A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step Chinese proverb
The Democrats, of which I am a proud member, are not only a big tent party, they are a big picture party. They want to use the levers of power in the government to make life better for all Americans. Which means that they look at today’s pressing problems, and find solutions. But the problem with that is that you don’t look long term. And while it’s great to make sure that you have a comfortable life now, if you don’t plan for retirement, you’ll end up living in a cardboard box.
China is one of the oldest cultures on this rock. And because they made a conscious decision to seal themselves off from the rest of the world, they had to become self reliant. Which meant that they actually had to plan. And plan they did. In the US, political parties talk about a 2 year plan to whip inflation, or a 5 year plan to reduce the deficit. In the Chinese Party Congresses, they regularly trot out a 10 year or 25 year plan for national prosperity. And they aren’t dicking around. They call in government experts, who examine the problem, and then come up with a whole of government plan to solve it in the allotted time, which the government sticks to religiously.
When a population explosion threatened China with a nationwide famine, something had to be done. After all, Chinese peasants don’t eat all that well to start with. A famine would not only reduce the population, but starving people don’t mind revolting. Just ask Louis XIV. The government embarked on a One Child Plan, where every family was restricted to one offspring. When baby females started to outpace baby males, exceptions were made for acceptable families to have second, male child. Read euthanasia for another female child. And it worked.
Whether the GOP emulated the Chinese, or just got lucky on their own, they have religiously followed the Chinese long term planning model. Fueled by an far right American Taliban Evangelical base fired up for the right to life, every time that the GOP got control of a state, or the federal government, they not only pushed more restrictive anti abortion laws, but they started packing state and federal courts with pro life judges. They knew that it would take decades to make positive change, but they were always able to show their Evangelical base that they were making progress. And now, Roe v Wade is in the crosshairs of a GOP super majority Supreme Court.
More than 10 years ago the GOP saw the demographic shift in the country going against them. They were an aging, almost all white, somewhat racist party in a world turning more and more brown. In 2010, the GOP won back the House, but more importantly, they spent even more on statewide races than they did in the national election. And as a result, they flipped enough state legislatures to ensure themselves minority control of the US House through gerrymandering. And now, in 2021, they are poised to do it again.
Here’s the point of all of this. Of course there are current problems that have to be solved, and the Democrats try to solve them. But as the old saying goes, The road to Hell is paved by good intentions. The best plans in the world are useless if you don’t have the votes to pass them! And the GOP is hell bent for leather to deprive the Democrats a majority with which to pass positive legislation.
The Democrats now have two problems, one immediate, and the other long term. First, there has to be a full court press, with no punches held back, to get those two Cro-Magnon throwback idiots Manchin and Sinema to carve out an exception to the filibuster for voting rights legislation. I don’t care what Schumer does, threaten to strip their committee assignments, threaten to put their parking spaces in Baltimore, but get them on board. If we don’t get voting rights restored in this country, then the 2022 midterms are like a salmon swimming upstream and hoping to spawn. And if 2022 is a blowout, then it may be the last free and fair, sort of, election that we have.
But second, the Democrats have to develop a long term strategy. They have to create a group, or whatever, that looks at the long term viability of the party. What does it need to start doing now that will bear fruit with the base years down the road. Today the Democrats are running around with their hair on fire over the composition of the Supreme Court, but the GOP started that process more than 30 years ago. The palest ink is better than the best memory.
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35
An excellent article, Mr Murphy. The Repugnicans have written the book on how to achieve minority rule. It’s up to the bemused Democrats to figure out how to block that goal NOW, before it’s too late to save the freedoms offered by a healthy democracy.