Few things tell us exactly what the ancient, decrepit leadership of the Democratic Party thinks of its progressive wing than Rahm Emaneul’s name constantly cropping up for a cabinet job and the naming of Neera Tanden to head OBM.
The former is 5′ 7″ of concentrated capitalist neoliberal id shoved into a slim gray suit and here to swear at you for existing while demanding you help him cover up a cop murdering a teenager.
The latter is the terminally-online left-baiter who personifies the entire Democrat “Better Things Aren’t Possible” mindset when she’s not too busy screaming on Twitter at some grad student at 3 in the morning for daring to disagree with her. Real great sense of where her time is best spent, this one. At least, when she’s doing that, she’s not busting unions at the Center for American Progress with one hand while cashing checks from murderous Middle Eastern oil dictatorships for her work propagandizing them with the other.
That the nascent Biden Administration decided these two fuckin’ dickheads just have to be in the conversation is its way of telling the younger, progressive left of the party that we can get fucked.
I think it’s time we return the favor.
Yes, Anybody But Trump 2020 was juuuuust barely enough of a compelling argument to make me swallow the vomit and vote for this decrepit, ancient, wholly-owned subsidiary of the Delaware credit card industry in the election just past. And many progressives, a vast majority, did the same. And THIS is our reward?
I know everybody wants to pretend like the Trump presidency was some aberration, a brutal breaking of norms, completely outside the pale of previous administrations, and that Biden Will Make Things Normal Again.
But it wasn’t an aberration and Biden isn’t going to fundamentally alter the deal; his administration will just smear some woke idpol language over decisions that are not far off from what Trump’s been doing. The lib commentariat will ignore that fact, just like they pretended Trump invented concentration camps for babies or family separation at the border or drone strikes… basically, they will Hire 👏 More 👏 Women 👏 Prison 👏 Guards 👏!!!! and call it a day.
Given that we’re not even to the inauguration yet and this is what the Dem Establishment is doing to its own left wing, maybe we finally just… boycott voting for them? Most of the senior leadership is early-1980’s Soviet Party Boss old (part of the problem). They’ve all got one, maybe two election cycles left. Let them go down to flaming defeat or squeak out a win with the “I just want to go back to brunch!” crowd, but let’s just stop being Democrats until we have candidates worth voting for who at least promise to try to do the right things.
But “It’s the Most Important Election of our Lifetime!!!” (hint: it’s not. They can’t ALL be). Cool, want me to vote for your party? Don’t rig the primary to make sure an establishment centrist wins the nom over the progressive everybody is actually excited about and who will pursue policy goals that will actually accomplish something for the material well-being of regular Americans. Otherwise? Fuck off. I’m sitting this one out.
This is honestly my plan for the 2022 midterms already; if the first two years of Biden go like these initial appointments seem to indicate, I’m fuckin’ not voting for anyone in that election. “but… what if the Republicans take power?” Well, cupcake, they already HAVE all the power and the Dems who are in office have shown zero desire or aptitude towards challenging that power, so what do I get out of voting for them? Let them burn until they start putting up people I don’t have to choke down self-hatred in order to vote for ’em.
In a functioning country with a properly-designed system of government, we wouldn’t be railroaded into choosing from a vast slate of two whopping parties that might as well be called The Cruelty Party and The Cruelty But Publicly Sad About It Party. But that’s not going to change any time soon, so this is what we have to deal with, and I’m sick of settling for the lesser evil every fucking election.
It fuckin’ sucks, man. And I’m done contributing to my own fuckin’ oppression by voting for these assholes who hate me.
shawn ritchie dot com 