This isn’t what I thought my first blog post would be about.
The insane clown posse running the new administration is trying to take a
hammer to the liberal consensus of the 20th century, endangering people’s
lives without care, and there is an almost infinite supply of topics to rail
against, but I want to level my first broadside against my allies.
I was hanging out with half a dozen fellow Ultimate players
yesterday during a pickup game, and the talk turned to politics (I lie, it
never left politics, this is Washington DC). We agreed that it is was likely
nobody in our pickup group was a Trump supporter, and we all hated what was
happening. Paul, a player I don’t know well, then told us, with heat, that the
Democrats screwed up the election. The Democrats should have dumped Biden in
the primary season, should have arranged a snap convention after Biden dropped
out, and made a huge a mistake by backing trans rights and using “pronouns.” The
only people expressing an opinion on his opinion agreed, except me (but nobody
(literally) listened to me).
I object on a factual basis to the first two points of his
thesis, but that’s not the reason for this post.
The Democrats are a big tent party. Their strengths and
shortcomings are a product of the coalition of disparate interests, none with
sufficient political clout to advance their goals (an overstatement, but bear
with me). If a guiding philosophy comes out of this, it seems to me that it
should be this: Democrats will work to protect and support the disadvantaged. I
think this ought to work because many Americans end up disadvantaged by our system
at one point or another in their lives, whether they realize it or not, and 90+
years of mostly Democratic lawmaking has helped make our lives more secure.
This is why I am enraged, incandescent, that such a large
share of election post-mortems has focused on exactly who the Democrats should
have thrown under the bus to secure a victory. If only they had admitted how
awful trans people are (my sister is trans) they would have won easily. Maybe to
be sure they needed to agree that all illegal immigrants should be deported.
And nobody wants unqualified women and minorities getting jobs ahead of white
males.
It is trivial to carve out a minority in the Democratic coalition
with which a majority is uncomfortable. What’s left when they finish
jettisoning undesirables?[i]
If you find it easy to look at a group and say, “I don’t
want to fight for them,” you’re on the road to joining the fascist program. And
somebody might be looking at your group.
[i] Even
though none of our three readers will do this, I’m going to go ahead and
respond to the wiseass who comments “what about child molesters? Should the
Democrats support NAMBLA?” My response is go fuck yourself.
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