THERE IS PLENTY OF BLAME TO SHARE
+Bishop Durrell Watkins, D.Min.
I'm super annoyed. I know, take a number. But I'm not just annoyed by Our Clockwork Orange administration, or by Christian Nationalism (more broadly known as white supremacism), or by the earth crying out in pain (& her tears can cayse us quite a bit of pain) in response to abuse humanity has inflicted upon her. I'm annoyed by the all too common narrative that VP Harris was a bad choice & JB before her (& thst narrative is what made her a candidate). If only the D's had made wiser choices(!). Um, no.
I don't buy that we had bad candidates (when T has a chance in hell, quality isn't the issue, & Harris is as good a leader as we might hope for & better than we deserved). I don't buy that D's are too liberal or too conservative, too much like GOP, too little like Rust belt America. Few D candidates are as left of center as FDR who saved this country from ruin. Both FDR & Johnson promised government help to address poverty and in differing measure, to address racial discrimination. And even if Dems are left of the vibe of the moment, their job is to sell their ideas, not hide/disguise/deny them to win elections.
This is a racist, homophobic, sexist country (one's singular lesbian friend or one hardline POC candidate does not negate this), wealth (even by those who lack it) is our religion, & the commercialized American church has embraced the greed & hatred & called them holy. Oligarchy, racism, neo-fascist leanings, & theocracy have conspired together to dominate this country, destroy its diversity, & diminish its compassion. This has been in the works for 40 years & they made a grab for power (complete with attacking the capital & being pardoned for it!!) when they knew few ppl of consequence would stand in their way. That is not the cause of any one or seven Dem tickets.
Inexiable nonvoters are hugely to blame, as is the media who sold fact checking & truth telling for ratings & $$ while giving free air time to the most loathsome voices in American politics.
The coalition of evil told us they were coming (a rare instance of honesty) & the mild middle & pusillanimous media held the door open for them as they came.
And, the largest share of blame goes to every eligible voter who saw women's rights bulldozed, trans* people demonized, social safety nets put on the chopping block (as I angrily mix metaphors), & racist rhetoric normalized & thought, "Hell yeah, that sounds pretty good".
As culpable are those who saw how ugly it all was & supported it anyway for tax breaks or cult like loyalty to a brand. "I don't feel that way" means squat all if you in fact vote that way.
We've lost house, senate, scotus, and WH...that coup took decades, not one Tuesday in one November. With little left to lose we may as well offer the bold alternative. They call centrists the "far left." I wish we could organize a loud & fully committed Left. We can at least speak up as conscience demands & vote every single time (local too).
But for now, the "how did we get here" question cannot be answered with "people didn't like the old guy who wasn't demonic & they didn't like the woman of color, so what could they do but empower an amoral dictator?"
No. People chose perfidy & cruelty & avarice and now we have chaos (as we did in his first term, but now there are fewer adults to restrain him and his dementia has worsened). Maybe we'll learn from this...but I have doubt.
This is a huge mess. We can all do what we can, if not with real hope of healing, then as least with the consolation of having engaged in moral resistance. But this burning dinosaur turd is not because a Black woman was thrust into a candidacy with only 100 days to build a movement. It's because we've watched bigotry & greed grow larger, stronger, & more organized for over 4 decades without calling it out consistently & with conviction. Some are now coming to the realization that may have been a mistake. (dw)
