We need to stop cringing on the sidelines and wringing our hands every time the Republicans rattle their rusty sabre with the wedge issues that galvanize their reactionary base (gay people, flag burning, reproductive choice). We need to revisit our own dust-covered platforms of the past and identify the issues that galvanize
our base. Fortunately, the GOP contingent on Capitol Hill has been busy polishing some of them for us, so they're ready to use in November.
How stupid is it? in
an election year,
that the Republicans in Congress have
(1) voted to extend further tax breaks to the extremely rich,
(2) refused to raise the minimum wage,
and
(3) dragged their feet on renewing the Voting Rights Act?
AND, let it be noted regarding the Voting Rights Act, how stupid is it that they're handing us a wedge issue on it now, after the Democratic Party had lost the electoral upper hand in the states affected? Just when we were thrashing around in conceptual circles searching for a way to urge Southern voters to return to the fold, the GOP openly questions whether it might not offend some reactionary Southerners to be reminded about the abuses of the racially-segregated past?
Do they think Southern Black voters don't remember it, too?
Sheesh! dust off the banners, I say.
Democrats stand for working people, a living wage, and civil rights.
Republicans stand for protecting the privileges of the rich and powerful. You know, the world we grew up in, before they cultivated an extreme Right that used to skip electoral politics, and we moved Right to find the resulting new "center", and voters began to say they couldn't see much difference between the two parties (a remark I never, ever heard in my youth, let me say).