Dems took Congress So Now What

(you can watch me read this on YouTube)

Well, the Dems just won Congress.   And so the important thing now is that they use this opportunity to effectively rebrand the Democratic Party, to make it the kind of Party that young people full of idealism and energy will volunteer to work for.  Indeed, after the Pledge to take no Corporate Money, what accounts most for the success of the Progressive in the Polls is their ability to attract Grass Roots Volunteers who have proven to have a huge multiplier effect in Getting Out The Vote.

The Dems could also profitably use their time in demonizing the Republican Party and in burning off the fog of all that cumulative FOX News Propaganda.  Americans need to be told that compared to what we got now, any form of Democratic Socialism would indeed be a “Socialist Paradise”.   And we have the Future to contend with.  If one looks around the Globe at the advances in Artificial Intelligence Robotics, that is, what the Proprietary Corporate Developers are willing now to admit to, we can infer that the ‘Singularity’ is just a few years off, and then, after that, replacing all Wage and Salaried Positions with Robotics would be just a matter of how long it would take the Robotic Production Lines to reproduce themselves everywhere… and they won’t be asking for Overtime.   Now, it is easy to imagine the differences between a Socialist Response to Mass Unemployment, and a Republican Response to Mass Unemployment.  The Progressive Dems would assure that the new Technologies of AI Robotics would provide a Distribution of Wealth for everybody in the form of Guaranteed Incomes sufficiently abundant so that nobody would think of using the word “austere” to describe them.  Humanity would finally be set free from the Chains of Wage Slavery: our Time would finally be our own, and we could do whatever we want, but mostly we would be dancing in the streets.  But what would the Republicans do.  If the Republicans could be pressured at all into instituting a ‘Guaranteed Income’, when I think they would prefer finding a pretext to just kill us all off as Terrorists, the same way they already deal with Leftists in Central America, but if they were stymied into allotting a Basic Income, well, we can guess they would call it a Guaranteed “Basic” Income, and then stigmatize it by equating it to ‘Welfare’, and it would be a miserable bare bottom Subsistence pittance, insufficient for Housing or even Food, and we would all be forced to live in Tent Cities, fed whatever was in Federally Surplus (cheese and Soy Beans) and our allotted possessions would be only what we could fit in a single duffle bag. Loudspeakers would blare to a rap beat that we’re all lucky not to be dead, bum bump bum bump.  Our Basic Income could keep us in cigarettes.  I know, you say you don’t smoke. But you will then.  

Also, we know that the Capitalists will endlessly drag their feet on any of the Emergency Measure that would be necessary to mitigate the Catastrophe of  Climate Change. We know from their present Business Models and Economic Behaviors that until the very End the Capitalists will find ways to make a Special Interest out of Crisis, Death, Plague and Famine; and then as always with the Republicans, they will go along with any Special Interest that pads their pockets.  So, yes, Socialism is our only Hope, and Progressives give us our only Hope for Socialism.

Okay, that was the Dem’s Big Picture Vision of the Political Landscape extending into the Future, which every American needs to be aware of.  But, when Congress goes into session, what can we expect the Dems in the House to actually DO?  Yes, we know that as it stands, the Democratic Control of Congress is really sort of legislatively useless – because to pass anything would require the go-aheads of a Right-Wing Senate and the Fascist White House, and that’d never happen.   But, what the Dems could do is use the House as a giant podium.  The Dems could put forward Bill after Bill after Bill that, if passed, could give Americans everything they ever wanted, dreamed and hoped for.  We could be a Democratic Party like they never seen before.  You know, Roosevelt, back in the Great Depression had his “New Deal”.  This could be the Progressives “New Leaf” – you know, as in “the Dems turn a New Leaf” – The Dems as you never thought you’d see them, helping the People and not just helping themselves as from time immemorial. It could reanimate the Idea of “the Pursuit of Happiness”, but not just as envisioned by the Founding Father Slave Owners of 200 years ago -- a ‘happiness’ reserved for an aristocracy of Property Owners, but a ‘Happiness’ we could all enjoy.  Let the people know that if they vote Democratic, that it will be a New Leaf, a New Promise, a New Dawn and a New Day.

Yes, now, as I said before, nothing in this outpouring of hopeful and promising Legislative Bills will have the proverbial ‘snowballs’ chance of passing – they’d all be killed by the Republicans, but that is the point.  It would spotlight the fact that the Republicans are the Bad Guys.   With each new Bill, it would show the American People again and again that the Republicans are lined up against them. 

