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Liberal Cynic's avatar

Let me say at the outset that yes, Chuck Schumer is a terrible Senate Majority Leader. He sucks. He’s bad at 21st century politics. I would support his removal as Majority Leader. Charlie is 100% right that Chuck is not the person for the job.

After reading the bill I am convinced that all the complaints about it going further than Roe are lies at worst and willful ignorance at best. The text of the bill has been posted in the Morning Shots comments and other places at The Bulwark so there should be no excuse for it. But it’s a way to hit the Democrats for being dummies and I guess that’s just too tempting to pass up.

But here’s the deal. Today is the twelfth of May in the Year of Our Lord two thousand and twenty-two. We are about 180 days out from the midterm elections. Primaries are underway. The Democrats in power and running their races right now are the Democrats we must work with to stave off the next GOP attack on our Democracy.

Will you agree with all of them? No.

Will you agree with some of them? Maybe not.

Will you think some of them are too “woke”? Probably.

Will you wish they were more like the Republicans you used to support? Sure.

None of that matters. Piss and moan about the Democrats all you want. But if you are serious about protecting Democracy right now is the time you must step up and put aside what you wish had happened and deal with what must happen. And what must happen is that the GOP has to lose and lose badly. This means Democrats must win more seats.

If that means voting for Mandela Barnes if he wins his primary, do it.

If that means voting for someone who supports social programs you don’t, do it.

If you don’t, well, the fall of American Democracy will be on you. The Democrats aren’t forcing you to support the fascist GOP or throwing your vote away on some third party. You are doing that. You are choosing that. You are deciding to let American Democracy die on your watch rather than supporting, if only for a short time, politicians that might say and do dumb stuff but can still be relied on to protect the system we’ve enjoyed for the last couple of hundred years.

Vent if you have to, but when you’re done venting vote against every GOP candidate you can.

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MoosesMom's avatar

Coalitions are a good thing, even when there isn't 100% consensus on all issues. All of us support the coalition of Nato and non-Nato countries that have come together to support Ukraine with military weapons, ammunition, and intelligence in their fight for survival against Russia. We support their efforts to provide humanitarian aid to those who have remained in Ukraine, as well as those who have fled.

There is a lot of common ground between center-left and center-right voters on many of the most important issues facing our country today - a woman's right to choose, balanced against viability of the fetus; common sense gun laws to reduce gun violence; the need for affordable health-care that protects pre-existing conditions; lower prescription drug costs; voting rights; racial justice; immigration policies that secure our borders, protect Dreamers and recognize we are a nation of Immigrants; as well as a host of other issues.

These two groups came together in the 2020 election to oust trump because he was unfit to be President and was an on-going danger to our country. The center-right joined this coalition precisely because Democrats had rejected the far-left candidates and overwhelmingly chose a center-left candidate in Joe Biden. If we hadn't, it's more likely than not, that the center-right would have stuck with the devil-they-know than to risk the devil-they-didn't-know.

Today's GQP has gone all-in on trumpism and the radical extremism that represents anti-democratic authoritarianism, embraces quack-a-doodle conspiracy theories, white supremacists and armed militias. They have passed laws in states all across the country to limit and/or take away our rights and increase their ability to overturn election results they oppose.

If we want to bring our country back from the brink of disaster, if we want to affect real change on issues that polls show a majority of Americans agree on, then we have to win elections. The only thing that will force the GQP to reform is massive losses at the polls. We cannot win elections at the state and federal level unless we form another coalition between center-left and center-right, where most voters reside. If it's our way or the highway, all or nothing, then we're going to lose their votes and watch our power diminish from the bare-majority levels we have now.

Republicans have been playing the long game, willing to acquiesce to trump's maga base in any manner, to secure their votes. They have poured money into securing their current SCOTUS majority who are willing to overturn any precedent for them.

Maybe it's time we look to the long-term as well, and the best way to do that is to take away their votes from the center-right. They cannot win without them, and they know it. Let's get smart about our politics. Let's not donate to MTG's democratic opponent in a district that has zero chance of electing a democrat and instead donate to any one of the 4 democratic Senate candidates running in states that have a real possibility of flipping from red to blue. Let's find common ground and be willing to compromise for now, so we can enact real change on issues that all of us care deeply about.

It's up to us to decide. Do we want to win the battle or do we want to win the war? Because, frankly, right now we are losing both.

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