​Charge of the lost Democrats

By Ed Raymond

fargogadfly@gmail.com

Democrats have MAGA, MAHA, MAWF, and Trumplicans to fight

My favorite analyst of things religious and political is Finton O’Toole who uses plain English, curses, temper, and knowledge to make a point. He has just published the autopsy of the death of the Democratic Party in the 2024 presidential election in the New York Review of Bookstitled “The Lingering Delusion.”

As he examined the dementia of President Joe Biden and the empathy and policies of Kamala Harris, I thought of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” an English disaster in a military campaign in the 19th Century against Russian artillery in the Crimean War. A general had “blundered.” This is from the second stanza:

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”

Was there a man dismayed?

Not though the soldier knew

Someone had blundered.

Theirs not to make reply.

Theirs not to reason why.

Theirs but to do or die.

Into the Valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

O’Toole says Joe Biden, his wife and family and the Democratic National Committee made a huge blunder in losing to Make America Great Again (when it was never great), Make America Healthy Again (by appointing a sick quack to the cabinet), Make America White Forever (by appointing Nazis to deport 25 million undocumented regardless of status), and, at last count, 803 billionaires who never have enough and have bought the castrated Republican Party. In the 2024 election, more than 90 million eligible and registered voters did not bother to vote. The only person who could have gotten more people under the age of 35 to vote was Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Although he was the same age as Joe Biden, he had a young brain instead of an old tattered, demented one. Wherever and whenever Bernie speaks, he always entrances young voters like the Pied Piper of old.

When a young man is qualified to lead and an old man is not

Before I get into the liberal (progressive!) policies proposed by Bernie, I want to make a comment about King Donald. He made disparaging comments about the new mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, implying that he’s too young (34), is a communist and Muslim, is terribly and dangerously unqualified, and too damn dumb to be mayor of New York. I would like to add that President Donald John Trump at 79 is too old, is terribly and dangerously unqualified, is in love with himself, and is too damn dumb to be president of the United States.

For example, his attorney general and Justice Department went to court to convict a young man for assaulting an ICE policeman with a dangerous ham sandwich. This isn’t dumb. It’s insane.

“One of the many extraordinary things about humans is our capacity for dreaming,” said Nathan Lump, editor ofNational Geographic in the November issue. “I don’t mean what we do when we sleep (although that’s pretty extraordinary too). I mean our ability to invent, to envision different and better futures, and to apply our brain power — and our increasingly sophisticated technology — to turning ideas into reality.”

The issue concentrates on explaining the potential power of nuclear fission and examines whether humans will ever be able to hibernate while traveling to distant planets. We know now that Mamdani has the intelligence to handle the subjects. We have known for a decade Trump does not.

Bernie’s political platform for the common good of all Americans

 In the beginning of a recent interview with David Leonhardt of the New York Times, SenatorBernie Sanders states that the Democratic Party is presently a disaster: “From the 1970s on, for a variety of reasons — like the attraction of big money — the Democratic Party began to pay more attention to the needs of the corporate world and the wealthy rather than working-class people. And I think that has been a total disaster, not only politically, but for our country as a whole.”

From this point on, every word will be Bernie’s in stating his position on many issues and policies (NO quotation marks!). Circle the number with a pen if you agree with the policy.

1. A free trade agreement with China? No worker in America thought that was a good idea. The result of that would be the collapse of manufacturing in America and the loss of millions of good-paying jobs. If I could pay 30 cents an hour in China, why in hell would I pay a worker in America a living wage?

2. In my view, working-class Americans did not vote for Trump because they wanted to see the top one percent get a trillion dollars in tax breaks. They voted for Trump because he said he was going to do something. The system is broken. Democrats said the system is OK — we’re going to nibble around the edges.

3. Democrats lost the election. They abdicated. They came up with no alternative. How many Democrats are going around saying the health care system is broken? I’ve introduced Medicare for All. Only 15 Democrats in the Senate supported it.

4. I have spent my whole life believing — not a radical idea — that women have the right to control their own body. We’ve got to end sexism. We’ve got to end racism. We’ve got to end homophobia. Very, very important.

5. The rich should start paying their fair share of taxes.

6. We should build low-income and affordable housing.

7. No to open borders. Some people want cheap labor to come to this country for lower wages. We need comprehensive immigration reform that limits immigration. We also need a path to citizenship for people who migrate.

