[Future Hope column]
Bernie Sanders. Photo Gage Skidmore–Wikimedia commons.
It is a very good and necessary thing that Mafioso Don was impeached yesterday by the Democrats in the House, and it was a decisive victory. With three exceptions out of 235, every single Democrat did the right thing, including the 30 or so freshmen elected a year ago in House districts Trump won in 2016. From the “squad” on the left to the most corporate-friendly on the center-right, the Dems came through big-time.
The House Republicans, on the other hand, were united in their abject surrender to Our Nation’s Worst President Ever. It was so bad that not a single one raised the idea that instead of impeachment, Trump should be censured. Trump had made it clear that anyone who did so, implying that he had done something wrong, would be considered a traitor and subject to Trump attack.
I think the odds are good that, if the Democrats don’t blow it by nominating Joe Biden or someone like him, the humpty-dumpty Republicans are setting themselves up for a very big fall next November. Only 25% of the population thinks that what Trump did was just fine, based on a USA Today poll one month ago, and 70% of those polled agreed that “Trump’s actions were wrong.”
Of course, using the Hitlerian technique of the big lie, something that is as natural to Trump as breathing, that 70% number could be whittled down over time, especially if the Democrats wimp out in response. That doesn’t seem likely, however, because of the increasing strength of the progressive grassroots movement, as best exemplified by the growing support for Bernie Sanders.
There is, of course, another way that the Democrats could blow it other than nominating Biden or someone with his politics and Wall Street connections. In response to Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, or both, doing well in the early primary and caucus states, Barack Obama could lead an underhanded effort on the part of the corporate-friendly wing of the Dems to deny the Presidential nomination to either of them. Rather than fighting it out politically, in debate on issues and strategy, which is already happening and is just fine, Obama and those of his political/strategic perspective could seriously widen the divisions within the party by dangerously fanning the division flames.
Progressives who get it on how essential it is that the Republicans be decisively defeated next November need to speak out and agitate for a Democratic/progressive united front of the kind we have just seen with respect to the impeachment victory. Those who can have influence over Obama or those connected with him should let him know they will not be silent if he tries to intervene into the internal political process now going on to choose the Democratic Presidential nominee.
Trump should have been impeached for his and his administration’s truly criminal actions when it comes to the climate crisis. The most recent example is their role at the Madrid UN climate conference earlier this month doing all they could, pretty successfully, to obstruct forward progress by the world’s governments on this urgent existential crisis. What could be more criminal than deliberately acting to plunge the world and all of its life forms into a future living hell of runaway climate catastrophe everywhere?
Let’s do all in our power to turn the Republican Party’s unanimous kissing of Mafioso Don’s ring in the House yesterday into a massive wave of popular revulsion and a progressive political landslide next November.
Ted Glick has been a progressive activist, organizer and writer since 1968. Past writings and other information can be found at http://tedglick.com, and he can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jtglick.
