We allowed ourselves to be divided and the enemy won. Time to learn from that mistake and start to take democracy back.
It began innocently enough... We had primaries as we do every four years. There were two main contenders; Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Clinton represented the traditional Democrats and Bernie expressed a perspective that brought socialist ideas into the mix. It should have been a healthy ‘win / win’ contest. It should have been a time of people exercising their right to be heard and express confidence that whoever won, the support of the Party would be the outcome. It should have... but it wasn’t. The campaigns turned vicious... The only acceptable outcome to either side was winner take all, consequences be damned. Pejorative nick-names stuck... “Bernie or bust” became a mantra, even though Bernie disavowed it. Never Hillary became a trending hashtag... it was not looking good, but because the Republicans had bypassed the usual suspects in favor of Donald Trump, confidence was high that we would still win.
But the hard core Berners refused to come in to the fold... Jill Stein took advantage of the split... Even the Libertarians tried to cut out some of the discontented... Most distressing of all some voted for Trump!
The end result we now all know; the most unqualified candidate who has ever become President now has the White House.
In a few short weeks his incompetence, thick headed, alt right / white supremacist Administration has made clear that the goal is to dismantle democracy while turning back every piece of progress made since FDR. The economy will be destroyed, human rights eliminated, Christianity turned into the unofficial state religion, the environment raped for profit and saber rattling replacing diplomacy.
The characters that make up the new Administration are villains straight out of central casting. The ‘expertise’ of each is primarily a hatred and vow to dismantle the very agency they now head. The evil started from Day 1 and has now made our collective reaction to the morning news to be ‘what fresh hell will this day bring?’ The fact is there is much more at stake than the American political system, the very existence of our current eco-sphere is in the balance as the new kleptocracy cares not one wit for the catostrophic effects of man-made global climate change.
And yet, Facebook, Twitter and other social media are chockfull of the same memes from the Primaries being re-shared. Posts showing Hillary in handcuffs and ‘Bernie wasn’t a REAL Democrat’ along with new ones like and ‘Bernie would have won’ and ‘The Berners put Trump in the White House’...
Have you not learned anything from history? Did you never hear the truism: "Perfect is the enemy of good"? Or learn the oldest political trick in the book - "divide et impera" (translated ‘divide and rule’ NOT ‘divide and conquer’)? Don’t you realize that you were played in the primaries, no, not by each other but by the right wing propagandists and ‘alternative truth factories’ that made us hate each other more than them!
ENOUGH!
No more rehashing the Primaries... No more conspiracy theories... No more throwing blame... No more being played as pawns of the fascists.
We need to focus on the clear and present danger in The White House and stop dissipating our energy fighting each other. We must put the dumb shit aside, if there is to be a chance of saving at least the basic foundations of our Republic. We must let bygones BE fucking bygones, starting here and now and create an effective coalition to fight the TRUE evil who has fronted the slow motion coup d’état and stop the junta that would turn what was once the greatest hope of mankind into a third world style dictatorship.
We must ALL unite if we are to prevail against the threat that faces the nation we love!
And I do mean ALL, including but not limited to;
• Communist Party USA
• Democratic Party
• Green Party
• Justice Party (United States)
• Socialist Labor Party of America
• Socialist Party USA
• Peace and Freedom Party
• Party for Socialism and Liberation
• Socialist Equality Party
• Working Families Party
• Freedom Socialist Party
• Labor Party
• Socialist Action
• Socialist Alternative
• Socialist Workers Party
• World Socialist Party of the United States
We must fold in Women’s groups like NOW, LGBT activists like Act Up, African-American civil rights groups like the NAACP and Black Lives Matter, Latino rights groups like the National Council of La Raza and Civil rights defenders like the ACLU, Environmental groups like Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Earth First, Sea Shepherd and the Water Warriors, Labor unions, Local advocacy organizations and everyone who realizes they have a vested interest in democracy.
Let's use the tactics of Indivisible and come up with new ones. Let us learn from those who came before like the IWW in the 1930’s, the Black Panthers and Young Lords of the 1960’s. Let us take the lessons of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and build on them.
Oh and you who stayed home in November... It is time for you to get off your ass. You are much more to blame than anyone for allowing this catastrophe, so it is on you to now prove you are worthy of being called an American and taking up the fight to regain democracy, or forever lose the right to bitch and moan.
Let’s get it together before the Great American Experiment is lost forever!
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