Democrats have a golden opportunity. They’re fighting each other instead

This year’s election season has already been entertaining and promises to be more so — provided we don’t burn the country to the ground in the process.

It will stop becoming entertaining when every survivor has to wear SPF sunscreen rated at least 1,000 just to take out the trash. 

Until then? Hell, anything goes. For now, it’s hilarious watching and listening to both sides of the aisle. Panic has set in among some who reportedly find themselves screaming in committee meetings, “We’re screwed!” They may be right.

Democrats are currently devouring themselves over the perceived misdeeds of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is set to become speaker next January. Every minute they spend on that only benefits the Republicans, who have no problem putting aside any internal bickering even if their corrupt candidates include accused sex criminals, drunks, drug addicts, thieves and serial adulterers, who are also perhaps looking for an underage lad to mentor into adulthood. Republicans want the win. That’s all that matters. 

Still and all, the Republicans are tearing the wool from their hides in alarming fashion, fearing they can’t get the big W no matter who their candidates are. They can’t sell an endless war that’s sucking billions out of the economy, beef prices only the wealthy can afford, the wanton murder of U.S. citizens, a trade war with our closest neighbor and longtime ally, shredding the Constitution, a “gig” economy where most people have multiple jobs and still can’t pay their bills, taxes rigged to favor billionaires who pay none, basic healthcare that is too expensive for millions to afford while Congress gets the best healthcare free, collapsing infrastructure, a failing educational system and a national debt of $40 trillion.

Try selling that cart of manure to the public. Their only hope is to endlessly bathe the public in more manure. That’s Donald Trump’s lane, so he’s telling the MAGA faithful to get out and “vote like it’s me on the ballot” in November, to re-elect the Republicans who are still struggling, after two years in power, with all the problems they claimed they could fix in a day or two. 

Then there’s the guy who drove across the country with a guillotine in the back of his pickup. Insert your own interpretation for that event here. 

However it all goes down, Democrats seem to be in a better position than Republicans this election season despite their best efforts. But I have to ask: Why is this even close? Why would the Democrats have to be concerned about anything? There’s never been a lower bar to crawl over. Some people actually believe Trump plans to slaughter wild horses and sell them as ground beef at your local Ralphs or Wegmans. Surely the Democrats could find candidates more appealing to the general public than that, and yet here we are. They seem to be more interested in fighting over whether to kick the progressives or the moderates out of the party — and for some damn reason they’re mad at Jeffries for holding a closed-door meeting with Jared Kushner. That’s a mortal sin? It seems insignificant compared to the sins of Trump.

At this point the billionaires, who pay nothing and care less, are laughing at all this free sideshow entertainment, whether or not they’re capable of reading the news themselves — or have one of their “people” read it to them while sipping mint juleps on the veranda. 

Oh, boy. As I said, this election season is really getting good. Grab the popcorn. Pull up a chair. Be sure to vote and then watch the fallout, metaphorically speaking — hopefully not literally.

Below the main plot line in this drama, there is the subtext that many voters on all sides have turned “anti-incumbent,” or at least that’s the popular term. Another way to put it is that maybe the electorate just woke up with a hangover from a bender, and rolled over to see both parties pretending to represent us while working out deals for themselves. “Damn, what did I drink last night? All these guys gotta go.”

Trump said he doesn’t care about the elections, even as he campaigned for Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina. Still, he isn’t nearly as concerned as he once was about how he appears, or even if he appears in public. This week we’ve thankfully seen little of him. Insert your own speculation or rumor to account for that. 

Trump’s “pep secretary,” Karoline Leavitt, is finally out the door this week with no announced plan for a final appearance on stage in the Brady Briefing Room. But this being the Trump administration, don’t count out anything, up to and including Leavitt cosplaying a Dave Chappelle skit by introducing us to an extraterrestrial alien. All terrestrial “illegal” aliens have, of course, been deported without due process to small countries in which they’ve never lived. 

