I met Daily Kos user RenaRF in real life somewhere back in the mists of time, probably at the original Netroots Nations conference in Las Vegas in 2006. She struck me as a partisan Democrat, but also a practical level-headed professional. It’s striking to see her tone fifteen years later.
I’m tired of being reasonable, especially when the other side — which is an existential threat to democracy — is anything but. I have spent whatever balance I had to put faith in norms and processes after the deadly, criminal debacle that was/is the Trump *administration.
She’s done with seeking consensus or aspiring to bipartisan solutions. For her, the threat to democracy we’re facing is exactly analogous to the threat the Weimar Republic faced in the 1920’s and early 1930’s. If we don’t wake up, democracy will be lost.
Looking back on the rise of Hitler — just a simple timeline — is super instructive in terms of framing the risks we now face. Hitler attempted a coup in 1923, and served prison time over it. Hitler clung to the big lie, put his head down, and soldiered on. All around him, the political “power structure” kept thinking that they could find a way through this without abandoning #TheWayThingsAreDone.
Her solution isn’t particularly radical however. All she’s asking is that the Democrats create a January 6 commission, and if they have to change the Senate rules to overcome a Republican filibuster, so be it. This is necessary because the GOP (or GQP, as she calls it) has already shown its true colors, and the intentions are not benign.
Stop trying to negotiate with these soul-less, power-grabbing, corrupt, criminal, lying sacks of rat turds. ”THEY SENT PEOPLE TO KILL YOU.” And frankly, they’d do it again — WILL do it again — if they believe they can succeed. Comity, bipartisanship, all of that are the old rules. We keep trying to play a game by those old rules and never acknowledge that the GQP poured gasoline on them, lit a match, and then dropped a nuclear bomb on them just for good measure. We are playing a game that doesn’t exist any longer, and they are playing an entirely different game.
She recommends playing hardball with any Democratic senator who won’t go along with changing the rules to overcome the filibuster. They should be stripped of their committee assignments even at the risk that they flip parties.
This isn’t going to happen, and I think RenaRF is so strident precisely because she knows it isn’t going to happen. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says he will put the commission to a vote on the Senate floor, but that’s not actually true. What he’ll do is make a motion to have a vote, and the motion will fail because it takes a supermajority of 60 senators to overcome the objection on even one member. There will not be 10 Republican senators willing to join the 50 Democratic ones, and therefore there will not be a vote on creating a commission.
Schumer will accept this without stripping any Democrats of their committee assignments. The House of Representatives will have to go it alone.
There’s talk that the vote in the House could win the support of 20 to 50 Republicans. The lower number is a lot more believable than the higher one, but without the Senate’s support the bill will go nowhere. In that case, I expect Speaker Nancy Pelosi to create the commission anyway. But that will require a new bill.
Former Republican strategist Rick Wilson aptly describes why congressional Republicans are unwilling to countenance a January 6 commission: “They see the majority in their grasp, and just as they did in the states this year, they’ll strike quickly, mercilessly, and without a moment of hesitation of a scintilla of shame to make the next election the last.”
He, like RenaRF, sees the 2022 midterms as potentially the last free and fair elections that will be held in our Republic. I suppose that depends on whether or not the Democrats can win the 2024 presidential election in the face of unprecedented suppression designed to disproportionally disenfranchise their voters. If not, then Rena and Rick are probably right. The Republicans will consolidate their gains and use the Justice Department and the Courts to legitimize their permanent seizure of power.
Truthfully, this might happen even with a bipartisan January 6 commission. People like RenaRF are a bellwether. When they sound an alarm this loudly, we really ought to listen. The Republicans are a mortal threat to our system of government, but just as a big a threat is complacency.
If only Joe Manchin were listening.
When our democracy dies, the Republicans will welcome Joe Manchin with open arms. And he’ll walk right in with a big smile on his face. Bygones will be bygones.
Such a sweet man though, right?
I see the republicans oppose this. What a freaking surprise. Someday, perhaps long after I am gone, the democrats will wake up. These conservative asses are never going to agree on much of anything. This commission thing is simply not going to cut it. Why are they even bothering with it? In the meantime keep offering people lots of free money. Think that will save your country? In a little more than a year the dems may lose it all anyway.
We need some justice and accountability now – and – we need people on our side to stop being so goddamn complacent. Two MAGA nuts backed by Proud Boy money just beat two very good moderate incumbents on our city’s school board (Sherwood, OR). The Dems on my wife and my neighborhood leader program voted 26 out 69 possible voters and 30 out of 57. Pathetic turn out. It’s like this privileged white community could care less. They probably feel like they weren’t affected by Trump or Covid…and they probably weren’t because they are white with many working for Nike, Intel or one of the large healthcare providers in the Portland, OR area.
