This letter to the editor in the Washington Post today is the clearest expression of the sword of Damocles that is hanging over American democracy.
The two big questions are: First, what can be done about public officials who are perversely able to use all the rights and procedures designed to protect people from abuse of government power to defend their abuse of government power? In present circumstances, justice delayed could mean justice destroyed. . . .
Second, can we do better in thoroughly and fairly holding those behind the insurrection accountable? . . .
Is it just too hard to do any better to uphold the Constitution and rule of law with any sense of purpose or urgency?
Trump and his minions would have taken over our country on January 6, 2021. They killed people trying to do it. Yet the one remaining major party capable of bringing them all to justice is still moving at a glacial pace more than a year later.
What is worse, because of Democrats’ slow-moving and passionless response, most Americans have become lackadaisical about the first seditionist attack on government since the Civil War.
What is even worse, too many Americans care so little about democracy and so much about temporary inflation that they are more than ready to hand Congress over to the seditious Republicans this fall.
As usual, an intense focus on current dissatisfactions in life inclines people to make bad decisions that harm them in the longer run. In this case, it will harm them irreparably. If Republicans succeed in dismantling the last norms that remain after Trump’s frontal assault on the Constitution, they won’t have a life worth living at all.
And what is even worse again is that hope is really hard to muster. There is only one segment of America that can deliver us from elected Republican seditionists in Congress destroying government from within, only one segment that can keep both houses of Congress in Democratic control come November.
That segment is young voters. There are tens of millions of them out there. The majority of them are progressive. They could take power away from Republicans forever and change the nation overnight just by voting for Democrats up and down the ballot.
But they won’t come out in force to defend democracy from Republicans. There were enough in 2020 to tip the balance slightly in favor of Joe Biden that year, but not enough to stop Republicans from making undeserved gains in Congress.
Young people need to get off the fence. If they had come out in force in 2020, they would have everything they ever wanted right now. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema could not have bollixed up progressive priorities if there had been more Democrats in Congress.
But instead, young people seem to be confused about the danger they are in. They may not trust Republicans, but they also don’t trust Democrats. They seem to think Democrats are not serving their interests.
Listen, young people. You need to wake up. Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer may not have gotten everything you want. But that is because you didn’t come out in force and hand them enough power in 2020. The 70 or so million of you who are eligible to vote could have crippled the GOP. You could have put so many Democrats in Congress that your priorities would have been unstoppable.
Believe me, if there were 60 Democrats in the Senate and a sizable majority of Democrats in the House, you would have everything Bernie Sanders and Rashida Talib have been pushing for right now. Instead, there aren't enough Democrats in Congress to overcome the so-called moderates, who always run scared of “conservatives.”
This November, you have one more chance to get everything you want right away.
I advise you to take it, because it will be your last chance. If you don’t come out this time and vote for Democrats in overwhelming numbers, Republicans will take control of Congress. And given their Trump-inspired willingness to back insurrection, to destroy anyone who won’t do what they want, to suppress voters who vote against them, and now to pass laws that will allow them to overturn election results that go against them, you will never get another chance to stop them. They will make sure of that.
Understand the stakes, young people, and take your power now.
Or you’ll lose it—and America—forever.
Link to the WP op-ed is broken. Here's the one I found:
https://wapo.st/3xdYZvn
Democrats need to stop being kind to others. Rip the bastards to shreds!