I believe that the survival, not only of the US, but of much of the human race requires the destruction of the GOP as a political force in the US. It is now the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world, with a demented sociopathic criminal at its head, aided and abetted by co-conspirators and enablers who will permit him to do anything to preserve their power and wealth and protect themselves from facing justice for their crimes.
Some people fret that destroying the GOP will leave us with “one party rule”. I think this fear is deeply misplaced.
Permit me to illustrate:
After the dinosaurs went extinct, mammals all remained tiny, unassuming, mouse-like creatures forever. That’s why all mammals today look like this:
Just kidding.
As with the previous (and greatest) colossal extinction event–the Great Dying at the end of the Permian period which killed 90% of life on earth–whatever was able to survive the Cretaceous extinction began to evolve and radiate out to fill every empty ecological niche left by the vanished dinosaurs just as tiny dinosaurs themselves had evolved and radiated out to fill all those niches 187 million years earlier.
Why do I mention this?
Because the GOP is a species under extreme stress due to its willed stupidity in defense of its selfishness and sin. It is currently trying to survive through theft, cheating, and tyrannical police state tactics, but that is only evidence that it knows it is facing extinction and is too stupid to adapt. So it is deploying the strategy of the Moron: “If force fails, use more force.”
As the GOP writhes in its (admittedly slow) death throes, the Dems are figuring out ways to adapt to reality. What is needed for the survival of the US (and humanity) is
a) an ability to conserve what is good and sane from the past and learn from it, and
b) an ability to think creatively with a view to the common good and the preferential option for the least of these.
c) an ability to grasp that these are complementary positions and not opposites
The GOP actively rejects both a and b. As they dissolve into lunacy and selfish criminal factions, they are losing c. The Dems have people who are pursuing both a and b. The question is whether they can overcome the Left’s besetting sin: it’s tendency to bayonet its own troops in the pursuit of Absolute Purity.
Rick Wilson of the Lincoln Project has observed that the GOP base will forgive its leaders everything while Democrats forgive their leaders nothing. This is an exaggeration, but there is a grain of truth to it. The Cult has put up with a ton of abuse from Trump and still a third of Americans support him because it matters more to the Cult to hurt those they hate than to prosper those they love. And the Left has sometimes tended to fight with those who are almost identical to them rather than defeat their obvious enemies in the Cult.
That said, there have been times in our history (most notably under the colossal political genius FDR) that a coalition has been formed that could defeat the morons and predators in the GOP and even bring them to the point where, for a few decades, they had to at least pretend that the settlement for the Common Good that the New Deal achieved was The Way Things Were and Normal.|
I think such reform is possible again if the Left can cease its infighting and get it together.
So as the GOP commits suicide by rejecting reality, they leave a wide open ecological niche for the Dems to do both a and b–if they can also do c by cooperating.
That is why I hope the Dems are in the process of evolving into two wings: Centrist (think Biden with his institutional experience and ability to get shit done) and Progressive (think AOC and Mamdani). If they can pull that off, all the fears about “one party rule” will be nullified. Because such a settlement will continue the long and fruitful cultural conversations that have done so much to build American civilization over time, but without all the Fucking Crazy that has come to dominate the horrific autoimmune disease that is the GOP.
That, at any rate, is my hope. But it will require that Dems in both the centrist and progressive wings see each other as Anericans in pursuit of the common good and not dissolve into fratricidal enmity. That’s a big ask, but my prayer is that we will seek the grace of God to do it.
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4 Responses
The Republicans of today are different than the Republicans of years ago. Back in the 1950, the Eisenhower years, the Republicans wanted small, efficient government. Also honest government.
Today, the party consists of white supremacists, Neo Nazis and grifters. They appear to only want to impose a right Wing police state (ICE) and make the billionaires even richer. There is zero thought of the common good.
At the top of the party is a man who lies constantly and seeks to enrich himself by any means. He has turned the party into a personality cult worthy of North Korea.
Yes,the GOP needs to go.
That old GOP lasted through Bush the elder’s term and beyond. Where I saw the worm really turn was in 1994 with Newt Gingrich.
Prior to that, Republicans and Democrats were often personal pals on the Hill. They would attack each other’s policy.
After 94, that all changed. Now the GOP line was not “Democrats are unrealistic and don’t understand how economies work”.
It was “Democrats are not just wrong. They’re evil. They WANT your wives and daughters to be assaulted by brown men and foreigners. They want to take away your guns and Bible. It’s time for Real Americans to do Something about them”.
Even then, for the better part of 20 years, the party insiders just cynically used the proto-MAGA extremists as foot soldiers. The idea was to use the monster to their own ends.
But after Obama was elected, the monsters took over. The talk of terrorism was not just high handed rhetoric. It was a serious plan.
Well said, Mark!
I love your hope Mark, but you haven’t said a word (nothing!) about the merging of our Intelligence and defense with Israel. A genocide is unfolding in real time and you haven’t said anything about that either. After the Epstein files I apologized to several people for laughing at them. Trafficked children? Remember when you looked down on Cavezial? Everything is out in the open now. They know that they have so thoroughly occupied us that they can wear their Israeli army uniforms on Capitol Hill. Our technology is completely intertwined with theirs. Trump is a “c*ck” and a rotting figure head–the perfect distraction. Look up old news clips of Biden swearing his undying love to Israel. We are pathetic.
It’s going to take a miracle –which I believe in–but we are too comfortable to take to the streets in any kind of meaningful way like the Albanians. The difference? They’ve suffered.