We Got Better People Into Office -- Now Let's Push Democracy On Them

I got a voicemail from my friend Henry Gentry this morning in which Henry sang "He's leaving on a jet plane, Trump won't be back again."

His cheery tone sums up how many of us feel, (though don't quit your day job as one of Louisville's finest visual artists, Henry, for a singing career ).

We've won pretty much everything we wanted to -- thanks in great part to Fair Fight, the Georgia-based anti-suppression drive. Just as importantly, Trump won't impose that aftertaste on the Biden-Harris Administration most thought he would. The hideous way he finished his presidency means Trump obliterated his own staying power.

I believe predictions that he would still loom over our government as a Juan Peron-like figure will not come true. Media have overemphasized the fanatic base loyalty to political figures and failed to see that politicians who turn off the middle of the road Americans destroy themselves.

Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are two such people.

Gingrich had the shortest time ever as House Speaker; Santorum was historically beaten by 18 points trying to win a second Senate term from Pennsylvania. Yet, Fox gave them towering figure treatment, with lots of talking head time spreading their hard line sound bites to bind Republican followers and raise cash online for the right.

I believe this tendency to make catastrophic losers into winners will be lessened, as an overall trend away from "playing to the base" in punditry and politics. It took an invasion of the U.S. Capitol to make the un-shameable Fox finally feel some shame.

This solitary 2017 plea 
just may be heeded.

Fascism is still in the U.S. system, just without the very face of fascism at its top. I long said that covert action against democracy in Guatemala in 1954, Iran in 1953, Congo in 1961 and so on will come home to roost and assault the democratic process in the U.S. Those who insisted that there was no serious wrong or negating of democratic values in the CIA overthrowing or attempting to overthrow those states for supposed strategic interests -- that the world just works that way -- have seen overwhelming evidence in the last four years that their casual acceptance of covert action was wrong.

Regarding the 45th president specifically, as someone with no discretion or nuance, Donald Trump does not belong in a democracy. Power must be used with a brake and a steering wheel, not just an accelerator. Those who don't understand this should not be elected in a free society.

The system still needs repairing.

As said above, faceless fascism is still here -- it was the Obama Administration who created ICE and military tribunals for secrecy breaching suspects, and Janet Reno of the Clinton cabinet started house-to-house unwarranted searches in a pilot program in Puerto Rico.

Moreover, the United States is rife with militarized police, false confession machines, secret money ordering legislators around, and a clearly racist and classist national policy of over-imprisoning our people.

Remember how we spent the '70s and '80s being told our justice system was "too soft on criminals?" It was all a fairy tale, one propped up by scary but non-representative anecdotal examples. In truth, during those years 70 percent of the people sent to prison nationwide were non-violent criminals. Only the U.S. among democracies widely imprisons the non-violent, and we had by far the highest crime rates among democracies. I learned this only when being trained to be a mediator in the Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program, not from Walter Cronkite, Sam Donaldson, or Bob Woodward.

The highly paid and degreed pros failed to inform us of this obvious Elephant In The Livingroom about our criminal justice system, but a handful of non-paid socially concerned Mennonite and Jewish justice activists in rural Southern Indiana did.

That afternoon of VORP training in 1984 was my introduction to the need to eschew reliance on the commanding heights of the dominant paradigm and look primarily to the grass roots innovators.

I have come to see that better informed, as opposed to more informed people will safeguard democracy. Those who seek to inform themselves -- as opposed to being plied with information -- can through persistent and undaunted community-based efforts like the VORP restorative justice program make presidents and legislators do what needs to be done. Getting better people in office is just the first step.

We've certainly gotten better ones in -- now have at it!

 

Brian Arbenz, of Louisville, is a resister of fascism and regular letter writer to his senators and representatives, an underrated method that is effective.