Democrats in shock, not disarray
To the Editor:
Last week’s letter by L. E. Cossette: “Democratic Party is in disarray,” is a delusional insult to Democrats and a vacuous flattery job to Trump’s Republican Party. Democrats are as committed and vocal about the values that they support as they always have been.
Doubting that because you saw the contrary on Newsmax, here is a partial list laying out the real concerns: Democrats want an end to racist behavior; an immigration system that provides genuine humanitarian support and legal entry to the downtrodden; genuine freedom from discrimination in housing and job opportunity no matter one’s religion, gender, nationality+ or sexual nature; a transition from oil and gas energy to a carbon neutral product; medical care so that all of us can access adequate care, not just rich folks; cars and trucks that protect the people within, and the environment without; the promotion of labor unions so that workers are given the power to ensure their company prospers while providing their families economic well-being and good treatment for workers; environmental policy so that manufacturing is not a toxic burden and produces safe food and other consumer goods; an educational system from federal to state that sets high standards for educators and opportunities for all children, disabled and otherwise; a federal judicial system that makes sure that our rights as citizens are protected and transgressions on those rights are not allowed to continue; a nation that allows religion to prosper in the private arena but restrains forced public practice; and the list goes on.
It is a well-known truth that the laundry list of objectives laid out above are the values that most Americans hope to enjoy for themselves, and polling the citizenry shows this. After all, does anyone want to deal with cancers and body lesions and then discover that the land out back was a poison chemical dump? Of course not. Knowing that, Democrats are not inclined to seizures, chasing their tails, and changing their values. What Democrats have learned from the last year watching the chaos created by Republican politicians is that their voters no longer care about issues; their values have been collapsed into a single wish by the crude and crass Donald Trump to effectuate the destruction of so-called liberal programs in a rush to get back to the days of yore, when white men were accorded privileges, woman were useful sidekicks, poor and minority folks stayed in their decaying ghettos and no children saw happy and healthy gay folks in public.
Shocked at the banality of all of this insanity and disruption, Democrats remain genuinely flummoxed about how to negotiate with a reckless, mindless tribe of Trumpians who are chopping off their toes hoping that lighter feet will win the race. In short, Republican voters elected Donald Trump because he promised in the crudest terms possible to rid our culture of liberals and their alleged stench. Never you mind that overturning the apple cart of our nation’s bounty would cripple or destroy our most desirable and difficult societal achievements. (Note especially what Robert Kennedy Jr. is up to at the HHS and Pam Bondi at the DOJ). Trump screams “destroy colleges,” “destroy government,” destroy science,” “destroy medical research,” “destroy climate warming mitigation!!,” “destroy all forms of immigration,” and the lies and fulminations of the raging man goes on. And MAGA loves it as much as he loves to shovel it out. That is, of course, until Trump’s policies start coming for them.
And that is indeed what is happening right now. You may be living in the rural parts and have a solid American ancestry reaching back a century or better, but Trumpian economic policy number 1 — tariffs — are going to cost your family $2,000 more for the stuff you are now buying. And absent the income of the top 10%, your health care, probably tentative already, is just lately starting to diminish in quality and access. Doctors and support people are quitting the profession in droves, clients (you and me) are having our policies bumped to the curb.
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I could go on, but you get the point. That the recent across-the-board polling reveals a decline in Trump’s support by everyone is telling me that lots of folks are starting to really understand what they did last November. And it is crucial to keep listening to the news, and I do not mean only Newsmax or MSNBC. Widen your view left and right, and you will begin to get a clear picture of the truth. No matter the goals of Mr. Trump, journalism continues to bake the bread-stuff of democracy. My vision has it that the quality of a nation’s progress lies in increasing levels of prosperity and opportunity for all, the strengthening of our alliances with our allies, the safeguarding of the health and vitality of all people and so forth. It does not lie in enthusiastically choking the lives of our minority populations, the disruption of trade worldwide and, in consequence, endangering our own: all the while bellowing the whitewashing slogan “Make America Great Again.”
Rick Wirth
Bryson City
