August 5, 2017
As we watch the noose tightening around Trump’s administration from a steady drumbeat of leaks revealing just how profoundly ignorant and weak he is, combined with the strategic disclosure that Special Counsel Mueller has empaneled a second grand jury in Washington, D.C., profoundly troubling developments have emerged. On the right, Trump and his supporters have stepped up their attacks on their perceived enemies – people of color, Democrats and the Free Press.
Like the cornered rat he is, serial perjurer and committed racist Jeff Sessions announced yesterday that the Trump administration had tripled the number of leak investigations since taking office. When asked if he planned to prosecute journalists, Sessions was unresponsive.
The administration’s anti-First Amendment push was further advanced by the latest propaganda video released by the disgusting death merchants of the NRA. In this video, unhinged soccer mom, Dana Loesch, sneeringly warns that they are “coming for The New York Times,” allegedly to expose factual inaccuracies in their reporting. As Philip Bump pointed out, this NRA campaign pitting Americans against one another is merely a cynical response to the drop in gun sales since Trump’s election (“Why the NRA is going after the media,” Philip Bump, The Washington Post, August 4, 2017). Trump and his allies are blatantly trying to whip up his most fervent supporters into a paramilitary force that will violently defend Trump against those who oppose him.
Meanwhile, Democrats, with the false sense of confidence borne of their victory defeating Obamacare repeal, are falling into the predictable traps that have consistently led to electoral defeat. Their actions this past week demonstrate that too many in the Democratic Party are willing to insult or ignore their most reliable constituents to chase the votes of “Reagan Democrats,” who are now simply called Republicans. This week Democratic party leaders said that support for abortion rights was not a “litmus test,” and flirted with fielding anti-choice candidates. They act as if the bodily autonomy of 51% of the population is a disposable bargaining chip. At the same time, the emergence of three Black politicians as possible 2020 contenders was met with savage criticism from some left wing activists. Both of these distressing developments indicate that Democrats have learned precisely the wrong lesson from the victory of Donald Trump. It suggests that they are insufficiently mindful of the very real dangers posed by this vengeful garbage fire of an administration.
The answer to a Republican party filled with aspiring authoritarians is not to run candidates intent on restricting the liberty of half of the population. The answer to a party determined to suppress Democratic votes is not to pretend that this is a normal election cycle where we can casually handicap presidential candidates 3 ½ years out. Now is not the time to sell out women’s rights in a futile quest for Rust Belt voters. Now is not the time to carp about Kamala on Twitter while ignoring the concerns of Black women, the Democratic Party’s most reliable constituency. If Democrats want to prevail in 2018, they must do the hard work of listening to and accepting leadership from, those of us who have the most to lose. Nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake.