Today, I will be typing to you with fire, and helping you deal with the excess hell that is being hand-delivered to us daily by the most lawless, bigoted, corrupt, heartless collection of sub-humans in American history.
I bring you those loaded words, and wonder if I still have somehow underestimated the revolting Republican Party.
I know that you are the true patriots in America who have the guts to pay attention, and then pay a terrible mental price for it. I know that you are the people who can be counted on to rush to the latest political fire, and if necessary use your bare hands to put it out.
I know that you are the people who deserve better than what you are getting both from the party you stand and fight for, and from the one that so obviously and consistently stands against Americans.
Every damn hour we are under steady assault by a repugnant collection of Republican, subservient thugs — a cult of knuckle-dragging hyenas — which are fronted by a gruesome man, who is so completely dead inside, the bile is starting to ooze out of him leaving bandaged hands, swollen ankles, and burnt-orange puddles wherever he was last seen sleeping in public.
The sickly Donald Trump does not have much time left, but then neither does the United States of America.
In fact, the only thing we have in common with this grotesque, abusive monster is that we are all locked in a battle for our survival.
Who’s going to die first? Our country or Trump?
There isn’t a single thing the bought-off Trump, aided by his subservient cult, won't do to end us, as he strangles a never-ending list of enemies, chokes the life out of America, and pockets millions and millions of dollars before he finally takes his last breath.
Our health care, food security, and clean air and water are all under steady assault. Our safety nets are gleefully being pulled from underneath us by lifeless billionaires who can never get enough. Our vote and humans rights are being incinerated. Prices are going up, and a lawless, bought-off conservative Supreme Court is doing everything in its seemingly unlimited power to drag us down.
Our military is being perverted into a partisan tool, and we are steaming toward the breaking point where it will be necessary to ask whether they are with us, or against us.
Trump will not stop until he is convinced he can snap his fat little fingers, and his military will do his heinous bidding. That’s what this is all about, because that is what this was always going to be about when he seized power last year.
This is a takeover, and an attack on a fragile democracy that has survived for centuries, but only because it could trust its president and courts not to unify with the odious intent of dismantling it.
Authoritarianism isn’t some fictional thing, people, it is A THING, and it is happening right in front of our tired eyes.
It is the laziest, most oppressive political system known to man, because it isn’t fueled by enlightenment or better ideas. No, instead it is all about the control by the few over the many, and rammed down our throats with brute force whether we like it or not.
It marches to the monotonous, banging drum of nonstop, state-run propaganda that props up evil, subservient agents in places like our Pentagon, Justice Department, the FBI, and that blasted court ...
You know what I am bringing to you this morning is true, because you have the audacity to pay attention. If you are reading this all-too-sober accounting of our current state, you can plainly see it, feel it, and most importantly: are wondering just what in the hell we are supposed to do about it.
Because if this is our reality, shouldn’t we all be sounding the alarms every chance we get, and supporting each other as we do the work to save the United States of America from itself?
I have great faith in you, dear reader. You give me strength simply by knowing you are out there. By God, there are millions of us, and we are our only chance to put this attack down, and save America.
So now an important question: Do you think the leadership in the Democratic Party is taking all this as seriously as you are?
If you are, we are done for the day. I wish you strength and peace of mind ...
Most of you will know that I am not a party man, because my work as a journalist prevented it, and because after observing political parties and their politicians closely, I trust most of them only as far as I can throw them with my old, tired left arm.
While we the people are fretting, and screaming, and voting, and marching, and hollering, and devouring all the warnings like this one, the leadership of the party we have assigned to save us, is at best badly misreading situation, or at worst, accepting too many horrible realities by the hour, that when piled atop each other will ultimately bury us — and most likely sooner than later.
Right now, like it or not — and man, I absolutely hate it — we are being asked to make the best of our tragic situation in America, while a trio of inaction figures spend the better part of each day rubbing the sleep from their eyes, and reacting instead of taking our righteous fight to the people 24/7.
How is it Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Ken Martin have been assigned to lead the Democratic Party in this historic hour of vital resistance?
Why are we STILL accepting this?
Isn’t it clear by now that time and again they have let us down since last year’s horrible elections? Isn’t it clear by now they have proven they are simply incapable of rising up to meet this dire situation?
Look, I don’t hate these men. I don’t even dislike them. I thank them for their service.
But now it’s time they return to the important ranks of the foot soldiers and backbenchers, because they are NOT leaders.
The irony is, we were always invariably going to be better off when we stopped with our absurd idolatry of politicians. It has been a weakness of the Democratic Party my entire professional lifetime, but that makes it no less a reality.
Here’s a fact: Most people simply don’t trust politicians, and that is actually a strength of a thriving Democracy. When one man or woman gains too much power we begin swerving toward what we fought to avoid more than 250 years ago.
Welcome to our current nightmare.
But since we are here, I will readily concede that occasionally, politicians can truly inspire. I have seen these rare folks and been sparked by them. Four come to mind in my lifetime: John F. Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Michelle and Barack Obama.
In action and words, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) is my current favorite.
Lord knows, we have never needed inspiration more.
Schumer, Jeffries and Martin simply aren’t delivering it.
They have proven they lack the guts and talent to make our case to the American people. And making our case to the American people is what needs to be happening from sun up to sun down — from North Carolina to North Dakota — every single day.
We must grab the pulpit and shake it. We need to bring thunder to this war for our survival.
Tell me: When was the last time Schumer did that? As he ever done that?
Now tell me why Jeffries was siding with Trump earlier this week in the pardoning of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who was indicted by the Biden Justice Department on bribery and money-laundering charges. Just last month, Jeffries slammed Trump for being “completely and totally out of control” with these relentless, lawless pardons.
Does Jeffries mean what he says? Too many times I am not sure what the New York Congressman is thinking, and that has become a big, damn problem for such a public figure.
I won’t waste too much of my my breath on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), because its pretty clear they quit really giving a damn the minute they had all our phone numbers, and could just sit back and batter our cell phones with never-ending fundraising requests.
It’s still hard for me to reckon how Ben Wikler didn’t get that job, given what he did to help rescue the Wisconsin Democratic Party from the abyss the past decade or so.
Look, if you told me 13 month ago, coming off the most catastrophic election losses in America history, the Democratic Party wouldn’t change a thing with its Congressional and Senatorial leadership, I would have slapped some self-respect into you.
But here we are with black eyes, because any party that trots out the same losers to lead it after absorbing a thorough beating like the one we got last November can’t respect you if it can’t even be bothered to respect itself …
Nothing, and I mean NOTHING would energize the Left more than putting new, invigorating leadership in place. It would show the party listens, and believes in action, not just empty words. It would invite millions of people in, instead of stiff-arming them away with the same old bulls--- …
CHANGE.
Too many people don’t trust the party, because they don’t think it is listening to them. This simply has to be rectified, because we don’t have any time left.
If we don’t win big next year, we can kiss it all goodbye. There will be no more do-overs. We simply must do EVERYTHING we can to ensure we win.
So one more question before I go: Why do we expect so damn much from ourselves, and so damn little from our leadership?
- (D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.)
