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Trump is a traitor - and elected Dems are STILL not meeting the moment. Not even close. PART 2 [1]
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Date: 2025-03-01
Continuing with a focus on where I think elected Dems are falling short, and what else they could be doing during this surreal, historic moment of crisis:
I’m not asking for / demanding miracles in terms of what Democrats can do. I know the political reality of the majorities in the House and Senate, and the fact that, staggeringly , there doesn't seem to be any people of true , sustained self-respect / integrity / patriotism in the GOP today at all. No one. That is maddening, and depressing, and daunting, I know that we can’t win majority votes against a. mindless, treasonous, lockstep chickenshit GOP if they stay united.
I also think some Dems have been stepping up. Senator Murphy (D-CT), for example, has been good. Senator Schatz from HI took the lead on proposing holds on Trump’s diplomatic nominees. Representative Crockett (D-TX) has been great. But I continue to believe passionately that, by and large, elected Democrats could be doing a helluva lot more than they have been doing.
Congressional hearings still seem to be running quite normally.
Regular votes still seem to be occurring pretty normally. I
know for a fact that we — especially those in the Senate — are not using every single fucking tool in their tool box, to raise alarm and call attention to this shit.
They are not seeking blocking unanimous consents even time they could.
They are not placing holds on every single fucking Trump nomination.
Hell, several Democrats voted to advance the #2 nominee for OMB — a former GOP congressman and Freedom Caucus member who is an enthusiastic proponent of the unconstitutional theory of impoundment — — earlier this week. WTAF? Really. WTF.
Democrats also saved Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Labor from failing in Committee earlier this week (Some Republicans find her too pro-labor). As if what she actually believes will mean a damn thing if confirmed, under Trump’s glare.
The lack of creativity is stunning and again, depressing.
While Bernie broke the mold a bit with a couple recent town halls to GOP areas in the face of GOP cowardice and apparently running away from town halls in the future, that was very much the exception rather than the rule. More of that please. Much more.
Democrats should be highlighting and featuring some of the fired, terrorized federal employees in their districts in press availabilities and conferences every single week, if not every day. Highlighting their stories. Highlighting what their agencies did. Highlighting how the country will be worse off.
They should have be having their own unofficial hearings every other day or week, like Elizabeth Warren did recently on the dismantled CFPB, which again, highlights some of those stories. Rinse and repeat please with other agencies. Over and over again.
They should be blocking and delaying everything they possibly can.
As I noted earlier, they should boycott entirely — or walk out of, early on — the State of the Union. They should display upside down flags broadly at that speech assuming they don’t do what I;’d like them to do,.
Unless they get serious concessions from Republicans — ironclad assurances that the money they appropriate will get spent as directed, period — they should let the government shut down on the GOP watch. GOP House, Senate, and White House — they have the responsibility to actually govern. A sustained government shutdown will be one of the few things, I think, which will actually really hurt them.
But I have one idea on an even more basic level which would be very, very, very easy for Democrats to do. And the fact that they haven't done this yet, and I suspect won’t drives me a little crazy.
Call their Republican colleagues out for what there are. Every single day. Every single public appearance. Decorum in the House and Senate apparently dictates that you refer to your colleagues as “colleagues” or “my friends across the aisle” or “my good friend” or “the gentlelady from New Hampshire” .
Every single day. Every single public appearance. Decorum in the House and Senate apparently dictates that you refer to your colleagues as “colleagues” or “my friends across the aisle” or “my good friend” or “the gentlelady from New Hampshire” . Newsflash to Democrats. These are not your friends. Or colleagues. Or pals. Or buds.
Not when they are shitting on the US Constitution, cheering on lawlessness, trashing the separation of powers, presiding over the systematic and devastating destruction of the federal government by an unelected Neo-Nazi billionaire.
A s I contend at the beginning of this piece, they are treasonous. And they are cowards. Historically so, More than anything else, that’s what they are. Start treating them as such.
Historically so, More than anything else, that’s what they are. Start treating them as such. Perhaps it’s too much to ask for them to do on the House of Senate floor, where those breaches of decorum might invite censures and the words will undoubtedly be stricken from the record. (although I would argue that a breach of decorum is a small price to pay when the country as we knew it is being ruined)
But certainly in each press availability, each interview…. hammer this over and over again,
In those settings up to this point, Democrats continue to bemoan the fact that, well, they fear being primaried … the political pressure on them is intense…. implicitly suggesting, what can we do? As if their cowardice is excusable / understandable given the circumstances, As if the idea that little things like lawlessness, brazen corruption, contempt for the Constitution and trashing our relationships with our allies while embracing murderous war criminals aren’t a tad more important than whether one might get primaried in 2 or 4 or 6 years.
Two very recent examples — Sens. Blumenthal and Booker — 2 solid liberals — couldn’t be troubled on MSNBC last night to really blast their craven GOP colleagues. Asked directly about Leningrad Lindsey Graham’s sickening and chickenshit bashing of Zelenskyy post-Oval Office meeting — which directly contradicted everything he professed to believe in form the last several years, including 2 weeks ago in Munich to Zelensky’s face — Blumenthal spoke some words and referred in some milquetoast fashion to the GOP Senators’ “sycophancy.” While accurate, using words like sycophancy isn’t quite going to cut it. Similarly, Senator Booker waxed eloquently — and repeatedly — about his GOP colleagues, and closed, in part, with a reference to (I’m paraphrasing here) “when good men stay silent, evil triumphs.”
No. Just no. These are not “good men staying silent.”
They are cowards. They are remarkably unpatriotic. They are spineless. And they are treasonous.
Start acting like it and calling them, what they are.
Those are some ideas for starters for more creative Democratic responses. Would love to hear the thoughts of others
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