|
A
‘Stygian Night’ is coming upon us, as Americans are
systematically slipping into a hellish, gloomy darkness as its
democratic institutions are collapsing, and K-12 public education,
voting rights, access to health care for the poor, the literal
selling off and/or failure of utilities (water, electricity, etc.),
and severe climate change are negatively impacting Americans,
especially ethnic minorities.
Such
a dramatic transformative moment has been frequently viewed as
approaching the Biblical Armageddon which “Protestant
fundamentalists “… refer to (as) an impending
cataclysmic struggle between the forces of good and evil.”
Democrats
and Republicans alike are facilitating this alteration in our social
and economic conditions.
Of
late, Republicans are leading this effort as the voting demographics
are shifting in states where they have long-held power (Arizona,
Georgia, and others to come) and where ethnic minority populations,
which have leaned Democratic as noted in the 2020 census, are
changing and slated to surpass their ethnic White counterparts.
Ethnic-minority
community cities—Detroit and Flint, Michigan; Milwaukee,
Wisconsin; Washington, D.C.; Camden and Newark, New Jersey; Atlanta,
Georgia; and Baltimore, Maryland; among the most glaring
examples--have already experienced the ‘Stygian Night’
via excessive lead poisoning in aging water lines and dilapidated
buildings.
The
lack of preparedness for increasing winter freezes because of climate
became clear in Texas in 2011 and 2021, causing massive, long-term
power outages for the state’s citizenry. Republican
legislatures and governors, who sold off the production and control
of electricity to corporations, spearheaded these disasters.
In
the 1990s, Milwaukee, under the leadership of Democratic Mayor John
Norquist, mismanaged a “…
water filtering
and disinfecting system from two treatment plants that fed into an
interconnected system of water mains so either plant could supply the
entire city.”
This mistake led to an
outbreak of cryptosporidium, a chlorine-resistant parasite that
sickened 400,000 Milwaukeeans, 25 percent of the city’s
population in 1993. A decade later, the Newark City Council foiled
Democratic Mayor Cory Booker’s attempt to sell the city’s
watershed to his corporate backers.
Republicans
have learned from these bipartisan attempts to control and/or
undermine voters and are aiming their contempt at voters of color in
particular, and are taking a collective stand against existing and
proposed Democratic policies in order to move the nation back to an
earlier time—pre-Brown
and pre-1960s civil rights and voting legislation.
The
Republican Party has decided that it can “build back better”
and return to an era of racial and economic segregation and
oppression, by giving a pass to Trump’s “Big Lie”
and his other racist bellowing, and is utilizing the U.S. Supreme
Court and state legislatures to achieve those ends. The GOP is
essentially putting lipstick on a xenophobic, autocratic political
pig.
Most
distressing, however, is that Republicans are moving down the
political field in military precision and basically uninhibited while
their Democratic opponents are preoccupied with centrists and
progressives fighting each other, trying to prove who is most
supportive of the Democratic base. They are committing political
Hara-kiri.
Democrats
are sabotaging their political objectives of passing the bipartisan
infrastructure bill and their own reconciliation bill by taking their
eyes and energies off the Republicans' ongoing skullduggery and are
inadvertently assisting the Republican creation of a 'Stygian Night'
for Americans due to their internal conflicts.
Despite
the good things proposed in the Democrats’ reconciliation
bill--vision and dental care, universal preschool, two years of free
community college, etc.,--the Party has not developed a strong
message to sell it! It appears to trust and believe that the
Democratic base will fall in line because it elected them to office,
and they know what is best for them.
The
Democratic leadership has yet to translate these legislative
proposals into a coherent, detailed message, especially the
reconciliation bill, that will rally and excite their voters while
Republicans have advanced a pithy and easily grasped political
memorandum running in a continuous loop: Democrats will spend us and
our kids into oblivion and leave future generations bankrupt!
What
makes the aforementioned statement so effective is that Republicans
at every elective level repeat and reinforce it at every turn. In
the interim, Democratic communications regarding what they are for
are all over the spectrum and depend on who is at the political
microphone at any point in time. There is little consistency given
their infighting.
Perhaps
the stupidest political moves by progressive House Democrats are
their attacks on Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin,
whose votes they need to get the infrastructure and reconciliation
bills through the Senate. What is most disconcerting is that they
feel they can coerce/bully these Senators into voting their way.
Neither
the Democratic progressives nor centrists seem aware that Sinema and
Manchin are not up for reelection until 2024, while all House members
have to retire or face an election in 2022. According to current
polls, there is a high probability that the Democrats will have lost
the House by November 2022. These are the main reasons Republicans,
so far, have refused to help Democrats raise the debt ceiling. By
standing unified, the GOP feels they will have an edge in the 2022
midterms.
Rather
than threaten Sinema and Manchin, it would be to Democrats’
advantage to engage them politically and in a quiet and respectful
manner as President Biden and Senate Majority leader, Chuck Schumer,
have done consistently.
The
Democrats don’t seem to understand their political dilemma as
they march headlong into the ‘Stygian Night’ without
night goggles unable to see what lies ahead, and unaware they may be
walking off a political cliff.
|
