Former ReSCUMlickan operative, co founder of The Lincoln Project, now political commentator Steve Schmidt has recently made a rather profound observation. The upcoming election will not be an embrace of the Democratic Party which has only recently polled ahead of the ReSCUMlickans in public confidence even though both parties stand in historically low esteem. No, says Schmidt, this will not be a referendum on the Democratic agenda. This will be a simple rebuke of tRUMP and everything he and his knuckle-dragging enablers stand for.
Schmidt compares the situation with the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. The public has a choice, stay on board and go down with the ship or take to the life boats. The Democrats here being the lifeboats. Nobody, says Schmidt, voluntarily leaves an ocean liner and climbs into a lifeboat to be lowered down in the dead of night into the cold Atlantic facing uncertain rescue unless one knows that the ship is going down. Nobody embraces the life boat except under dire circumstance; and one does so long on desperation and short on hope.
The Democrats, in Schmidt's telling, offer a short respite in the face of certain calamity. Nothing more, nothing less. Whether the Republic survives is still in the telling, but the shift toward the Democracy is the only hope still beating in the heart of America.
In this context the movement of large segments of the voting public toward the Democrats represents not an embrace of Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries, nor any particular part of the Democratic agenda but a simple demand to, in Schmidt's words, “make it stop”. This means, simply, that upon election the primary agenda of the new Congress is to begin investigations involving subpoenas of medical and financial records, transcripts of all communications, and the testimony of every member of this maladministration on a wide range of subjects including but not limited to: bribery, selling of pardons, foreign business deals, bitcoin and meme coin manipulations, government contracts, medical records and the testimony of every member of this maladministration involved in anything that does not pass the smell test. Given the stench now wafting from the bowels of Washington, this should take some time and will confirm all our worst suspicions. Disgustus and his henchmen must be held to account.
In this I quite agree. But I must also protest that to draw the line here is to once again fall prey to ReSCUMlickan strategy. You see, by limiting our response to accountability, as critically important as this is, one is left with the stark reality in that the ReSCUMlickans are still setting the agenda. This is merely a reactive posture. We must do more than that.
For nearly 6 decades the middle classes have been under siege, as the forces of neo-liberalism (that is conservatism as we understood these terms in our youth) have savaged the working class with higher taxes and fewer benefits; as the burden of taxation has fallen increasingly upon main street and less on Wall Street. In response, voters have caromed like a pinball from one political party to the other, desperately seeking some relief. Clinton talked about a 'bridge to the twenty first century' promising reeducation, job placement and plenty of new 'tech' jobs. Obama promised 'hope' and 'change'. Nothing changed. So the public, in collective disgust, heeded the siren songs of greed as they voted ReSCUMlickan on the false hope that the goods would fall from the Capitalist table in a bounty more than sufficient to feed the nation.
Neither party delivered.
This election is unlike any preceding election, presidential or mid-term in the last century. Nowhere on the landscape is there any serious discussion of what we are going to do about this mess. Instead we are being bombarded with hundreds of millions of dollars in political smear, character assassination, and outright lies. It's probably just as well for the public, having heard this song far too many times, would quickly dismiss any soothing palliatives. Who, after all this time, could take any suggestion that we pass Medicare for all seriously. Everyone by now knows that the medical and insurance cartels have such a stranglehold on the process as to make any such suggestions ludicrous. This isn't cynicism, it's political reality born of more than half century of abuse.
This is why both parties stand in such low esteem. The Democrats have betrayed the very middle class it created; and the ReSCUMlickans never intended to come to its rescue.
Something has to give and soon.
I'm suggesting here that Steve Schmidt is half right. No doubt the first order of business is to begin to staff congressional committees to investigate every aspect of this corrupt enterprise. But it must not stop there. Within days of the swearing in of the new Congress, legislation must be proposed to raise the minimum wage, control derivatives, abolish cyber currencies, break up the mega banks, the utilities the energy cartels, and scatter them into a thousand separate enterprises. A new era of anti trust enforcement must begin and notice given the courts that should they interfere the Congress will discipline the federal bench. Congress has the power of the purse over the federal judiciary and can not only impeach jurists for obstruction but can reorganize the entire branch of government.
For the next two years Congress, while investigating the hell out of this cabal currently occupying the White House, can also roll 'grenades' up Pennsylvania Avenue by way of bills to rescue the middle class. Laws making labor organization mandatory, reinstating air, land and water pollution standards, raising penalties for white collar crime, re-establishing the authority of regulatory agencies and, among other things, redefining the concept of 'advise and consent' when it comes to executive appointments. I suggest that instead of holding hearings on appointments and simply voting yea or nay, that the Senate present the 'president' with three possible persons it deems fit for the appointment among whom he is free to choose. This under the 'advise' part of the constitutional clause. Any other nominations will be dead on arrival. The Constitutional Convention, after all, came within a single vote of make the senate a committee of the whole empowered to manage the entire executive branch. In the end, it was decided that this would be to unwieldy and opted for a 'president' instead. But the Founders clearly never intended Congress, and especially the Senate, to assume a simple passive role, something our neo fascist adherents of the 'unitary executive' theory popular in places like the University of Chicago and Yale simply choose to ignore.
The Congress can and should immediately begin rolling these bills up the Avenue and make the Bastard veto them. This would quickly demonstrate that this clown, or anyone who could possibly succeed him, are anything but champions of those of us who work for a living. In addition, laws putting teeth in the Epstein files law. Laws creating 'rocket dockets' for cases involving political corruption or malfeasance. Laws leveling the playing field. You get the picture. We need a new New Deal.
It is time to shove the face of this nation into the pile of shit our erstwhile Caesar has created and, in so doing, begin to address the inequities not only of our economic order but our legal and political ones as well.
In the meantime, Congress should not wait for this 'rogues gallery' now occupying cabinet posts to move on the 25th amendment. Congress, under the amendment, should create its own body to determine the unfitness of this lunatic, and remove him with all deliberate speed.
Impeach, Convict, Imprison.
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