America Unspun

I know I write about the Demcrats here quite a bit. I am not a Democrat, but if you have read my previous posts, you know that I routinely pull for them to get themselves together. Sadly, it seems that will not happen anytime soon. I don’t know if it is because of a short attention span, division within the party, ambition among some of the younger (and older!) members, or a combination of all of these.

The political and social climates in the United States are evolving very quickly. It seems that almost daily, President Trump’s team begins some new process or initiative. Whether it is the tariff initiative, arrest and deportation of foreign nationals in the United States illegally, implementation of cost saving measures, dismantling departments or something else, his team is dynamic. Like him or not, his team is doing exactly what he promised the American people he would do. They voted for him and he is delivering to his electorate.

His opposition is not exclusively Democrat. His tariffs have affected the stock market over the last week and many people are nervous as they see the markets dip and see their accounts reflect that dip. Incidentally, my own accounts have taken a beating over the last week or so, and I don’t think we have seen the bottom yet. Some Republicans have voiced their opposition to the tariffs and some are considering legislation to restrict the President’s authority to impose and maintain tariffs.

I can hear the questions now – So what Unspun 1966? What is your point? Well here it is. There are Republicans who disagree with President Trump’s policies. They are speaking about it to the mainstream press and media and are crafting legislation to combat the President’s policies. They are not threatening people, trying to silence opposing opinions, burning cars and car dealerships, damaging or destroying personal property and hating everything associated with President Trump just because he is associated with it.

In contrast, the Democrats see everyone and everything that they disagree with as the enemy, period. The message is that if someone or something does not toe the line, someone or something has to go.

I used to think that Democrats practiced identity politics, and maybe at one point they did. What I have seen lately it that this condition has shifted. All the things we see them doing – virtue signaling, attacking Elon Musk’s businesses and products, praising the Republicans who disagree with President Trump, opposing tariffs (I get it, they are painful in the short term), opposing any reduction or reform in the government, and more, show that for them politics is no longer a broad based compromise where all give and all gain. Their politics and views govern every part of their lives.

You might ask me what I mean by this statement. What I mean is this – Democrats freely change their values to meet their immediate political needs or agendas. This is how they can latch on to issues that actually mean very little in the main stream (like transgender issues – not a hill to die on) or keeping criminal illegal migrants in the US rather than deporting them. This is also how they can change their stances on things that were important to them until President Trump also made them important (I specifically mean tariffs here – see Senator Schumer’s past comments in this issue). 

This is also what allows them to justify keying Teslas, attacking Tesla dealerships, championing the alleged killer Luigi Mangione, and in some cases condoning political violence and even murder.

This is not normal. While there have certainly been instances of lawlessness by Republicans, with the exception of January 6 (and that was a significant event), I have not seen large scale, organized, violent demonstrations from the mainstream right.

This shift away from even the appearance of civil discourse troubles me and I am forced to remember Secretary Clinton’s words from 2018 when she famously said that “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about.”

I believe that we as a people are capable of having a civil discourse and government based on compromise. We had it for two centuries before the current situation developed. I believe that only a few of us are radical enough to want the chaos we are seeing in our streets. The vast majority of us are more mainstream and are able to compromise and at least get along, even if we will never agree. My hope is that we can move away from the extreme partisan squabbling and remember that while we may disagree, we are all Americans.

Unspun 1966