Be Better...

Yesterday morning I had to refrain from lecturing a large section of Facebook. The results for a primary in New York were in and the very progressive liberal beat the establishment Democrat. Which is great. That's what primaries are for. So districts can find the candidate that represents them best. This district felt that a young, super progressive, latina fit that bill much more than an older, moderate, white guy. Which I know, older white guys HATE when that is pointed out. But they do have a different perspective than not white, not older people do. I'm an older white woman, I get it and I'm not insulted, you should try it out as well...but anyway...

So that happened and that's great. But the reaction to it made me clench my jaw. The multiple posts about REAL Democrats winning. About how they are getting rid of the FAKE Democrats. STOP IT! Just fucking stop it right now. You don't get to decide who is a real and who is fake. You do get to say, I am a far left Democrat and don't vote for moderate Democrats when given the choice, but it is not the same. All you are going to do is make it impossible for ANY Democrat to win by further dividing a party that is already like herding cats to get anything done. You want a repeat of 2016? Because this is how we get a repeat of 2016.

Now, I get it, I am not exactly the right person to be worried about the future of a party that I've never belonged to, but as I am not even anywhere close to wanting the Republican agenda set in stone, I will vote with the Democrats and push the Democratic candidates. I don't feel like I have the luxury of a Republican vote right now. Not when we are looking at all three branches of government under one party.

Because yesterday should have shown you why infighting is not a good idea.

Trump got the stolen nomination and replaced Scalia with Gorsuch. That kept the Court pretty much the same. Maybe not quite as smart. As much as I hated Scalia's decisions he was awfully brilliant. Now Kennedy retires and though he has been more consistently conservative than not he did break ranks for equality cases. That's not going to happen now. The replacements all come from the hard Right list Trump was given while he campaigned as his "use this and conservatives will ignore EVERYTHING else and vote for you." He did, and they did. And here we are. And yes, this only shifts the court to even more right, it doesn't actually change the ideological makeup drastically, but it does change it enough. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 85 years old.

I spent so much of the last election cycle trying to get people who hated that woman to understand that they needed to hold their fucking noses and vote for her anyway that it would literally give me stress headaches. And yet they didn't. And wouldn't. And would tell me to stop bugging them about it. And now we have a court that is being set up to rule on gerrymandering, discrimination, religious preference, Roe v. Wade...and we lose. We being progressives. We lose. Each and every time.

Just this session the Court contradicted themselves in decision making process to give conservative wins. In the case of the bakery not serving gay people it was well the committee member made statements showing negative attitudes toward religion (saying that religion has been used to justify slavery and the holocaust, which it was by the way) so the whole decision is tainted. THEN saying that they had to disregard the things Trump said about the travel ban  (I, Donald J. Trump, am calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering this country, among a whole host of other things) and only focus on the ban itself. What? How is that okay? If they had done equal measurements and said that the bakery case was tainted AND the travel ban (the 3rd version or as Giuliani said on fucking air, the version of the Muslim ban that they could do that would pass the courts) was tainted I'm okay with the reasoning though disappointed in the bakery case. If they said that the ruling on the bakery case had to be taken without consideration of what the member of the committee said AND that the Travel ban had to be taken without consideration of what Trump said I'm disappointed the other way but still it's consistent. But this? This is bending the circumstances to find a ruling you want. And this is what we are in for.

Trump says he can pardon himself. You know who will get to decide that? The Supreme Court. You think you were mad when they gave Bush the election over Gore. Just wait.

Momentum going in to the midterm elections was with the Democrats. There was a taste for change. It generally happens that the American people shift the Houses to opposite of the party in the White House. With the gerrymandered districts and voter suppression that's more difficult for Democrats to start. And, let's face it here, Democrats have been AWFUL about showing up at the polls in non-presidential years which is how the gerrymandered districts and voter suppression laws have been able to be passed. But THIS time the momentum was there. Trump is as awful as we thought and there needs to be a check and so THIS time with some former Republicans actually disgusted by him as well we might have seen that blue wave. But...Republicans have always understood the power of  SCOTUS appointments and they vote for SCOTUS appointment control and right now they are getting as solid of a reminder as they can that they need to vote for SCOTUS appointments.

Democrats have never understood the power of the Court.

Republicans have always understood the power of the Court.

If you continue infighting over who is a REAL Democrat and refusing to vote when FAKE Democrats are on the ballot Republicans win. Every single time.

Be smarter. Be more strategic. Be better.

We are all depending on you.

Equality.
Reproductive Rights.
Health Care.
Immigration.
Religious Discrimination.
Voter Rights.

Whatever it takes for you to understand that this is important, focus on that one.

For fuck's sake, focus!