(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .



Will We Punch Our Ticket to Crazytown? [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2022-09-14

What is going to be the key to the path we take is the quality of the leadership we elect in this country. – Leon Panetta, former United States Secretary of Defense

In the good old days, our political battles were mostly about policy. Taxes, the social safety net, the military. Basic, but important, stuff.

It was against that backdrop that we went to the polls and made our decision about who would get our vote. You wanted your side to win, but you knew that the opposition may be wrong, but it wasn’t insane. You were sure they didn’t present an existential threat to our democracy and rule of law.

My how times have changed.

Today, anyone who casts his or her ballot without understanding we are so far past that way of thinking is doing a disservice to all of us. They’re failing in their duty as citizens to know, at least in a cursory way, what the hell is going on in their country.

The Republican side of the ballot in November will include numerous MAGA candidates whose main goal, if elected, will be to do everything they can in service to former President/unindicted criminal Donald Trump.

Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent laid out some possibilities in an opinion piece titled, “The hidden danger posed by a MAGA takeover of the House.” Here they are:

*Republicans could use the House’s fiscal and investigative powers to try to defund or hobble any and all investigations and prosecutions involving Trump.

*A GOP majority could reinstate an obscure House rule permitting Republicans to use spending bills to zero out salaries of specific federal officials or nix blocks of federal employees, functionally killing specific programs. For instance, it might attempt to kill the salary of Attorney General Merrick Garland. Or it could try to defund any ongoing enforcement investigations of Trump, effectively canceling them.

*Republicans could try to counter opposition by the White House and Senate (if Democrats retain control) by threatening to shut down the government while demanded those targeted cuts protecting Trump. It could use the debt ceiling as leverage, threatening to let the whole country default unless all these probes of Trump are stopped.

*The danger isn’t just at the federal level. In my state of Pennsylvania, for example, if GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano wins, he could lead an effort to certify electors for Trump or whoever the Republican presidential candidate is in 2024, even if the Democrat wins the popular vote.

As Sargent writes: “The threats of chaos won’t be about realizing fiscal priorities in any meaningful sense; they will more likely be cultishly devoted to preserving one man’s absolute impunity. A sizable bloc of House Republicans may well see it as a higher mission to put Trump beyond the reach of accountability and above the law.”

Pretty scary stuff. And that doesn’t include the endless series of phony investigations into President Joe Biden and the Democrats, possible impeachment efforts against Biden, and the relentless blocking of the president’s agenda that you can expect to also occur.

Just take Congresswoman/raving lunatic Marjorie Taylor Greene and multiply her by enough similar House members to impose their will and their scorched earth agenda of destruction.

Of course, the sane Republicans in the House could join Democrats to block this madness. But, do you really think they or possible House Speaker Kevin McCarthy – a man with no backbone and even less integrity – would do that?

I know we said that 2020 was the most important election in our lifetimes. Now 2022 is the most important election in our lifetimes until 2024, when that will be the most important election in our lifetimes.

These are all true. They’re all important, and the most important is whichever one we happen to be facing at the time. This threat isn’t going away anytime soon. Maybe it never will.

The choice is stark and clear. If we allow the Republicans to take control of the House, let alone the House and the Senate, our government will cease to function in any meaningful way. If you think it’s bad now, just watch.

We’ll see at least two years of retribution and corruption, and only the minimal amount of legislating needed to keep the country operating, if that. The damage is incalculable, and will possibly be irreversible.

I don’t want to hear any “We’ll just get ‘em in 2024.” Give them power now, and your chances two years from now will range from severely diminished to crushed because of what they’ll do to our system of democracy in the interim. And it’s not just what they’ll do. It’s what they’ll allow to happen at the state and local levels that will be just as damaging.

So, you can vote for your party or you can vote for your country. You can try to save the United States or you can spit on the graves of those who died while protecting it.

Unfortunately, the freedoms those folks gave their lives to uphold include the freedom to allow our own stupidity to let our country to be brought to its knees and taken over by a minority rule government.

Plato said, “The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”

That sounds about right.

***

Thank you for reading my post. You can read more of my writings on my blog: Musings of a Nobody.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/9/14/2122792/-Will-We-Punch-Our-Ticket-to-Crazytown

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/