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It Is Time To Recognize There Is Only ONE Political Party Remaining [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-20
Ideology is a sick-soul-meme; it gnaws basic decency away until you can self-justify the most extreme acts as worthwhile to further the cause. Any cause.
— Peter F. Hamilton
The anger and outrage when Schumer caved on the GOP authored bill to keep the government open was palpable. People were up in arms, threatening to leave the Democratic Party. Then came people asking us not to leave, explaining how they were mad at first when Schumer sided with the GOP, but decided it was better this way, or they begged the rest of us to stay despite what seems to be a complete capitulation by our national leaders to Trump, the Trump agenda, and to the caprices of the cavalcade of outright sociopaths now in charge of everything that makes America, America.
It seems rather fast, this collapse of Democratic and Constitutional norms. Lawlessness has taken over, with Congress and the courts both being bullied, ignored, misconstrued, and cherry picked.
But none of this is really surprising, when you consider the party that has firmly taken control of America, brushing aside the Constitution and the rule of law like chaff before a hurricane.
Nope, it’s not the Republican Party which has taken over. Though he has enabled it to be lawless, John Roberts did not empower the Republicans Party to overthrow the Constitution. No, Robert’s and his cohorts on the Court gave that power to MONEY. And Money, is the only remaining political party in America.
Money went after the Supreme Court, first. Money got to work on the conservative Justices under and including John Roberts. Improper gifts were insinuated into the Court, favors were granted in return, ideologies were suggested, discussed, and then honed into actionable doctrine. Disclosure of these acts of influence was not to be forthcoming for years, and disclosure of the Court’s new doctrine became visible only through decisions rendered under it. With the conservatives of the Court favorably molded, Money made the only move it really had to make, in order to change everything — Citizens United.
When the Roberts Court decided Citizens United, and turned Money into free speech, it was only a matter of time before Money took over both political parties. When Money became free speech, the next trick those who own the Money had to pull off was to divide us, which, let’s face it, we all made easy.
Americans of all stripes found something to dislike when the culture wars, which have always been simmering in the background, were fed with a firehouse of disinformation and hatred to all of us. It didn’t take long for the divisions to widen, to entrench, and to become our national pastime, and for a while there, we all reveled in the fights the freshly invigorated culture wars spawned.
Suddenly, ideology upstaged idealism, and in one determined stroke, Money had the tools it needed to start taking our political parties apart at the seams.
The Republicans were first, as they were the easiest party to corrupt, for the Republican Party had been walking the path of greed that Money started Reagan down from the beginning. Money easily turned the Republican Party — the party of “family values,” of Christianity, and of National Security — into a willing tool of conquest.
Then Money turned its sights on Democrats, and wow, has Money succeeded in corrupting the Democratic party, too.
No longer an opposition party, no longer a party for progress, Democratic politics these days involves little more than maintaining the status of its highest placed members while ensuring nothing changes, that big money interests are not challenged, that the Party survives, even if it doesn’t stand for anything of substance any longer. Today’s Democratic Party excels at telling us what we want to hear — the political theater is compelling, truly — while accomplishing nothing at the same time. Money has diluted the values which once defined the national Democratic Party, leaving it a weakened shadow of itself.
Money is truly nothing more than a means to an end, and this is what our politics — and our national politicians — have fully embraced. I suppose you can argue that politics has always been thus; and you wouldn’t be wrong.
But in America, it has never been like this — we have never seen the political class embrace Money, embrace a thing which is little more than a means to an end, embrace it as an ideology, as a platform for single-minded policy. No longer is either Party concerned with governing on behalf of the many — their scope has narrowed to governing for the exclusive few, who can afford it.
The one fortification we had against Money was the thousands of civil servants who made up our Federal bureaucracy, who didn’t grind a political axe, who were just interested in doing a job which served the American people. We are watching this bastion of public servants being dismantled right before our eyes, in defiance of law, in defiance of judicial authority, in defiance of the People. Are there any organized, realistic efforts being made by Republicans or Democrats to stop this? Or is the only resistance feeble rounds of publicly begging the bad man to stop, and sternly worded letters?
The Republican Party appears to be lost, for at least a generation. The Democratic Party is withering before our eyes. Sure, there are still blooms — AOC and Elizabeth Warren and Jasmine Crockett come immediately to mind. However, most of our elected national leaders are protecting their personal interests nowadays — not ours.
So many diaries on this site, so many blogs, and even some mainstream media, have been asking what we are all wondering — where are the Democrats? Do they have a plan to stop the destruction of our Federal bureaucracy? Are they doing anything meaningful to ensure our government continues to function in service to the People? Are they mobilizing to protect immigrants, or women, or healthcare workers, or children?
You all know the answer to these questions, because we are all living the answer — as an organized national Party, the Democrats are nowhere to be seen on any of these issues, let alone taking Trump and Republicans to task on a daily basis. Outside of trumpeting some calculated outrage on friendly media outlets and townhalls now and then, there appears to be no resistance to any of this other than talk — or as my uncle used to say, “it’s all hat, no cattle.”
Time to face up to it — we do not have fully functioning political parties right now — not on a national level.
All there is, is MONEY…and MONEY, is most assuredly, running the national show. Money does not care about you. Money does not care if you are sick, or poor, or suffering. Money does not care about justice, or about ethics, or about righteousness. Money cares about only one thing — Monied Interests. Money exists only for Money.
None of this means we should rush out and quit the Democratic party. I am not suggesting any course of action, for until we know — and accept — precisely what we face, most of what we can do outside of boycotts and protests is strategically premature. I just want to put this out there as one possible explanation for what has happened.
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