Establishment without Conspiracy. Part 2

Instead of writing one big, long essay examining what the Democratic Party establishment is and what the various sides of the debate think about it, I want to block off an hour or two to get one thought down in a running series. Then I can actually finish a post instead of getting into something, then having to abandon it and when I finally return to writing I can't remember what in the world I was on about. So, a couple paragraphs on one idea each time. Maybe there are readers out there who would appreciate this approach too, we'll see.

Not long after doughfacedonny "won" the election, the DNC sent me a survey asking what I thought they should do. Here was my reply:

To the incoming chair of the DNC,
You are not prepared for what is coming, no one is. We have entered a completely new era of unified authoritarian rule, you will have to approach every aspect of your job with that in mind. I'm sure that you are aware that Democrats will be completely shut out of governance, and the party will have to act like a shadow government. Do not collaborate in any way with the republicans, resist in the strongest terms any attempt by them to pin blame for their actions and failures on you or our party. It is time to become an unabashed voice for working people of all shapes and sizes. And you must really mean it. The party will be in the wilderness for a long time, there will be no reason for to remain tied to a party that surrenders or compromises our values. The national government is lost, aim lower at local levels. The republicans must fail alone, only when they have inflicted so much pain and suffering on so many people that not even Fox News and breitbart can make excuses for how bad they are can democracy return.

There was supposed to be some kind of arrangement between Tom Perez and Keith Ellison on power-sharing, or so I thought at the time. It was also supposed to be a compromise and truce over the Clinton/Bernie feud. But apparently that didn't hold and the Clinton/Obama candidate Perez came out on top. Things were awfully cloudy at the time but it was clear that republican fascism was going to rub directly on the populace going forward without even the veneer of Executive authority standing in the way. The people were standing alone against a right-wing occupation.

No one really knew what lay ahead. We can take some solace in knowing just how blatheringly incompetent all of the trump people have been to this point. But I wanted to remind myself how apocalyptic things seemed at the time. Now the Democrats are stepping up to the plate again and how we deal with the divide will be important.