At long last, there’s a Democratic politician I can enthusiastically get behind.
Well, I exaggerate, of course. I’m four-square behind the likes of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, JB Pritzker, Pete Buttigieg, and about a half dozen others. But loyal Pencillistas know I’ve been ragging on the party for years for its turn-tail-and-run ways.
Some three decades ago, Newt Gingrich distributed his GOPAC Memo, the meat of which was to turn the term liberal into a libel. And in making certain the Democrats would always be associated with that “slur,” Gingrich and company succeeded in turning the very name of the party itself into a smear. The Dems ran like rabbits from the word liberal, rather than standing up straight and proclaiming loudly, You’re goddamned right I’m a liberal!
How about John Kerry being accused of falsifying his Vietnam War injuries during the 2004 election? This was back in the days when the Dems thought it best to “go high when they go low,” as Michele Obama would dub the philosophy a few years later. Kerry ignored the charges. He and his party didn’t realize at the time how powerful the then-nascent social media could be. The charges stuck among tens of millions of people who, by the way, were never going to vote for him in the first place. No matter. The impression grew and solidified that when pushed into a corner, the Dems wouldn’t fight. Kerry didn’t fight. Oh, how I wished he would have dramatically and effectively raised his trouser leg during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, shown his scars, and said, How dare you chicken-hawk bastards accuse me of lying?
Then another Dem pol I really liked, Sen. Al Franken, turned tail and ran when a member of his own party, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, pilloried him for sexual harassment, a charge wholly imagined by the Right Wing propaganda machine. Rather than say, Hell no, I didn’t do it!, he instead resigned. Again, it wouldn’t have swung any votes but it would have shown he was ready to rumble.\
Even Barack Obama played it oh-so-cool when haters charged he was born in Kenya, schooled in a terrorist madrassa, and therefore ineligible to be president. He never told his accusers to got to hell. He never equated their phony theories with flat-out racism. He went high when they went low.
America’s been watching this for decades now. Tens of millions of people see the party as a collection of eggheaded, kumbaya singers who wouldn’t fight for them because, well, fighting is bad.
Even pacifists recognize the need to fight on occasion and that occasion has been developing for a long time now. Li’l Duce is a plain speaker who isn’t afraid to throw verbal hands and those characteristics appeal to a huge swath of the electorate. The result is the teardown of the social, educational, environmental, scientific, cultural, artistic, and human service infrastructure of the federal government.
Just the other day, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota declared he wouldn’t run for reelection because his family’s been harassed by Right Wing lunkheads. For pity’s sake, what did he expect when he first ran for governor? The Fox News/4chan/Wonderland delusionalists had already long held sway. Of course they were going to doxx him and his family, threaten them, molest them, harass the kids at school, make up crazy accusations against him, and all the rest of the thing incels, the obsessively aggrieved, the theocratic supremacists, and the fascism advocates do. Minnesota became the new locus for America’s Polarization Wars and immediately the online hoodlums attacked. Just as immediately, Walz turned tail and ran.
Funny thing is, lots of Republicans and MAGA-ites are being doxxed and harassed, too. I assume they love their families as much as Walz loves his. But they’re not quitting. They’re staying in the fight and doing what they need to do to protect their families.
I wish there were more of that kind of feistiness in the Democratic Party.
Lo and behold, one Dem pol has indeed shown some spunk. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota was attacked by a man who sprayed her with some kind of noxious substance yesterday at a town hall she was holding in her district. Rather than cower or run, Omar went after the wretch and raised her fist as if itching to loosen a few of his teeth. Here, watch it:
Omar’s not quitting, nor is she fleeing. In fact, she said, “I’m a survivor so this small agitator isn’t going to intimidate me from doing my work. I don’t let bullies win.” She added, “I’ve survived war, and I’m definitely going to survive intimidation or whatever these people think they can throw at me, because I’m built that way.”
I’m swooning.
I hate fights. I hate war. I hate strife. But they’re here, like ’em or not.
I ‘ll tell you who I do like, though. I like Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.