It is heartwarming to see that the big internal hassle between progressive dems is not in sustaining the fight, but in focusing their efforts. Whether the progressive agenda can survive the attacks on democracy that we perceive coming from our Republican opposition, or American Liberty is totally hi-jacked by a neocon coup, we have to have a contingency plan for all possibilities. It is a no-brainer that we have to push for electoral reform. If the Republicans do not want to play with us, then we would obviously need to consider other remedies to save sweet Liberty.
A cautionary tale and some comments, below the fold.
I am old enough to kind of remember the 1960 election. I knew some Harvard buddies of the late president, so this is anecdotal information. I will here categorically state that I am writing a piece of historical fiction based on anecdotes. I hope that is a sufficient disclaimer.
In the race against Nixon, the Kennedy brain trust concluded that, in order to win the election, they would have to concentrate on Illinois, California, and Texas. AS I remember it, they singled out 156 election districts in those three states and tried to do whatever it might take to turn them Democratic.
The precincts in Illinois were left to the Daley gang to organize. Those guys were real good. More dead people would vote in Chicago every election than the total vote by dead people in all the other 49 states, (or, were there less states then?) California stayed Republican. But they put most of their effort into Texas. It was the FL'00 or the OHIO'04 of that election. They put Lyndon Johnson on the ticket. And they pulled out a close 50.5% victory there. However, our boy did some questionable things.
North of Waco, there was an election district with 86 registered voters. Only six or eight of those voters were Democrats. This is a land of huge cattle ranches. The average voter lived thirty miles from the poll. Rather than waste everyone's time, the three Democrat and three Republican poll watchers would play cards all day in the trailer that served as the poll. Just before the polls closed at 6 PM, the three Democrats would let the three Republicans vote and then they would report that the e.d. was carried 3 to 0 for the Republicans and no one had to waste their time.
But that day, at ten minutes to six, a stationwagon pulled up at the poll with three more Democratic voters. That year, the Democrats won the district, 6 to 3.
Well, Nixon sure was pissed. It was not provable that Kennedy would not have won anyway, without all the shenanigans. Nixon conceded. He did say he thought the election was stolen from him, and he did bristle on his way out of town that the Washington Press Corps wont have Nixon to kick around any more.
Do you think the Repugs felt every bit as betrayed then, as we do now? Weren't there right wing blowhards who thought all Democrats were Commie-pinkos? Within that paradigm, we would all do well to work within the process to flip things back in our corner. The Republicans are starting to break up into factions. Tomorrow can always be a surprise.
A bit of our democracy may have leaked through the hull of our ship of state. Our first impulse should be to get really pissed off, redouble our efforts and be optimistic. We should work toward electoral reform, as if we were negotiating with rational, small-d, democrats.
The slide into autocracy, in our case as a corporate oligarchy, can be very sudden. Hitler used a fire he set in the Reichstag as a pretext to put all of Germany under marshal law. When he thought he was going to lose the re-election in 1938, he just cancelled the election under those emergency provisions and then marched off to reclaim the Sudetenland.
We may certainly have been kicked in the balls by some Texas bullies, but it does seem that they were quite capable of humiliating our Party even were it a fair fight. Their not fighting fair has always said more about them, than it did about us.
Let's face it. I know this forum is open to anyone. If our government were really NAZIS, they would come for me. In fact, they would come for most of us. So if you do not want this grooviest of all blogs, knee-deep in grief, wait till after Air America, your favorite blogs and the Democratic Party are all outlawed, in jail or disappeared. Then, of course, we can all meet at Starbucks and secretly pass shrill notes to one another, asking ourselves, "Have we just been taken over by NAZIS?" and,"Well, then, what do we do now?" After the axe falls, there is not much to fight back with; esp., if your head is on a stick.
I think we must tone down our public rhetoric and act at all times as if those we are negotiating with are rational beings with the same problems we have. And that they are not really all liars, misanthropes, or haughty, or stupid, or heartless Nazis, Fascists, Dominionists, Oligopolists or Peronists. These epithets make us seem hysterical in the world of realpolitik.
Let's face it. Would it not be great if our country could come back from this bloodless coup we just had? Remember, democracy is a method by which governmental succession cqn be determined without having to resort to arms. Many progressive Kossacks are asking, how often does that joke have to be told before we admit that we have surrendered or plan to bury our rifles close by, in case it turns out that we may really need them?
STOP. Every opinion is a question, at least, on this site. So let me remind all the trolls cruising by that I am not implying that George TeenyTree & His Forest are NAZIS, crypto-NAZIS, FASCISTS, DOMINIONISTS, CORPORATE OLIGARCHS, or PERONISTS. I would rather believe that they are not, and that when they let us back into the schoolyard, they intend to play fair. But, I do not know from which UNIVAC with the blown fuse they are receiving their orders. This is the most opaque government I have ever known about and as the citizen of a democracy, I do not feel good about that.
So, as to that matter in OHIO, I kind of believe that the Idiot may have won without all his thieving; but, HE DID THIEVE! And, you know how a prosecutor loses his conviction if he cheats. I think the same standard should apply to elections. I believe, in a Civil Society, where 56 pages of cogent analysis of cheating may not change the election results, but out of sheer "politeness and openness" the people of the USA, no less than the people in the Ukraine, deserve a re-trial.
And how should I feel, now that I am sure we will never get one? On the one hand I agree with Kos that a non-hysterical re-assessment of the Democratic Party is the historical method of workinbg our way out of this seeming madness. I tried to show here an example of how, over half a century, the pendulum can swing both ways.
We should tone down our rhetoric. We should act at all times as if we are negotiating with rational beings. We should pretend that they are not really liars, misanthropes, haughty or heartless. In fact, if you can wait for my nest post, I intend to flesh out an issue which will mean that we can stop calling our opposition NAZI, FASCIST, DOMINIONIST, and other epithets which make us all seem a bit flaky and less serious and instead we will be able to call them crass, stupid, short-sighted, baby-killing, racist, xenophobic, sophmoric, petty, immature troglodites. What issue is that? You will have to wait for my next post, tentatively titled: BUSH'S TSUNAMI.
ADDENDA: What were the % of Democrats that thought Nixon was a NAZI? Ford? Reagan? George III? George I? George II? My tag is often, A democracy that is fixed, is broken. It will remain so until I am shown evidence that all will be well with Lady Liberty.
I think that if 30% to 40% of all Kossacks believe that our current administration is purely evil or more fascist than ever before, that in itself should be an item of news that a reality based community should have to pause and consider. No?
What is the current per centage of Kossacks who believe we are close to or over the line in the sand beyond which we would have to conclude that our country has become an autocratic corporate oligarchy (the generic term), whatever name it may want to call itself. Therefore, I am putting up a poll that I sincerely hope gets to stay out there until at least 500 to a 1000 of us get to express our opinion. PLEASE VOTE.