, that would eventually tear the country apart. They never reckoned with the seething resentment that would push White politics. The didn't foresee an electorate voting for an idiot.
The Constitution was created as a template. The Founders DID expect it to change and be updated. They knew life would not remain the same always, that our highest laws WOULD require updating. The kicked the can of slavery down the road, hoping future politicians would excise it.
What that meant was an outline of a more perfect union, but no guidelines. The assumption that every American would remain engaged in the politics of the country at all times proved unfounded, as we slowly peeled away the importance of civic duty & marked government as an enemy.
The Federal government through the Constitution has been broken for a long time. Republicans in the 1960s saw this, understood it, and starting with Barry Goldwater, began to manipulate the broken system in the name of "restoring America." It should have alarmed us then.
Nixon's only problem is that he attempted to take the power that Republicans coveted, for himself. He wasn't a team player. The plan meant waiting for decades, but Richard Nixon wasn't willing to wait. He wanted the power the GOP promised at HIS hands.
Nixon might have unraveled the whole thing, but Reagan came along, spoke the words that soothed the Conservative electorate, and went out of his way to begin neutering the power of Congress by filling the Judicial branch with Conservatives who could counter Progressive action.
Reagan set the table for George H. W. Bush, who then set it for George W. Bush, and that led us to trump. Slowly, the GOP stripped away power, not just at the Federal level, but at the State and Local level as well. If not for President Obama, trump would have arrived earlier.
The system IS broken. To pretend it isn't is like driving with a bad spark plug, because, hey, the car still runs. The damage accumulates. Every failure to induce accountability weakens further an already weak government. People are already disdainful of government.
At this point, The People need to take control. We started by giving Democrats back the House, to block further damage by trump. Now, we need to finish the job, by removing The Gaslight Administration and putting in competent leadership to undo the damage. This is reclamation.
What we need now is every ounce of energy devoted to protecting the vote in the time of Covid-19. Anything less means we lose the last vestige of control we have. If the November election is compromised, the United States is finished. It is just that simple.