How far have we come in the last 250 years that Trump has spent the summer celebrating with cage matches, auto races, the National Guard and a Reflecting Pool disaster?

Well, consider this: The Fifth Congress voted the Alien and Sedition Acts into law during its second session in 1798, just 22 years after the U.S. declared its independence. Those laws allowed the president to deport non-citizens considered dangerous (in those days, that mainly meant the French) allowed the detention and deportation of citizens from a hostile nation during wartime (again, the French) and, to top all that, made it a crime to publish false, scandalous or malicious statements against the government, Congress or the president. Most of those laws have expired or been repealed, but Trump would love to have those powers today. 

Since he issued an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America” this week, don’t be surprised if he tries to bring back the Alien and Sedition Acts the same way. 

The long story short is that we haven’t traveled very far thematically since Thomas Jefferson said that timid men prefer despotism — although that was around 250 years ago.

We certainly haven’t learned from our past. Benjamin Franklin said that “being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.” We know that dictum better today as “We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid,” which is especially relevant in the Information Age, when all the accumulated wisdom and folly of mankind is available on the internet. 

In a letter to John Taylor, following the passage of the acts, Jefferson wrote, “A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home, we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake.”

That is the man generally credited with starting what is now the Democratic Party giving advice that Democrats should heed now, two and a half centuries later. 

How much crazier must it get before we stop fighting among each other and restore some sanity to our politics?

I mean, seriously: We’re fighting a trade war with Canada? The longest unguarded border in the world runs between our two countries. We’ve been the best of friends. We’re next-door neighbors. Why are we making life more difficult by going after the country that gave us Captain Kirk and Deadpool?

All this is symbolic of a man who is both pathetic and corrupt. Politics has decayed into a childish P.R. show where every stupid thing the president says must be defended, even if he contradicts himself from the beginning to the end of the same sentence.

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“Who’s more foolish,” asked Obi-Wan Kenobi, “the fool, or the fool who follows him?”

Democrats apparently fear that Jeffries is a fool and don’t want to follow him, while Republicans know for sure that Trump is a fool and keep following him anyway. Maybe, just maybe, the Democrats should get rid of the known evil in Trump and his MAGA followers before dealing with their internal battles and the lesser evil of whatever Jeffries has or hasn’t done. Priorities. What voters want is real change, and they look poised to shock a few people this fall, if they remember to vote and show up in large numbers.

So the stage is set for the last 70 days of this particular session of entertainment.

The world waits for America’s verdict, believing that our republic has never fallen so low. Our enemies laugh along and love it; our allies shake their heads while the stock markets rise and the rich keep on making bank.

One party can’t seem to stand together, while the other has rallied around some of the most corrupt and soulless people on the planet. The electorate nibbles popcorn quietly, waiting their turn to let their voices be heard on who should hold legislative power for the next two years.

Everyone knows what we’ll get with the Republicans. Two more years of what we’ve been dealt already. They’ll take no responsibility. They’ll blame the Democrats, increase the national debt to record levels, and divide the profits among the rich. The Iran war will keep going, and could get worse. More Americans will die from measles. National parks will be carved up by corporations. Trump will name another building or airport after himself or blanket more stuff in gold. 

What will we get if the Democrats control the House and Senate? That’s all speculation, but at least most of them seem to favor following the Constitution. 

Amazingly, some voters will be unable to find anyone worth voting for and will sit it out. Some are so tired of our politics they may never vote again. That’s not an answer. 

Staying focused on the next nine weeks is what we all should be doing. I don’t much care about Natalie Harp, or Hakeem Jeffries either. Not as much as I care about ending a war that never should have started, calling out the fool who put us in this position and holding those accountable who have driven our country into despotism. 

The best way to do that is to vote your conscience. You may not get everything you want, but we should all agree that the civil rights and liberties the founding fathers sought to enshrine in our Constitution must be defended.

Things will get a lot less entertaining if we fail to do that.

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