We are at that moment politically. There is a new reality about. Actually, it has been practiced by many already, but many also have managed to deny it. No more.
To wit: The point of politics is to win, plain and simple. It is no longer to regain something of a balance of power and decision-making ability, concluding after the effort that, oh well, it's always been that way and the battle rages on.
No. One party has figured out that power is there to be taken for as long as possible and necessary, the latter of which is forever. Forever, as in religious righteousness. Forever, as in the end of evil. Forever.
Its embodiment is not 45. Its embodiment is Mitch McConnell. Let us count the ways during this decade:
- When, as Minority Leader, he instructed his fellow Senators that they were to oppose every single proposal by then-president Barack Obama, regardless of what it was;
- When, after Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016, as Majority Leader he stonewalled any attempt to hold hearings to confirm the appointment of Merrick Garland, Obama's choice to succeed Scalia, while Obama's second term took place;
- His support for a cruel and damaging government shutdown; and
- This moment, when he has signaled that he would support 45's ridiculous national emergency declaration to construct a ridiculous, unnecessary and ineffective wall to keep out those illegally wishing to enter through our southern border.
Disingenuously, which is his wont, McConnell can drag out the phrase "checks and balances," leaning on that old bromide to invoke the spirit of the Constitution so that one group of people don't get out of hand and claim too much power. But, as 45 often tries to do, he is the one who wishes to do exactly that.
Because this is excessive, and he knows it. This constitutes winning at all costs, without a thought as to the future of our political culture. By previously setting the stage for such thinking, McConnell has made it easy for 45 to take, and try to get away with, such extreme stances. He represents the desperation of the reactionary forces:
- That a woman's right to choose might continue partly unabated (certainly not completely);
- That a majority of the population of this country might eventually become non-white (it will anyhow);
- That a permanent upper class would somehow lose its ability to steer the economy where it wishes (something it has never lost) and
- That the military's grip on our economy and culture will somehow disappear (since World War II and the expansion of our empire, small chance of that).
To do that, reactionaries (not conservatives; in our badly tilted political spectrum, they are small in number now) see that this may become their last stand, to pull the nation back from a fate they cannot fathom. In the same way they hated Bill Clinton and then Barack Obama and then Hillary Clinton, succeeding only at the end and only because they were aided by the blockage of voting rights and Russian intervention the depths of which we will soon learn, they will surge to seize power and preserve it in absolute terms.
Where will we see it next? In the Supreme Court, which will either support 45's national emergency that isn't, or where the next appointment (barring impeachment and removal of 45, necessary but not on the front burner as of yet) will be even more radical than that of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, the true colors of whom we have yet to know.
All this is why Yours Truly kept telling people, back in 2016, that it was the U.S. Senate, not necessarily the presidency (though it certainly would have been nice), that was the key to holding the keys of power for the following four years. Without it, we've had to go through two awful years before the House of Representatives finally reflected what the country's feeling about this awful series of power grabs. Without it, Mitch McConnell will continue to pursue his obsessions and twist his own reality to deny the rest of ours.
But he can do that. That's the moment of a-ha. The next major political writing should follow how we got here. Meanwhile, the next efforts should be to take McConnell's power away so he can't renew it. It's one of the major goals we must achieve to get us out of the morass we're in.
In the aftermath of such abuse and usurpation, can we be sure to return to a more measured, considerate political climate, having seen the alternative and the willingness of one side to incorporate it? What do you think?
Be well. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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