Things are going really well for the Democrats. And none of it is thanks to them. They are headed for significant victories at the end of the year and all without crafting progressive legislation or discussing the biggest issues on the campaign trail. The Republicans are imploding and continuously feeding the Democrats ammunition to use against them. Then there is the new wave of activists whose baby steps and half measures are straight out of the Democratic playbook. All the gutless liberals must be positively tumescent at how the past two weeks have turned out.
Thousands of people took to the streets in hundreds of demonstrations across America and the rest of the world to call for new gun control. The March for Our Lives movement is calling for a ban on assault weapons, strengthened and expanded background checks, and a 10-round limit on magazine capacity. Everything the marchers and activists are calling for is necessary. Each demand will reduce the number of homicides and make everyone safer. However, they do not go far enough. If the marchers really want to end gun violence and make America’s schools and streets safe (not just safer), they should also call for a ban on handguns along with measures making it nigh on impossible for most people to own a firearm. They’re calling for a sip of milk when their survival depends on taking the whole farm.
The Democratic Party will be loving this. The newly-politically aware activists are the next generation of voters and leaders, and they are headed towards Democratic membership. Very few, if any, will ever vote for a right-wing party or candidate so from the get-go they lean towards the Democrats. Then there are the halfhearted policy demands. The young activists will find kinship within a party that hasn’t proposed a radical idea for years. The Democrats will not have to become more progressive because their future voters are on board with narrow, centrist proposals. Altogether, the Democratic Party will grow its base and win more elections without doing anything new or exciting.
Modern activists (especially those working on the issue of gun control) should look to the past for how best to move forward. In the ‘60s, African Americans and antiwar protesters fought for everything they needed. African Americans shed blood, sweat, and tears for complete racial equality, not just seats on buses or access to water fountains. The antiwar movement screamed for an end to all hostilities, not only ceasefire zones or a ban on napalm. America is still afflicted with racial issues and war, but huge advancements were made thanks to the headstrong, all-or-nothing tactics of activists. I generally loathe this phrase but if you shoot for the stars, you may just hit the moon. If you aim for the treetops, the best you’ll ever get is the treetops. The new generation of activists should be fighting against all instruments of death instead of trying to ban only the most egregious ones (and the ones easiest to have banned). Then they may just make everyone’s lives better. Driving a stake through the Democratic heart and moving America to the left would be a wonderful bonus.
As part of the ongoing investigations into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election, the Senate Intelligence Committee released its recommendations for future election protection. The committee members want new/updated electronic voting machines that leave a paper trail and are less susceptible to hacking. If Fort Knox was broken into, they would be requesting a shiny new padlock and the receipt from its purchase. As she was singing the praises of the machines, Kamala Harris commented on how paper cannot be hacked. She’s smart enough to know paper is secure, but still wants the tremendously imperfect contraptions that have been used to steal multiple presidential elections. It’s like she’s telling people The Grateful Dead are the greatest rock band while she sells Nickelback albums. The Democrats want to protect elections against the kinds of foreign intervention they blame for Clinton’s defeat while leaving them open to domestic interference if the need arises. They would look good on the issue of election protection without giving up the funds from voting machine manufacturers and the ability to force elections in their favor. The committee also wants to leave election protection up to the states. They will provide the funding, but, in their eyes, it is not a federal issue. Everything left to individual states is a mess: education, healthcare, gun policy, energy policy, etc. State-based election policies will not make elections simpler or more secure, and they will fail to undermine the ludicrous electoral college. Election to the federal government is a federal issue, and the United States should start acting as a unified country on at least a few issues. American voters should not be fooled into thinking new machines or increased funding will make their votes count. Only popular vote elections that use paper ballots will.
A new spending bill went into effect until the end of September. The $1.3 trillion bill covers all government expenditures and, while unacceptable, isn’t as conservative as it could have been. Congressional Republicans are at each other’s throats because the bill was rushed through the Congress and does nothing to cut the deficit. Their dysfunction only adds to the executive branch’s insanity. Democrats can claim victories in the $380 million to states for election protection and a ban on tip pooling. They will put their name on the Centers for Disease Control finally being permitted to research gun violence as well as an increase in the tax credit for low-income housing. The $380 million will be money down the drain and the ban on tip pooling is a small victory for a system that shouldn’t even exist. The CDC issue is a big win for the people of America, and the tax credit is good though still not large enough. The bill also gives the IRS a budget of more than $11 billion. The Secret Service will operate with $2 billion which is only a little more than has been set aside for additional protections along the southern border. The Jewish lobby was taken care of via scaled back economic assistance for Palestine. Not a penny was earmarked for gun control or penis enlargement procedures. Nor was there anything for green technologies or toilet paper and pencils for public schools. The bill is enough for the Democrats to attack their opponents while they tout their bipartisanship and victories on behalf of the country. For them, it was a wonderful bill that came at a very opportune moment.
Trump went ahead and appointed John Bolton as his National Security Adviser. Foreign policy will now be even more pro-war and the likelihood of diplomacy improving the world has plummeted. Regardless of what Bolton persuades the president to do, his appointment must be welcome news for the Democratic Party. If Bolton’s influence is minimal, there is plenty of political hay to be made from his appointment and Trump’s lack of a grip on his staff. He will easily be portrayed as unfit to lead the country because he can’t even hold on to his own advisers and cabinet members for more than a few months. His temperament and stability will be an issue that sullies the conservatives running in the midterms. If Bolton gets the war(s) his loins burn for, the Democrats will be thrilled to take part in another armed conflict. They enjoy killing non-whites just as much as the Republicans and they are huge fans of the new capitalist markets that bombs open up for American corporations. Democrats will benefit politically because they could attract progressives and liberals by pretending to be antiwar and then painting themselves as the only ones sane enough to control the United States. On the issue of war, they sleep with the Republicans but call them crab-ridden sluts in public.
Recent events should have provided fertile ground for the radicalization and mobilization of a brand new generation of activists and voters. Sadly, the Republican government’s disgraceful policies and congressional infighting make centrists and invertebrates look positively communist. There is a very real danger of the Democrats tightening their grip on the left and condemning America to many more years of poverty and destruction. They will continue to get away with achieving nothing as long as the other guys are worse, and youngsters are afraid to take on the toughest battles. And it will all materialize without them lifting a bony, white finger.