8. Trump is clearly doing outrageous things that deny people their civil rights and that violate their basic humanity right now. It is what demagogues always do. You take a powerless minority — maybe it’s the Jews in Europe during the thirties, maybe it’s Gypsies, maybe it’s gay people, maybe it’s Black people. That’s what Trump is doing with the undocumented. You name the minority and you blame the problems of the world on these people.

9. We need to have an immigration policy, but you also need to have strong borders. Period.

10. When I think of a political party: People disagree, they yell and shout at each other. People have said democracy is rather messy. But I think sometimes, when people think about the Democratic Party, they think of those cocktail parties in New York City or Los Angeles where wealthy people mingle with consultants and leadership. That’s not much of a party. That’s really a kind of elite institution. When I ran for president one of the things I learned is there isn’t much of a Democratic Party. When I think about party, I think about the involvement of large numbers of people at the grassroots level. You understand what I’m saying?

11. In America today, we have more income and wealth inequality than we’ve ever had in the history of this country. Over the last 50 years, you have seen a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 90 percent to the top one percent. You have a political system that is dominated by the billionaire class. That’s what Citizens United was all about, that’s what Super PACs are about. So, you got Mr. Musk able to contribute 270 million to elect Donald Trump—and Democrat billionaires playing a role.

12. Obviously, I’m strongly supporting Zohran Mamdani, and it was just amazing to me how upfront the oligarchs were in New York City. One guy says: We’re going to spend whatever it takes. We are landlords—we’re the oligarchy. How dare this guy come in and upset the apple cart? Quite open. That’s what really struck me.

13. So, you have an economy dominated by the very wealthy; a rigged economy. You have a political system dominated by billionaires. You have a corporate media having a huge impact. You add it all up, and what do you call the country? You tell me. Is it fair to call it an oligarchy?

14. What do the oligarchs want? When you hear people like Peter Thiel, who is a billionaire, actively involved in AI and robotics — he refers to his opponents, not as people he disagrees with, but as the Antichrist. Literally, the word was “Antichrist”— a religious critique —because these guys have the divine right to rule. And when Trump gets elected, at his inauguration, and he has all of these billionaires behind him. These guys are doing phenomenally well But, what do they want? Do they want to pay taxes? No. Do they like unions? No. They want to break unions. Do they want any form of regulation of A.I. and robotics? No. No way. You’re an Antichrist. Ha! You’re immoral. You’re a devil, literally, if you try to interfere with us.

15. They like oligarchy. They like authoritarianism. Because people like Putin, who gives the oligarchs in Russia the opportunity to do anything they want — that’s what Trump is doing right here in this country. Some people on the right now who are beginning to refer to the United States Congress as the Duma. People blabbing all day long, powerless. Trump has all the power.

16. The overwhelming majority of Americans are working-class people.

17. And what Mamdani is talking about in New York is that people cannot afford the outrageous cost of housing. You know what? It’s true in Vermont. It’s true in West Virginia. It’s true in virtually every state in the union. He’s talking about affordability of childcare. You know what? There’s a childcare crisis in almost every state in the country. It’s an abdication of the Democratic Party in fighting for the working-class. You tell me why, in the richest country in the world, all of our people cannot have a decent standard of living. There is no excuse for that — other than the greed of billionaires who have so much power and the acquiescence of the political class in allowing that to happen.

18. Do we need police reform? Yes, but police play a very important role, and they should be respected.

19. By the way, I’m an Independent, not a Democrat. Any manager — corporate, mayor, governor, senator — you’ve got to get things done.

20. We should have good government. Do you create a nation in which all people have a good standard of living? Do you have the courage to take on the billionaire class? Do you stand with the working class? Do you have an ideology that breaks through bureaucracy and creates efficiencies?

Question: How many numbers did you not circle?

With these 20 issues, his communication skills and his innate propensity to always tell the political truth, Bernie would have won in 2024 because Trump always lies whenever his lips move and never assumes blame for any negative acts of himself or Trumplicans. Trumpers have been screaming “SOCIALIST!” at Bernie for half a century. Actually, he is a Democratic Capitalist who has never promoted government should own the means of production.