Another Republican child massacre shows Decent America what it must do
And it must do it this fall.
As everyone knows by now, the upteenth school shooting destroyed nearly twenty children and two teachers in Texas yesterday.
I’m not going to pretend to be shocked. At this point, the slaughter of innocents is entirely predictable. No one should be surprised when the next one happens. Or the one after that.
And I’m not going to pretend that this is “complex problem” that needs deep thinking. It’s a simple problem that every civilized nation except the United States has not even needed to solve.
Republicans are the problem. The guns they let wash over America are the proximate cause of the deaths, but the twisted souls of Republicans are the problem.
Here is David Frum summing it all up in The Atlantic:
Most of us are appalled. But not enough of us are sufficiently appalled to cast our votes to halt it. And those to whom Americans entrust political power, at the state and federal levels, seem determined to make things worse and bloodier. . . .
The lobbying groups and politicians who enable these killers will dominate the federal courts and state governments, as they do today, until the mighty forces of decency and kindness in American life say to the enablers:
“That’s enough! This must stop—and we will stop you.”
There is a solution. It’s staring us all in the face. Decent America with its mighty forces simply must take political power away from Republicans. Entirely.
This is not only the solution for mass shootings. It is the solution for just about every problem America faces. Decent America is still the actual majority although the screaming of the minority drowns it out. If Decent America would just rise up and vote against Republicans everywhere, all these problems could be easily rectified.
A large enough Democratic majority in Congress would end the filibustering logjam that Republicans use to prevent solving problems. If the filibuster were eliminated, a Democratic majority could swiftly sweep away four decades of Republican political sabotage.
Democrats could change the laws to support and protect the people instead of exploiting and abusing them.
Democrats could change the composition of the Supreme Court, which would override the fiction of “conservative jurisprudence” and return the court to intelligent and decent justice under the Constitution.
And it would only take one election to do it—the upcoming election this fall. If Decent America could only muster up the energy to vote for Democrats overwhelmingly in November, it could finally have everything it wants.
If you want the gun slaughter to stop, vote for Democrats.
If you want to guarantee reproductive rights, vote for Democrats.
If you want voting rights back after decades of Republican suppression, vote for Democrats.
If you want to push white supremacists back into the fever swamps from which Trump fished them out, vote for Democrats.
If you want police to become guardians of the community again instead of the power-hungry thugs that Republicans admire, vote for Democrats.
If you want to mitigate the effects of racism, vote for Democrats.
If you want to end book bans, moron-controlled school districts, and hypocritical religiosity destroying the educational system, vote for Democrats.
If you want to diminish the wealth gap, vote for Democrats.
If you want functioning government that solves real problems rather than creating fake “cultural” problems, vote for Democrats.
If you want to squash Trumpism and its deviance, vote for Democrats.
You could add just about anything you want to this list. Democrats will work to give you what you want. Republicans will—and you can count on this—work only on getting more and more power for themselves.
One more thing. Now is not the time for purity tests. Militant progressives simply must understand this. If you do not vote for Democrats who can win this fall, you will hand America over to the barbarians in our midst.
Please, Decent America. Won’t you step up and save the nation?
Won’t you give up part of one day this year in November to get everything you want, to stop Republicans from killing our children, imposing their “religious beliefs” on the rest of us, and seizing the electoral system to impose minority rule forever?
Haven’t you finally had enough?