Republican's Burden
“We must change to master change.”
– President Lyndon B. Johnson
The republican party has two burdens as 2018 approaches. The first is, of course, Donald Trump. In a normal cycle, mid-term elections include a shift away from a sitting president; in 2018, Trump will be a ball & chain upon the leg of the republicans that represent the more “moderate” segment of the party. Trump alone provides the Democratic Party with the potential to make significant advances in congressional elections.
The other burden is equally important for the Democratic Party to exploit between today and November, 2018. It is the rabid right-wing of the republican party that comprise the Porka-Gorka brigade. No longer the “pajama boys” donning white sheets in the night, they range from the inbred Klan clans of the south, to the khaki-clad torch-bearers who infested Charlottesville. They are known as “Trump's base.”
To understand the philosophy, for lack of a better word, of Trump's base, one should re-watch the 2008 movie, “The Dark Knight.” There is a scene in which Alfred Pennyworth tells Bruce Wayne about an opponent who was upon but one thing: the destruction of the social order. The very thought of this “naughty boy” delighted Gorka and Bannon, and fermented in their minds during the years of the Obama presidency.
The “republican party” of the past no longer exists. The “party of Reagan” is but a fragment of a faded memory. The corporate branch, and the conservative citizen (re: Christian) are but two remnants that form minority branches of the halls of political power. They are incapable of exercising control over the rabid, in-bred, white trash branch. This reality was brought to the surface in the recent attempts to repeal and displace health care.
Thus, the Democratic Party has a unique opportunity to begin to institute meaningful change in 2018. To fully access this potential, we need to recognize that our party has undergone changes since the years of Bill Clinton's presidency, and even in the post-Obama period. In simplistic terms, we can see there are the two camps that defined the 2016 Democratic primaries: the Clinton camp, and the Sanders' camp.
Yet, there are other important concepts that need to be recognized, accepted, and dealt with in an open and just manner. In doing so, the Democratic Party can create a united front with the Democratic Left. As indicated by the Obama coalition, this united front presents the best way to win elections.
If we take an objective look at potential votes for Democratic Party candidates, some basic realities can be identified. There are some well-known groups, based upon ethnicity. Those overlap with some issues that aren't often taken into account. In general, for example, the progressive community is comprised of individuals in the lower-economic groups, liberals and moderates in the middle class, and conservative Democrats among those with higher incomes. Clearly, there are individual examples from each group that do not fit that pattern. But to deny the pattern is to deny reality.
Each group has issues that are important to them. Some of them are different, based upon the obvious differences in economic status and security. Yet more of those issues are shared concerns. Middle class parents, for example, tend to take on a large debt to pay for the college-university educations of their children. Low-income people recognize this, and support Democratic candidates who are in a position to do things to address this middle class problem. We understand why, well before their children are in high school, so many parents are intent upon their child eventually earning a college scholarship for one sport or another. It is, of course, an unrealistic hope. It's far better for the parents – and community – if everyone advocates for affordable education when election day comes around.
Very few lower- or middle-income people have an opportunity to mingle with the heads of the corporations that mangle the economic system. We understand that it is primarily the wealthy Democrats – especially those in elected office – that have face-to-face contact with these executives. There are often differences of opinion among us regarding if our elected representatives do enough to represent the low- and middle-income citizens. But we can all agree that they certainly represent the interests of the corporations.
While a few of the offspring of the wealthy do enter into military service, it is definitely the children of the lower- and middle-class families that are fighting the numerous undeclared wars that the USA is currently involved in. One might accurately note that it is always this way. Yet, if the nation were not sending these young men and women into war zones, and for reasons the government and certain corporations want to keep secret from the public, they could serve their country in other, more important ways.
Congress holds the purse strings. Why fund the failure in Afghanistan, rather than invest in the success of helping all those who's lives were turned into hell from the two recent hurricanes? And the sad fact is that Afghanistan is only one of about nine foreign nations where our sons and daughters are involved in violence in. Yet, very few in Washington, DC, speak out about this. Very few, indeed.
It's a damned shame that an estimated 14 million Democrats voted for Trump last November. And it is pathetic that any union members did so. But some did. Part of that was the direct result of sexist stupidity. No question. That's beyond any debate. But that is another social construct that factored in. Groups of people tend to act out in a manner that is objectively in their worst interests when their expectations were raised, but there was no advance following.
This highlights the lack of understanding that, for all intents and purposes, is related to the failure of unions to educate their members on sexism's damaging results. There is a general belief that elected representatives in DC could “do something” to create immediate changes in the system. As a matter of fact, I encountered that same mistaken belief when I served on a school board. “Why don't you do this?” or “why not do that?” Oh, if it were only so easy!
Systems remind me of rivers. Neither are easily diverted in new directions. To change a system such as a school board – much less DC – there are but two possibilities: change the people in office, and/or change the thinking of those in office. Still, that change will rarely provide immediately gratifying changes. That type of change requires citizens who patiently advocate for that change, and who refuse to stop trying. More, their position can be enhanced, if they understand how to coordinate with those who the elected representatives consider unreasonable hot-heads. For example, by 1964, both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X understood that they could benefit everyone by putting their heads together.
In summation, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity today. If we don't take it, it will float down that river, and be gone forever. Other opportunities may show up later, that look the same, or smell similar. But they can only be different. We have the opportunity now to exploit the divisions within the republican party – and the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate are doing this now – to our common advantage. But we need to unite the various sub-groups to create that united front. And that is one possibility, one option, that is available to us to begin working upon now. There are, of course, many other possible options, but they do not offer these unique advantages. Thus, it is up to each of us to decide.
Peace,
H2O Man
= new reply since forum marked as read
Off to the greatest page 
Many of us love your essays
Thank you for this thoughtful piece, H2OMan!
They have no morals. They have no moral compass. They have no buttons to push. They have no filter. They lack all sense of compassion. They have no conscience or anything in their brains that says "hey! Don't do this!". They have nothing that makes them human. They have no soul. They're liars, bullies and thugs. 
