Waiting on Trump

Richard North Patteson recently wrote in the Huff Post: "For Americans, the singular presidency of Donald Trump impels a measured consideration of what fascism truly is ― and how it grows. For fascism does not supplant democracy overnight. Rather it advances step-by-step, nourished by denial and disbelief until it overruns the safeguards protecting decency and freedom." This is where I think we are now. After watching the debacle of a sexual predator being confirmed to the SC where lies prevail over the truth and realizing a brilliantly researched and written NYT story chronicling the lies of the TTO that is essentially dead in the water, my fear is that the next stages of discovery (Mueller and possible sex charges) that we are desperately waiting and hoping for will have little or no impact. Fascist tribalism prevails for many reasons too complicated to discuss here but also because, unlike what Grassley and McConnell claimed on Kavanaugh, it is the GOP moving the goal posts of decency. Gone are the days when sexual peccadillos or lying to Congress would end your professional career. His base doesn't care. Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership remains impotent, doing little and offering almost nothing. The numbers are horrific. We have a supreme court that is controlled by a minority of voters. Kavanaugh has a 31 percent approval rating yet he will be confirmed. We are outgunned. We are losing the battles and if we are not careful, we will lose the war. Andrew Gillum had a 9 point lead in Florida and then invited HRC, Bloomberg and DWS to campaign for him. His lead is down to 2. I am not picking on HRC or reliving the 2016 campaign. I am simply pointing out that the things that worked years ago work no longer. We need the next generation of leaders to step up and the old guard to step away. We need to vote. We need to be MORE strategic. We need to be proactive rather than reactive. And we need to punish, so the GOP understands there are consequences to their chicanery. Finally, we need to get a handle on something that is becoming more obvious. As someone shared on my twitter feed, "Democrats have got to realize that Trump will not be scandalized into defeat. Attempts to make that happen will only bolster his narratives. He will lose by virtue of the fact that his policies hurt the struggling—provided Democrats offer more than incrementalism as a replacement."