Saturday, May 13, 2017

We are not in a failed state...yet. May it never be so.

I am seeing a lot of posts from friends and articles written for the left that are essentially declaring us a failed state and that our democracy is over.  Donald Trump is a Tyrant and we can't rescue the system, seems to be the gist of these posts and articles.  
While I understand the despair from whence this comes and I DO NOT want us to fail to realize the seriousness of the danger we are in, because we are in the balance and close to falling into authoritarianism, we haven't lost yet.  We are not yet in a failed state.  

Donald Trump has all of the characteristics of a tyrant and is causing constitutional crises (plural).  But we have not yet lost and that is important because if we believe that we have, prematurely, it hands him the victory.  

It took a while for Nixon to get ousted and, although it looks and is really bad (worse than Nixon) things are moving in that direction. It was always political pressure that did it. The reigning party must be more afraid of the voters than anything else. Of course, we have terrible gerrymandering and this is all desperately dangerous...I am in NO WAY trying to get us to think we are safer than we are, but we also need to avoid freezing in despair and proclaiming it to be over....or being too fast to throw our system overboard - although we clearly see places where it has to be strengthened.

Trump has the lowest approval ratings of any President at this point in time.  We have a couple of gerrymandering cases that could dramatically change things in 2018.  We have some of the biggest enemies in Congress and in government who are weakened.  The courts are upholding the constitution.

Yes…there are really horrible things happening and McConnell has done more to undermine our democracy than virtually anyone in our history.  But just because he and his cronies have blocked a special prosecutor and independent commission right now, doesn’t mean that this is over.  First of all…did people really think he was just going to turn around and do it?  If so, you had different expectations than me.  I expect us to have to put pressure on EVERY DAY for six months at minimum to get it.  If we do it and do it right, we will destroy McConnell in the process…which is a worthy goal because he has shown himself to be quite willing to re-write the rules for his own success regardless of their impact on generations to come.  He is unworthy of office.  We need to make this as much about him as about Trump.  I am going on the assumption that he may be implicated.  

McConnell and Sessions need to be as strongly targeted as Trump.  There is reason to believe that they may be implicated.  We know Sessions lied under oath about Russia.  He is supposed to recuse himself and has not.

So, when do we give up?  When do we proclaim that our democracy is over and it is no longer worth trying to fight for the system?  (And I believe it is important for us to fight for our system both to prove to ourselves it can work and to prove to the world…we are the oldest democratic system standing…we owe it to the world to try with everything we have to make it survive.  And all of you radicals who want socialism or some such?  The dangers from a GOVERNMENTAL perspective are the same, so we have to survive to prove it is possible).

These are the four things I am looking for:
  1. 1. Trump suspends the government for some sort of emergency (a Reichstag fire) and is not immediately deposed.
  2. 2.  The 2018 elections fail to meet the standard for fair and free elections (and with voter suppression…we are more dangerously close there than most of our citizens realize).
  3. 3.  The courts block Trump and he refuses to abide by their ruling, using the executive branch power to ignore them.  If he is not virtually immediately removed…we are a failed state.
  4. 4.   He orders our military to act against our citizens and is obeyed.
If these things happen, we are in a failed state.  The fifth, which is a little slippery in terms of when to call it, is the suppression of the press.
We edge closer and closer to it the more Trump flouts rule of law (over and over again) and is not checked by Congress.  If the GOP does not check him and then the Dems do not regain control after 2018, we will have to re-evaluate from there.
But, again, I would expect us to have to scream CONSISTENTLY about the need for a special prosecutor and to start implicating McConnell and Sessions for six months or so to get action.  Part of our problem is that these four months have felt like a decade and people are tiring out and giving up.  That is what they are expecting.  We have to remain focused.  

And then, when we win, we’ve got to very seriously revisit our form of government and see how to strengthen the protections.  Unfortunately, in any system, a huge amount of it is always upheld by societal norms.  Society is always a compact.  It just always is.  And our system is grossly imperfect and there are things we can do to tweak it.  But the biggest problem is that any democratic form of government is prone to what we are currently facing because people can be ignorant, hateful, tribal, and downright stupid.  That’s a human condition problem.  There are other forms of government that would theoretically be better, (the old meaning of aristocracy means rule by the best…which is not supposed to be hereditary, oligarchy just claims that you are ruling according to who has the most wealth which is usually hereditary, but can let new wealth in) but they tend to degenerate rapidly into rule by hereditary lineage.  The dangers of socialism as a form of government are essentially the same as a democracy.  
Until we all manage to achieve enlightenment…some form of democracy is probably best for us.  

My conclusions.  
  1. We are in real, serious danger…do not forget that and resist with everything you have got.
  2. We are not yet in a failed state, so don’t give up in despair and it is not yet time to chuck the system.  That hands the victory to the enemies of Democracy – which includes Trump, it includes the oligarch funders of the GOP, and it includes the oligarchs in Russia.  Don’t do it.
  3. We need to scream EVERY DAY for the next six months at minimum for a special prosecutor and special independent bi-partisan commission to investigate whether there was collusion with the Trump campaign and Russia and whether there IS a cover-up or continued collusion.  Don’t let the narrative wander (the media will let it wander if they don’t think it will sell).
  4. McConnell and Sessions are working to block a reasonable investigation – we very publicly ask the questions about whether they are implicated.
  5. Work very hard beginning now on 2018.  And this is about the survival of our democracy.  We must elect people who will be willing to stand up to the executive branch, if necessary…even against their own party.  Frankly, if this was a Democrat doing the same, we need to be willing to be as vigilant and outraged.  It is unlikely to be since Democrats tend to work for the system and the GOP has been trying to undermine it since the oligarchs have gotten control of their party…but our loyalty should be to the system, not the party.
  6. Anything that starts to slide on any of the four pathways to a failed state…we have got to be immediately up in arms. 
  7. We have to fight with everything we’ve got against suppression of the free press.


There are a lot of issues.  Tons of them…overwhelming us and overwhelming the narrative so that we don’t stay focused.  But the Russia issue, we need to get to the bottom of it.  At this point, if we don't want to lose our form of government entirely and end up in civil war, we focus on protecting the Constitution...just like every government employee, including every member of the military, has sworn to do.  May the oath breakers be held to account.



No comments: