Individual And Collective Accountability

 Prior to last week’s Trump-led assault on our nation’s capitol, the conventional wisdom within the Democratic establishment was to, in the words of House Majority Whip Hakim Jefferies, ‘look forward; not back’ on the isssue of holding the Trump Administration accountable for the myriad of transgressions during the past four years, the most recent of which was DJT’s attempt to coerce the Georgia Secretary of State into committing election fraud by allocating the requisite votes to insure a Trump victory in the state after the results had been legally certified. This willful dismissal of wrongdoing is consistent with the Democratic Party’s track record of ignoring the need to pursue justice in deference to the perceived need to move ahead with the business at hand while allowing the sins of the predecessor to go unchallenged. The classic example of this approach was embodied by the Obama/Biden Administration’s decision to give the war criminals (entering a war in Iraq on a pretext based on the lie of non-existent WMD’s, subsequent atrocities involving the deaths of thousands of civilians, and the explicit policy of torture) within the Bush/Chaney regime. Sadly in 2021, it took an act of insurrection to finally persuade the Democrats to realize that accommodation for law breakers was not in the best interests of the country and that failure attend to the transgressions of the past does not lead to reconciliation and a clear path forward. As we might now see clearly, such a position will lead to the normalization of wrongdoing and the implicit assurance of its replication in the future.

This is precisely why all of the individuals responsible for last Wednesday’s act of wonton domestic terror need to be identified and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This group should include not only the active participants in the violence at the Capitol building but also all of those enablers who quite consciously incited and encouraged a violent attempt to halt the lawful recording of the certified results of the Electoral college’s vote for the next President and Vice President of the United States. In so doing, this mob of insurgents attempted to subvert the will of the people and the democratic process itself. These actions, unlike the unaddressed crimes cited above, must be adjudicated and the perpetrators and enablers must be held accountable in order to preserve the rule of law, which is a bedrock of our democracy.

There also is a larger reckoning that we must embrace here in this still-relatively nascent republic. We must collectively decide between the hopeful promise of genuine patriotism and the narrow confines of rank nationism. This will entail, perhaps for the first time, a decision as to who we want to be as a people. This, in turn, will require us to confront the ongoing and persistent presence of an ethnocentric nationalism that holds that whiteness, as a functioning cultural institution, is endemic to our consciousness and is in dire need of serious and permanent repair. The recent hate-filled actions of white-nationalists at our nation’s doorstep underscores their anger and fear of losing historical dominance while the clarion call of the Black Lives Matter movement provides testament to the fact that time is indeed up for us, as a nation, to accept the challenge of coming together in brotherhood and sisterhood by embracing our common humanity and rejecting the paradigm of separation based upon race. The drama currently being enacted on our streets serves to remind us that the time is at hand to finally take a deep dive into truthfully answering the questions of who we have been, who we now are, and whither we all shall go into the future. We can chose to continue to follow the path of division as clearly displayed by those who would blatantly exercise their privilege on behalf of the preservation of that same privilege thereby proclaiming white-nationalism as our ultimate identity; or we might now rise, as patriots, to actually embrace, embody, and fulfill the promise of an America at once enriched and empowered by its diversity in the service the ideal of authentic unity. The events of recent days have made it abundantly clear that our collective choice of national identity will determine our future as a functioning, vital and self-sustaining democratic entity. It’s up to us...we the people must choose well, decide, and create a more perfect union.

Swimming Against The Tide

 One of most enduring and self-indicting images from yesterday’s assault on the nation’s capitol was the photograph of Josh Hawley facing the mob of insurrectionists with a raise clinched fist thereby affirming and abetting the attempted coup about to unfold before our eyes. 

As we have previously stated, Mr. Hawley stands poised to inherit the Trump legacy of lawlessness as the titular leader of a GOP now transformed into a cult of aggrieved zealots dedicated to the hopeless cause of maintaining white supremacy while the nation undergoes a long-over due and welcomed transition to a multicultural and ethnically diverse society that more accurately reflects the reality of an emerging democratic representation of who we actually are as a people. Stanford and Yale educated, Hawley hopes to advance his personal political ambitions by becoming the freshly scrubbed, meticulously sanitized, and properly credentialed face of 21st century American fascism. Yesterday was an ominous precursor to the havoc Hawley and his minions would plan to inflict on an otherwise forward-advancing and hopeful majority of citizens equally dedicated to the realization of the American dream of a truly authentic democracy.

A legacy Of Chaos

The Trump inspired insurrection currently on display in our nation’s capitalist final evidence of the long-standing g need to remove DJT from office. The  The principal advantage of a second impeachment in the House and subsequent conviction in the newly constituted Senate is that DJT would be banned from ever holding an elected office again.

His role in today’s act of sedition only adds to his legacy of mendacious behavior, undermining democratic institutions, and unparalleled corruption. Today, not unlike his entire reign of staggering incompetence, will live in infamy.

A New America Emerges

 One of the most notable takeaways from last week’s election was the demographic breakdown of the increased voter turnout. While the vote of white constitutes increased 5% from 2016, the vote increase of POC increased dramatically. The Afro-American vote increased at a rate of 20% while the Latino vote soared to historic levels of participation: a 62% increase from the previous presidential election.

As many from the MSM were focused on the relatively modest Latino support for Biden/Harris in Florida, they largely failed to report the overwhelming increase in participation elsewhere throughout the country from the Latino community. The overall percentage of Latino support for the Democratic presidential candidate stood at nearly 65%, which compares favorably with past tallies but the significant upshot from the statistical breakdown remains the substantial increase in total turnout volume. 

Together with the increase in Afro-American turnout, the clear signal going forward is that the demographic change long predicted to become a real factor in American politics has taken a giant leap forward to the extent 

that the voice of POC no longer will be regarded as an interesting element of the political landscape but rather an ever-increasing majority influence that will determine and help shape an emerging reality in American life...just now clearly visible on a newly-illuminated horizon.

Progressive Influence

 Recent suggestions by moderate Democrats that the progressive wing of the party had cost votes and ‘nearly lost the election of Joe Biden’ were as inaccurate as they were politically shortsighted. Abigail Spanberger and James Clyburn were particularly vocal in this condemnation while echoing similar centrists attitudes frequently voiced by the likes of Pete Buttigieg, Claire McCaskill, James Carville, Paul Begala, and erstwhile Republican John Kasich, to name a few. 

In point of fact, the progressive ideas as espoused by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, just to name two, regarding focus on equitable pay and a living wage ($15 minimum), serious attention to the increasing environmental crisis (The Green New Deal), racial justice and reconciliation through sensible police reform and reallocation of funding, and a comprehensive restructuring of our health care system as reflected in Medicare for All are all widely popular programs supported by a clear majority of the electorate. It was wise therefore for the Biden/Harris ticket to incorporate these ideas and programs into their platform thereby rallying the support of the much needed 18-32 demographic in order to secure their margin of victory over Trump. It would be therefore a fatal error to interpret this result as an endorsement of centrist ideology generally or Joe Biden in particular and instead view it as an unifying expression of distaste for a singularly incompetent incumbent.

In the immediate wake of this election and especially while looking forward, it is foolhardy and myopic to disregard the progressive influence in bringing about the recent victory over incipient fascism and, moreover, to alienate the very same portion of the electorate that will comprise the vast majority of the Democratic base in the critical years to come. When DNC chairman Tom Perez praises his party as having ‘a big tent’, he is well-advised to take a long look as to who will occupy its interior going forward. It’s is the progressive voice of millennials and generation X/Z together with their forward-thinking ideas and energy that in large part determined and influenced the outcome of this election and will provide the way forward in the ensuing decades. Either the current centrist-minded Democratic establishment recognizes this political reality and takes steps to cede power and vision to the next wave of vibrant democratic expression or it will lose its ability to permanently repel the forces that created the specter represented by the outgoing administration.

Perspective

 While the record number of votes cast for Biden/Harris is celebrated, it might be useful to keep in mind that the total vote count for Trump also set an all-time record, nearly 8 million more than he collected in 2016. 

The will of the people on both sides of this particular argument was announced loudly and clearly and must also be heard, respected, and even possibly reconciled with a bit of time, patience, and deep understanding.

Celebration and a Call to Action

 Tonight is a time to celebrate the assertion of the democratic will of the people to place in abeyance incipient fascism in America while also overcoming the profoundly archaic and deeply un-democratic electoral college system whereby we determine who is to occupy the highest office in the land.

Should we be happy that an attempt to endorse autocratic rule in ‘the land of the free’ has been repelled?...unequivocally, yes; pleased that two center/center-right politicians are set to take up residency in the White House?...maybe not so much. 

Progressive activists together with a broad coalition of forward-thinking Americans have propelled Biden/Harris into a place of sacred leadership. Starting tomorrow, during this interim period until inauguration on 1/20/21 and throughout the tenure of the next administration, we must go to work to ensure that the campaign rhetoric supporting progressive change on the issues of climate change, the right to universal health care, a comprehensive plan to bring the Covid-19 pandemic under control, the restoration of economic justice for all Americans, a genuine reckoning with ongoing systemic racism, and a serious reordering and prioritizing of our use of public resources is followed by policies that will transform lofty promise into concrete reality.