Dems could perhaps gain the most ground if we were to re-define the debate on Taxation.  The Republicans got the people believing that Dems would increase taxes on them and our silence in response seems to confirm everybody’s worst fears about us.  So the first New Leaf we should turn is in regard to our New Tax Policy.  Us Democrats need to vigorously campaign on completely exempting the Majority of Voters from paying any taxes at all.  Certainly the 1% that hoards 95% of the Wealth can afford to pick up the Tax Tab.  Leave it to the Republicans to defend the Idea that it is necessary to stick Poor People with the bill for everything.  You know, perhaps the reason why the Republicans have tacitly but consistently insisted that Poor People must necessarily pay Taxes, is so that the Popular Electorate will be made to hate the idea of Taxation.   Really the Republican have trained Poor People to vote NO on taxes using Condition – Response reflex. Poor People are the Republican’s Pavlov’s Dogs.  So the Dems need to break this conditioning.  Perhaps we can speak of a New Constitutional Amendment that would exempt all Wage Earners from Taxation and put the exclusive burden of Taxation on the Owners of Capital. If the Capitalists want us to have Capitalism, then they should be willing to foot the bill for it, right?  And then when the Republicans oppose such measures, it will show their “Base” that the real Tax Threat comes from their own darlings, the Republicans.

But, now it’s time to look into our own shadows.  The Republicans will not be our only problem, or may not even be our worst problem.  When it comes to actually advocating for Ordinary People against the Predatory Classes, the Dems may be their own worst enemy.  Many establishment Democrats are what we call “Corporate Democrats” who basically take money from the same donors who fill up the coffers of the Republicans.   The prime examples of this are the Clintons and Obama. You know, it’s been said that when Bill Clinton was working on his National Health Care Bill, that he opened it up into a huge bidding war between the Lobbyists For and Against his Bill, and, guess what, the Private Health Care Industry won, and so Bill pulled the plug on his National Health Care Bill.  And then look what Obama did.   With his National Health Care Plan he ‘compromised’ with the Health Care Lobbyists by handing the entire Program over to them.  It turns out that the Health Care Industry LOVES National Health Care when they can rake 12% Profits off the Top.   And then we still have the “Say No to Expensive Treatments” Bias that will never go away while Private Corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to rather see people dead before they’ll take a nickel out of the pocket of a Shareholder, who are the only Human Beings who matter. Oh, and National Health Care handed over to Private Predators wasn’t even his own idea – he took that Recipe for Evil straight from a Republican where it should have stayed. 

But, no, it may not be entirely fair to point just at the Clintons and Obama when spotlighting Democrat Corruption.  Probably at least half of our Party are Career Thieves, Hustlers, and smiling Con Artists.  So, okay, we need to accept the Facts on the Ground.  This is the Democratic Party as we found it, and we have to make due with it.  Given a Two Party System, we need to either hijack the Dems or hijack the Republicans, and, well, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have effectively made that decision for us.  It’s our job now to “Climb aboard , blast bellies, and cut throats until the Ship is ours”, figuratively speaking, of course.  Maybe along the way many of the Donor Driven Dems will See the Light and have a change of heart and mend their nefarious ways and become One with us, but if not, we can use the Primaries to either force them out, or pressure them to move so hard to the Left that whether they like it or not they will begin to walk like us and talk like us.  I bet we’ll see fifty year old white democratic politicians seeing if they can do their hair like Alexandra Ocasio Cortez.  

You know, the same thing happened to the Republicans when the Tea Baggers hijacked their Party, and then it happened again when Trump hijacked their Party.  If there is a Universal Truth in any of this it is that Establishment Politicians, Dems or Repubs, will point whichever way the wind blows.  So the Progressives only need to stir up a Breeze.

So where does that leave us.   The Progressive Democrats have two years to up the volume and re-direct the popular political discourse.  In that time we can change minds and create a whole new set of expectations… perhaps even creating  a new vision of what a Social Morality should look like.  We need to actively envision the possibility that Public Service can be seen as a High Calling – almost like a noble austerity that people would willingly suffer for,  We must take our real lives and make them ideal lives.   We should shun the dingy Heaven consigned to those whose highest moral ambition is to be forgiven of their sins, and strive for the Clear White Light Paradise earned by the truly Good and the Righteous, that is, Those who Love their Neighbors, and Neighbors from every Neighborhood, as they love Themselves.  We need to take our Politics and make it a Moral Perfection.  Let’s give God something She can smile about.