Dear Democrats: I’m On Your Side, But Please Grow The F*ck Up

If you’re in the mood for a little mid-20th century American history (and who isn’t!), here are a couple nuggets to chew on:

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964, introduced by a Democratic president (Lyndon Johnson), passed by a 73-27 vote in the U.S. Senate and a 290-130 vote in the House. It was a bipartisan vote approved by roughly 80% of Republican lawmakers and two-thirds of Democratic lawmakers.
• A decade later, in July of 1974, the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives voted 27-11 in favor of bringing obstruction of justice charges against then-President Richard Nixon, a Republican who ran afoul of various legal and ethical standards during the Watergate scandal. The vote had support from at least six Republicans.

I mention these events because they represent a period of American history that is as dead as the last dead-ass dinosaur. It was an era during which many lawmakers voted on principle — or at least the will of their constituents — rather than party affiliation.

Is that still the case today, in 2025?

Oh, please….

You’d have better luck finding a phone booth with an ashtray in 2025 than the kind of political bipartisanship that passed the Civil Rights Act and sent Nixon to an early retirement.

What we have now is an era of hyper-partisanship in which the two major U.S. political parties don’t even pretend to like each other, let alone work together on legislation that will move the country to a better place.

Today’s toxic divisions were planted in the 1980s, when the Republican party created an alliance between religious fundamentalists, social conservatives and anti-regulation capitalists that was bound to cross swords with Democrats who leaned into increasingly liberal and secular ideology.

These divisions have only deepened over the last decade. Democrats have moved further to the left, but only by small degrees.

And the Republicans? Well, they have finally embraced their inner fascist by kneeling to the altar of Donald Trump, a corrupt and racist crybaby who would love nothing more than to turn the USA into his own personal authoritarian whorehouse.

To combat this regime, Democrats need to embrace their inner street fighter. Which is so hilarious that you might as well turn it into a Netflix comedy with some former child star in the lead role…..

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This blog is not about the Republican party, or Trump, or his deranged MAGA cult warriors. I’ve blogged about these pathetic asswipes more than a dozen times over the past year, so anyone who reads this blog regularly knows where I stand on them.

I haven’t blogged about the opposition Democratic party, though – not once, not ever, not since I launched this blog nearly seven years ago. I just haven’t seen any particular reason to blog about the Democrats, any more than I’ve seen any particular reason to blog about mayonnaise or clothes hangers or a thousand other nondescript and lifeless things.

I’m not sure I want to blog about the Democrats now. But the keyboard has taken over my fingers, and my fingers have taken over my brain.

Here’s my quick take on the Democrats: They’re the faceless couple who’ve been living in the same split-level house for 50-plus years, and their kids have moved out and moved on, and the neighborhood is filling up with crazy people, and the basement is on fire, but the faceless couple is too clueless and out-of-touch to notice.

Meanwhile, their rivals – the Republicans – have taken over most of the leadership positions, even though they are fewer in number, and not very popular.

The reason, of course, is that the Republicans have a genius for rigging the game in their favor, while the Democrats have a genius for totally missing the point of the game.

Look no further than the 40-plus-day government shutdown that seems about to end as I write this. The shutdown was the result of a stalemate between Congressional Republicans and Democrats over what to include in their funding bill.

On one side, the Dems want to protect healthcare programs for millions of Americans. On the other side, the Republicans want to keep their noses firmly up Trump’s fat ass by screwing over everyone in the country outside of billionaires and criminals.

The Democrats were determined to stand tough and united, and not give in – all the way up to the moment when eight Democratic senators predictably did give in. Their concession to cut a deal with Republicans caused a firestorm of outrage. You can read about it here or here. Personally, I have no interest in spending another second on it.

What interests me more is the reaction by rank-and-file Democrats and progressives. They had a giant meltdown over it, which is pretty much what we’ve come to expect. They reverted to their usual fallback position whenever something happens that veers a half-inch off their precious ideology. They piss and moan and point fingers and lapse into a depression, followed by anger, followed by more depression, followed by sweeping statements about the end of democracy and the death of the United States.

Jesus, man: I am so, so sick of this shit. I am sick of Democrats and progressives lapsing into a funk of defeatism and/or suffocating self-righteousness whenever the world doesn’t live up to their expectations. It makes me physically ill. It angers me no end.

This is the very kind of attitude that put a useless lump like Trump into the White House in the first place, way back in 2016. The Dems had a clear choice that year between someone sane and competent (Hillary Clinton) and someone who is the exact opposite of all that.

But Hillary didn’t meet the lofty standards of certain Dems and progressives. They didn’t like the fact that she embraced certain things they found distasteful. They didn’t like her husband. They didn’t like her. So, many cast their ballots for some dipshit third-party presidential candidate with no chance of winning – and pretty much handed the election to the bad guys.

This is standard operating procedure for Dems and Dem voters: snatching defeat from the jaws of victory because they will not be adults and close ranks as a team. Give the Republicans credit for one thing – they know how to close ranks. They’ll vote for any old sack of shit as long as that sack wears their uniform. Look no further than the current regime and its tribe of idiots and criminals.

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Just for the record: I am not a Democrat. Or a Republican. I registered as “unaffiliated” decades ago and have seen no reason to change that designation in the decades since. I have no use for the U.S. political party system.

But:

I align with the Democrats these days because they still believe in the things I believe in, like science, and reason, and equality, and human rights, and not being a stupid, aggrieved, racist fuckwad.

Most Democratic lawmakers are neither great nor awful nor filled with brilliant ideas nor out of any ideas at all. They’re just part of a run-of-the-mill American political party, one of two major political parties that have shared power for 150 years or so.

Democrats do some things well, and some things not so well. They are mainly keepers of the gate, defenders of the status quo – the very status quo that helped America become the greatest economic and cultural force in the world for nearly a century.

But embracing the status quo is not a winning strategy anymore – not now, not at this moment in time, not with everyone seeing conspiracies and ghouls around every GD corner. You can’t be protectors of the gate when the gate has already been stormed and destroyed and shipped to the landfill.

You need to adapt to the times by storming the opposition’s gates — with reckless abandon, and all due speed.

The funny thing is, this is exactly what’s happening at the street level. Millions of Americans have taken part in anti-Trump protests this year, as I blogged about here and here.

Only a week ago voters delivered a thorough ass-kicking to Trump during the 2025 off-year elections. Democrats grabbed huge wins not only in the places you might expect – California, New York City, New Jersey and Virginia – but also in Republican strongholds like Georgia and Mississippi.

Make no mistake: The election was a referendum on Trump and his horrible administration — and they came out badly beaten, and bordering on panic.

This is what Democrats and their allies need to be focusing on right now. What they don’t need to do is spend another microsecond whining about a few senators who voted to end a government shutdown nobody will give a crap about in a couple of months, when the next shutdown will probably happen.

So, my dear Democratic friends:

For once, for once, for once – Jesus Christ, for once – crawl out of your perpetual loop of gloom, act like adults, and rise to the fucking occasion.

Image: AI-generated cartoon of weaklings finally trying to be strong.