It feels like we're just rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic at this point. For years, the Democratic party has been playing by an archaic set of rules that the MAGATs abandoned a long time ago. I'm so pissed and utterly disappointed in the Dem ability to rise to this moment. Chuck Schumer is the biggest waste of space. I'm pretty sure you guys have heard of Graham Platner. He's the Maine oyster farmer who's entered the race to unseat Olympic Champion Pearl Clutcher Susan Collins. I find him engaging and communicating a message that seems to resonate with the working class. Hell, I'd vote for him. So what's the Dem establishment doing? Friggin Schumer has convinced the current Gov of Maine, Janet Mills to enter the race. She's SEVENTY SEVEN. I'm so sick and tired of Dems running geriatric candidates. It's hard to keep spirits up. WHEN they gut the Voting Rights Act and the MAGA states redistrict accordingly, that will add 20-30 seats for them in the house (a conservative estimate). That pretty much guarantees that the Dems will never regain power. How are we supposed to keep our sprits up when the MAGATs have cemented the levers of power in their favor?
This is why, next time we get power, we cannot squander the opportunity. That's what I've been saying and will continue to say. We will have a short window to fix everything.
1. First step: neuter the Supreme Court and replace it with a new appellate court. Perfectly constitutional under Article III. Requires nothing more than a statute.
2: Hold a constitutional convention. Tell certain Southern states that they can participate in negotiating it and hopefully we can come to an agreement that all can live with, but if they don't agree, the president will use his unitary executive power to deregister some states so that the we can get 2/3 and 3/4. In the alternative, we can create 50 new states and use them to write the new constitution.
The new amended constitution must address issues like: executive authority (none of this idiotic unitary executive), the judiciary (no life tenure), gun rights (sorry, gun owners), and so on. It doesn't have to be a so-called liberal Christmas tree. It just have to have the provisions necessary for ordered liberty, which was the goal the first time around but that was a very, very long time ago.
3. If we cannot do that, then all will be lost. Is that a Chuck Schumer thing to do? It is not. But we would need the president and hopefully the president will learn how to keep Congress in check long enough to create the conditions for Congress to flourish.
4. As for Janet Mills, I don't really care. We need to run the candidate with the highest chance of winning. That's all that matters -- we need a (D) in that seat. Mills is apparently very popular in Maine. Yes, she's too old, but again -- we need to win and that's all that matters. Same in NC, which is why Roy Cooper is in the race.
Gutting the voting rights act is not necessarily a death knell. Especially if it happens in June, there won't be enough time to redraw districts. So we can take the house in 26. 28 would not be great, but who knows -- the future is hard to predict.
5. The House and the Senate were ready to pass the John Lewis voting rights act, which as I understood it, included provisions to combat gerrymandering. And then Sinema. I wouldn't say that she alone bears responsibility, of course, but she was presented the opportunity to cast a vote for justice and instead she cast a vote for her own relevance. And then she pissed everyone off anyway and so became unelectable. She was like a suicide bomber.
