DEMOCRATS ARE NOT PREPARED FOR WHAT IS HAPPENING TO OUR NATION

 

…Liz Cheney, the GOP Rep of Wyoming has shown her strength in support of U.S. democracy

 

Cheney risked her position in the GOP to stop Donald Trump

 

This is what is called a “Code Red” for the Democrats in Congress.

 

But I have only one serious question for them: “Are you ready to risk a lot less than Representative Liz Cheney did to do what is necessary right now to save our democracy?”

Because, when one party in our two-party system completely goes rogue, it falls on the other party to act.

 

Democrats have to do three things at the same time.  They need to advance their agenda, protect the integrity of our elections and prevent this unprincipled Trump-cult version of the GOP from ever gaining national power again.  And they need to do it now!

 

It is a tall order and a wholly unfair burden in many ways. But if Cheney is ready to risk everything to stop Trump, then Democrats, both the moderates and the progressives, they must rise to this moment and forge the majorities needed in the Senate and House to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill.  Also the voting rights bill and as much of the Build Back Better legislation as moderates and progressives can agree on. 

 

If the Democrats instead form a circular firing squad and all three of these major bills get scattered to the winds and the Biden presidency goes into a tailspin, and if the Trump Republicans retake the House and Senate and propel Trump back into the White House, there will be no chance later.

 

Later will be too late for the country as we know it.

 

So, I repeat: Do Rep. Josh Gottheimer, the leader of the centrist Democrats in the House, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, have the guts to stop issuing all-or-nothing ultimatums?   They instead need to give each other ironclad assurances that they will do something hard.

 

And are centrist Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema ready to risk not being reelected the way Liz Cheney has done.  Are they willing to do this by forging a substantive compromise to ensure that consequential election integrity, infrastructure and Build Back Better measures go forward?

 

And, frankly, is the Biden White House ready to forge this compromise with whatever pressures, Oval Office teas, inducements, pork and seductions are needed?

 

I fear common sense may not win out. As the Minnesota Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips remarked after the caucus of House Democrats: “The absence of pragmatism among Democrats is as troubling as the absence of principle among Republicans.”

Neither party is acting like they should be in dealing with the fact that this great nation may 

 actually lose it democracy to another term of a Trump presidency.

Copyright G. Ater