What's probably going to happen
By Sam Richardson
Joe Biden is going to be elected President in November. Hopefully the Democrats will maintain the majority in the House and gain the majority in the Senate. Then when the Democratic congress starts to deal with the monumental problems they will have inherited because of the pandemic and because of the incompetency of the Trump administration, the Republicans will fall back, regroup and begin trying to sabotage everything the Dems will attempt to accomplish.
It'll be like "reconstruction" after the Civil War. Even though the South was part of the United States again in 1866, and Blacks were free and should have had the right to vote, the KKK and other white terrorist groups began to intimidate and murder Blacks and work around efforts of state governments to construct a civilized society. Not reconstruct but to construct representational government and a truly democratic society. There was nothing humane or tolerant to reconstruct because the South, a nation of slave owners, had not been what could be termed a civilized society.
The Republicans will be like the KKK and work assiduously to sabotage Democratic programs and impede progress. Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Lindsay Graham, Rand Paul and others of their persuasion will become guerilla warriors in the cause of conservative disruption of progress—assuming McConnell and Graham get reelected.
And we'll remain a nation divided by partisanship and hate.
What it's going to take to unite us is not Democratic leadership, because the Republicans will fight that, it'll take an enlightened Republican leader who has the guts to stand up to the neanderthals in the party, a leader who can reach across the aisle and inspire other Republicans to join in, then maybe we'll see the two parties begin to quit hating each other and look for common ground they can work from.
I hate to say it, and I may be wrong, but the Republicans, whether they're in majority or the minority, may hold the key to healing and a healthier political climate. Then the hope will be that somewhere buried deep in the GOP consciousness will be a vocabulary of democracy, compromise, teamwork and respect that can be used to represent the best interests of the nation, not the individual interests of two warring parties.
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Hello Sam,
ReplyDeleteI enjoy your thoughtfulness on tough subjects. Ironically, I'm inclined to think a Republican like a Mitt Romney 'might' be a healer for the rift. But it is hard to know. There are so many false "news" groups now that are simply thinly-veiled propaganda and hate speech sites and I'm not certain how that ever gets reined in. Honestly, I lay a lot of what we deal with today at the feet of Newt Gingrich and his "letter" on terms to use and also on Rush Limbaugh, the father of bombastic balderdash - though without question the issue of systematic racism existed long before either. My sentiments align with a photo of a woman holding a poster that said, "I'm 66 years old and can't believe I'm still protesting this shit". And so it goes. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I "c" the only difference between Taos and Tacos . . .
ReplyDeleteHas Taos Media Watch gone silent? I mean, you were right in your prognostications, Biden did win. There's so much to talk about - is the activity on the Southern border 'really' due to Biden, or was it already a quagmire the G.O.P. wants to blame on Biden? Does the G.O.P. making Texas as "Constitutional Carry" state make anyone safer? If you are watching the Rangers at Globe Life Park (or Cowboys at Jerry World for that matter), will you feel safer seeing someone you do not know two rows in front of you wearing a sidearm? Is he trained or simply an idiot with a gun? If he were black, would he have been shot on his way into the stadium? Really, aren't gun laws designed for white folks to defend themselves against the non-white folk? And if you have not read it,in his paper, "The Hidden History of the Second Amendment" Professor Carl T. Bogus (a terrible name for an attorney) argues that there is strong reason to believe that, in significant part, James Madison drafted the Second Amendment to assure his constituents in Virginia, and the South generally, that Congress could not use its newly-acquired powers to indirectly undermine the slave system by disarming the militia, on which the South relied for slave control. Golly, Sam U L, so much to discuss, so little time. . .
ReplyDeleteOops - meant to include the URL for the Second Amendment article: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1465114#:~:text=Professor%20Bogus%20argues%20that%20there,by%20disarming%20the%20militia%2C%20on
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