DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS ARE HAVING A MOMENT

 Recently in Florida, self described Democratic Socialist Angie Nixon defeated a better funded opponent to win the Democratic nomination for the Senate.  Her victory marked a recent upsurge in Democratic Socialist candidates nationwide, with five other Democratic Socialists winning primary victories all across the country.  Part of this is a generational thing, with younger voters understandably cynical about capitalism and more open to the "help the poor and middle class" sentiments of Socialism. But another reason seems to stem  from a progressive backlash against what is seen as a weak Democratic party that is helpless in the face of Trump's corruption and bullying.  

Some have called this a Tea Party moment for the Democrats, and there is some truth to that; back in 2008-09 the Republican Party couldn't really do anything to stop Barack Obama and the Democrats in congress.  So a far right group calling itself the Tea Party sprung up out of this conservative anger.  The reason for this is obvious; our partisan system is designed so that if one party has the White House and both houses of congress, there is little that the opposing party can do to stop them, leading to anger from their voters about their inability to do anything.

Really this is an example of just how deeply divided our country is; look at how the presidencies have gone in this century:  George W Bush tried to reverse everything Bill Clinton did, Barack Obama tried to reverse everything Bush did, Donald Trump tried to reverse everything Obama did, Biden tried to reverse everything Trump did, and now Trump is trying to reverse everything Biden did, while also somehow still blaming many things on Obama.  This whipsaw series of changes is not good for the country.  Look at the auto industry, who were all set to start transitioning to electric vehicles under Biden, who was encouraging it with subsidies for electric vehicle buyers and more charging stations being built.  But then Trump came and trashed all of that, pushing for more oil drilling across the country, making car companies scramble to keep up with the new regime.  But even then they have to brace themselves for the inevitable day when a Democratic president will return to the White House, leading to another reversal.

All of this is leading in some circles to a belief that America in its current state cannot last.  Recently, writer Kurt Anderson wrote a column in the New York Times about this belief entitled "Has America Already Undergone a Soft Breakup?"in which he compared the red states and the blue states in this country to a married couple who can't stand each other but won't get a divorce.  In that article he quoted former congress member Marjorie Taylor Greene, who recently said “I want a peaceful national divorce. Our country is too far gone and too far divided, and it’s no longer safe for any of us.”  He also cited a recent poll that found around one third of Americans think there could be a another civil war sometime soon.

Now while I think idea of another civil war happening in this country is impossible, the notion  of a peaceful separation does appeal to me; the last ten years of Trump dominance has shown that too many Americans will just never see eye to eye in  this deeply divided country. Look at California, the state I live in.  How does it benefit from being part of this nation? By itself the state has the fourth biggest economy in the world and every year it sends eighty billion more dollars more  to the federal government than it gets in spending.  Despite that, the state is a whipping boy for red state politicians, who berate its policies and ignore its economic strength,  while Trump is currently trying to overrule state environmental regulations and open the state's beautiful coastline to oil drilling.  Honestly, I would prefer California peacefully leave the country rather than have to pay so many taxes towards a federal government that hates our state when a Republican is running it.  Actually, what would be even better is if California left with Oregon and Washington state, becoming one powerful coastal country.  (Heck, if I'm dreaming, why not have them join up with Canada?).

While it's understandable to entertain these ideas, the feasibility of such a separation is essentially impossible.  There's nothing in the constitution to allow for it, so just how it would be achieved and who would draw up the new borderlines is almost impossible to consider.  Add to that the fact that not everyone in blue states is progressive and not everyone in red states is conservative, despite the winner take all nature for most states in the Electoral College.  For example, in 2024 over six million Californians voted for Trump, almost 40% of the electorate.  In Texas, almost five million voted for Kamala Harris, which was over 40% of the electorate.  Are we going to expect millions of people to just accept that their state will be leaving America to become more conservative or progressive than they are?  Add to that the fact that while red state politicians may dump on California, they know that the country needs that eighty billion dollars in tax revenue it gets from the state every year.  They don't want to lose Silicon Valley and its huge value to the country.

Yes, the sad fact of the matter is that it appears that America will just continue lurching forward, zigging and zagging from conservative to progressive, for the foreseeable future, with neither side every really getting all of what it wants.  To use Anderson's broken marriage metaphor, we can't just divorce each other and go our separate ways, we're in too deep now. 

WHERE IS THE BOTTOM WITH THE GOP?

 

I'm old enough to remember that way back in 1987, Douglas H. Ginsburg, then President Ronald Reagan's choice to be on the Supreme court,  had to drop out before he was confirmed.  Why?  Because he admitted that he smoked marijuana years earlier.  Today we live in a world where Robert F Kennedy JR will admit to once being a heroin addict and recently said that he once snorted cocaine off a toilet seat, and nobody seems to mind that he's  the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  Obviously, the pendulum has swung a long way.

This brings us to the upcoming mid term election, in which two Republican candidates have been accused of shameful behavior and yet are staying in the race.  The first is Ken Paxton, who is running for the Senate in Texas.  Paxton's history of corruption is stunning: in 2023 while he was serving as Attorney General, the Texas House of Representatives investigated him and  produced a 20 point list of impeachable offenses.  He was impeached by a landslide vote in the  majority Republican Texas House; he was only the third state government official to be impeached in Texas history, and the first in this century.   Sadly,  the Texas Senate failed to vote to remove him from office.  It should be pointed out that much of this investigation came from information brought by whistleblowers in Paxton's own office, making them hardly partisan.  Despite this, Paxton has barreled on with his campaign for the Senate, shrugging off all the charges and making false claims about his opponent, James Talarico.

And then there's Representative Max Miller from Ohio.  He has been accused of physical violence in the past by three different women; his ex wife claims that he once held a loaded gun to her head and fractured a bone  in their two year daughter.  Perhaps the most damning statement made about Miller came from a man who is both his former father in law and a fellow Republican Congressman,  Senator Bernie Moreno, who has said that Miller should retire from congress, adding that he showed “increasingly erratic and dangerous behavior.” Sadly, few Republican members of the House of Representatives have called for Miller to step down, and he appears determined to continue running, dismissing all of the allegations and calling all of his accusers liars.

It's obvious that the rot here starts at the top; both men are clearly hoping that the same way that Donald Trump shrugged aside two impeachments and 34 felony counts to eventually re win the White House  will also allow them to glide to victory.  The level to which Donald Trump has brought down the standards of the GOP in the past ten years is sickening, with decent people in the party either falling in line behind him or leaving outright like Mitt Romney.  While the Democrats are far from perfect, when similar charges were made against congressional candidate Graham Platner recently, he eventually withdrew from the race.  But now the Republican party seems to believe that just ignoring corruption or sexual misconduct charges and calling them partisan is all that's needed to win.  Just look at Pete Hegseth, RFK Jr., and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who have all done the same.

The one silver lining here is that it appears that both Paxton and Miller may lose their campaigns, especially Miller, who even the Trump administration has been reluctant to endorse publicly.  Still, the mere fact that two such corrupt men are even running for congress is a stain on the Republican party and the nation in general.  Undeniably, the last decade of Trump has severely damaged this country.