Tired of trying to make difference in this community (and maybe this country)!
I wouldn’t mind having a Jan. 6 commission…but only as a means to an end. If we can accomplish the same end by means of vigorous prosecution of the insurrectionists and/or Congressional investigations and/or executive branch/departmental investigations and/or leaking damaging documents and records to reporters, then I can live without a Jan. 6 commission.
It may even be that a Jan. 6 commission would get in the way of prosecutions and other investigations, in which case we might be better off without it. (I don’t think so, but it’s a possibility.)
In a democracy the solution to bad politics is more politics. It’s not going to be easy to persuade a conservative Democrat (like Manchin) from a R +40 state to change Senate rules. We can either keep trying or we can give up on politics…in which case the fascists will have already won.
This is a great followup to the Serious as a Heart Attack post. I’m with RenaRF. Nice point from Mass Commons about achieving the same end through vigorous prosecution. Wanted to direct your attention to ProfessorJennifer Mercieca’s twitter thread, arguing that the commission is needed. She wrote Demagogue for President.
https://twitter.com/jenmercieca/status/1394993664053686273?s=20
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It’s been clear for years that the only chance this country has is the Democratic Party actually governing as the Democratic party. Nuke the filibuster, pass 50+1 legislation that 60% of the population likes, and let the chips fall where they may. If the US public decides they want the country destroyed, at least the Democratic Party fucking tried, and actually helped people the way the Democratic Party always says it wants to help people. If it’s over, it’s over, lets help as many people as possible while we can. Being energetically positive as Democrats and passing popular legislation isn’t a losing strategy. It’s a winning strategy. It’s what winners do.
Or, do nothing the next year and a half, and there’s a really good chance that the dumbfuck US population will give the Republicans another chance at destroying the country, because the Democrats didn’t do nothing anyway anyhow.
Again, like I’ve been saying for months. Manchin and Sinema are going to be the death of this country, not because they voted like Democrats, but because they voted like Republicans.
This isn’t 1996. It’s not even 2008. Josh Hawley and Marjorie Taylor Greene want you fucking dead, and they’re the popular Republicans. Energize the base and new voters, or right-wing authoritarians are going to put on their boots in 2022 and 2024 and do exactly as Trump and Hawley command.
Also: safely owning and operating a firearm isn’t just a right, it’s a responsibility.
I agree with your friend’s description of Republicans and the threat they present. (The Weimar analogy works for me, too, so I worry about the performative left today. Hitler created his dictatorship when his party won a tiny plurality because the centrist party had to fight on both flanks between the fascists and the socialists. Kind of like Democrats in 2016.)
But she is wrong to suggest that the Commission is necessary to save democracy unless she believes that the Commission is necessary to win the mid-terms. Winning the mid-terms is necessary to saving democracy. I think a Commission would help because it would keep January 6th front and centre through their hearings.
But if Republicans put the kibosh on the bipartisan approach, Pelosi can do it anyway. Republicans will complain that her select committee is partisan, but who gives a shit what they say? She will still keep January 6th front and centre and she can tie Republican obstruction to their complicity. This is yet more evidence that Republicans are morally bankrupt and anti-democratic. Let’s see whether Republicans (or Trump) are prepared to defy subpoenas when Merrick Garland’s justice department is prepared to enforce them.
I also agree that complacency is the danger. That or the belief that other policy – any other policy – is relevant. The Republicans want to frame the mid-terms as socialists versus capitalist, black versus white, any policy versus no policy. Anything except Trump and the insurrection. We have to run loudly against lies, Republicans and the insurrection. That is 24/7 until November 2022.
Democrats need to focus laser like on getting done what they can, while they can. Killing the filibuster is a pipe dream, as is the envisioned bipartisan Jan 6th commission. The GOP plus Manchin and Sinema ensures neither will happen. Still, there isn’t anything a commission run solely by the House can’t do that the envisioned bipartisan commission can, so House democrats should focus now on getting it up and running there. Besides, the House bill passed today IS bipartisan: The bill passed 252 to 175, with 35 Republicans.
But the number one priority has to be winning, e.g. expanding margins in both the House and Senate in 2022, and its doable regardless of history. Especially since the republicans insist on tying their party’s fortunes to Trump, a racist, traitorous, twice impeached moron of a president who lost all three branches of government in one term, against a Biden presidency that (will have, by then) defeated the virus, brought back economic stability and restored respect to the Presidency. Outside of the GOP, a minority party, Trump’s a loser.
Winning in 2022 is a MUST for the democrats.
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