Trump and the Republicans plan on gutting a lot of our government and they are not going to play by bipartisan rules. They are not going to worry about backlash. They are going to steamroll absolutely everything they possibly can as quickly as they can. They are going to tear off the band-aids quickly and tell you that it doesn’t hurt.
Ask yourself the title question because it is important now.
Survey the currently elected Democrats who are still standing after the party’s power has been gutted at the federal, state and local levels.
Ask yourself if the current crop of Democrats in office would restore Medicare if it was eliminated.
Listen to these Democrats closely now and really think about what they would do if you worked your heart out to provide them with majorities in government again.
Social Security and Medicare are just two examples of fundamental pieces of our government’s commitment to the common good. There are more. If you have something else that is currently in place that you view as being important, ask the question of yourself if you see current Democrats as being the kind of people who would restore whatever that is — EPA, Department of Energy, Education, The Centers for Disease Control, the FDA or whatever — if the Republicans eliminated those agencies or gutted them to the point where they needed to be fully rebuilt.
Don’t ask yourself if these Democrats will “fight” and “oppose” because they will all give lip service to making that level of commitment which pretty much involves going on TV and complaining and writing sternly worded letters for the Congressional Record.
The question is whether or not they are prepared to and committed to rebuilding what will be lost.
The reality is that opposing is not enough and is likely to be largely unsuccessful.
The Republicans are going to take a wrecking ball to our government.
2005, for example, was a nightmare year with one hit after another that came along from the Republican controlled congress and the GW Bush White House — often with Democratic support — that did real damage to this country’s framework.
The Bankruptcy bill was one of my least favorites of many; and it hurt us when millions of people had to file in the wake of the 2008 crash. The banks bankrupted the global economy and as a result bankrupted millions of Americans, but the banks did not have to go take classes paid for by themselves to learn how to manage money. Average Americans did, though. Democrats did nothing to fix that twisted and insulting rule when they could. There was much more that went on that year of 2005 that was wholly destructive and when Democrats regained the branches of power in 2009, they did little to rebuild.
The Republicans and financial institutions blew up Main Street across America and while the Democrats in 2009/2010 seemed sympathetic they did not try to help rebuild it — and they could have.
The Democrats dutifully gave money to banks in 2008/2009 to keep them from failing and they produced a weak stimulus that mostly favored corporate interests in 2009 at the expense of Main Street. BIg mistake and we are paying for it now.
The mission now in 2016 from my perspective is to listen closely to Democrats in the coming weeks and months to assess whether or not they are the kind of people who will try to rebuild the house after it has been burned to the ground; or if they are the kind of people who will try to fight the fire and walk away suggesting that you just consider it a loss that you’ll never get back.
If you believe that they are the latter, they need to either be convinced to be a part of the reconstruction team; or they need to be marginalized or replaced.
I am not suggesting primaries, etc. as much as saying that we need to put anyone who is timid on notice now that the fire that has been set is going to be devastating and that anyone who isn’t on board with rebuilding is probably not going to be worth our investment — and that we better find the people with the hearts of FDR and LBJ to champion robust and passionate efforts to rebuild when and if we ever get the chance.
Think about which elected Democrats would look at the ash covered foundation of the burned down house and be bold enough to say, “We can rebuild and we will rebuild.”
Reach out to those who sound like they are unlikely to say that they will rebuild and tell them that if they want to stick around, they better get their heads around being prepared and committed to rebuilding or we all go the way of the Whigs.
