Never ever is there any excuse for someone to act violently
against anyone, let alone our elected officials. To act against our elected
representatives, no matter what office is an insult to your fellow Americans,
Citizens, and civil society. Basically, your saying that your fellow citizens
have made a bad decision, and voted for a person who is unacceptable to society
and that person must be removed from office immediately. Violence of any kind
is a rejection of civil society, but violence against elected representatives
is an attack on our system of governance and civilization itself. Civility is
what we need now more than ever.
However, I don’t think the anger James T. Hodgkinson felt was
misplaced. As a politically active liberal, who sees the conservative party as
corrupt and self-centered, this last election was very frustrating. It’s
understandable, no, predictable, that someone felt the need to take matters
into his own hands. I don’t know the mental health history of Mr. Hodgkinson,
or for that matter his mental state on Wednesday. Clearly, he was angry. I just think Mr.
Hodgkinson felt as I do, that if the country doesn’t start taking care of it’s
citizens soon, people will become desperate.
I don’t want to start a rant against Republicans here, because
what the country needs is more political unity. However, from my perspective,
it seems that when they win elections they take full advantage of their
position without concern or respect for the opposite party, or more importantly
their voters, or for that matter the spirit of the constitution, or again the
welfare of the country. They do everything in their power to win the next
election through redrawing legislative districts and restricting the rights of
voters to name a few. All the while proposing and sometimes passing legislation
that is no more than huge handouts for the wealthiest among us at the expense
of the safety net below the rest of us.
As far as we know today Mr. Hodgkinson wasn’t mentally ill, he was
a politically active citizen who was at the end of his rope. He wanted better
things for his children and grandchildren and saw those advantages for working
people being sucked into the giant vacuum of tax cuts and special benefits being collected by the
.01%. What Republicans, conservatives, and the uber wealthy need to understand
is that as more and more people, regardless of political persuasion, begin to
reach the end of their own ropes, more people will need to try to take matters
into their own hands. If things keep going the way they are, the rate of
citizens coming to this conclusion could reach a critical mass.
What we need is less “winner take all” politics and more
accommodation for the rights of both parties. For both parties to respect each
other and their voters. To respect the traditions of the Congress and the
bureaucrats who work in it. Of course this won’t happen unless the partisans
and the press don’t begin to show some restraint.
To prevent this outcome we need two functional political parties
who represent actual people in this country. I think the Democrats do represent
real people. I’m biased. I do not think the Republicans do, nor do I think they
are functional. This summer will be the test. If they cannot pass a major bill
or budget, they will be proven to be able to win elections through stacking the
deck and massive amounts of money from their corporate overlords, but not able
to govern. I also believe they don’t represent the people who voted for them.
Many Republican voters who are un-moneyed, are likely to be hurt by much of the
legislation proposed by this Republican majority. Surly these people didn’t
consciously vote for laws that will hurt them. No.
I can hear people thinking “poor snowflake, can’t win the election
and get his way. Try winning an election then you can rig the election to your
advantage, not like you wouldn’t.” It’s true, when Democrats were in power in
years when the districts are constitutionally mandated to be redrawn, we do
draw the districts in our favor. But not with such blatant precision has the
other party has over the last 20 years. Republicans have even redrawn statewide
legislative maps in years when the task was not mandated. Nor have we tried to
prevent likely Republican voters from voting through legislation or amendment.
That wouldn’t be right or fair.
The truth is, the Republican party has been taken over by the
.01%. The Koch, Mercer, DeVos, Adelson,
and a very few other families pretty much run the party. Moderate Republicans
have been primaried out of existence. Any Republican who dares to talk about
climate change for example, or propose solutions to it, are immediately given
notice that they will have a primary, usually from someone far more to the
right. If the have any courage a moderate will stick to the issue and do
their best to convince the voters that it’s the right thing to do, but too many
times they reverse themselves to avoid the primary challenge.
These families who run the
Republican party are the type of people who expect their wishes to be obeyed.
That’s how they’ve been treated all their lives. Most of these people are trust
fund babies. Most if not all of their wealth was inherited, so they’ve been
pampered since childhood.
The politics of the families is far to the right of
most Americans. Many are former John Birchers, some whose parents were
sympathetic to fascists, and some are direct decedents of the robber barons of
the 1920s. Are these the people who should be in charge of a major political
party? Let alone the country? This is why there is such income inequality. This
is why so many fathers and mothers have to work 2 jobs for a subsistence living
for their children. These people fight against a living wage, health care,
transportation, and infrastructure, anything they can do so the government will
tax them less.
These families have the resources
to create think tanks, university programs, and covert organizations to control
media and government agencies, and have used them to influence legislation,
influence the press, (they own most of it), and in the end influence voters. They
influence all the federal elections, State elections in most states and
selected local elections such as school board and city council.
Some of their successes are turning
the working class against organized labor, making us believe that wealthy
people are somehow better human beings simply because they are wealthy, making people in rural America believe that urban dwellers and minorities are
to blame for all their suffering, and the biggest fallacy of all, that lower
taxes create jobs. These are long term projects to try to create an
American mindset that agrees with they’re point of view. All of it is specious
at best.
All this effort, all these
structures, all these people, are used mainly to consolidate more money and
power. As if more of what they already have will make them better somehow. Is
it some kind of perverse contest?
It turns out Mr.
Hodgkinson was an idiot with a bad temper. He had no right to do what he did. I
just wish more Americans were angrier about our country being taken from them.
I wish more Republicans were angrier about the hijacking of their party. I wish
the oligarchs understood that harming the American people in the long run is detrimental
to everything they may (or may not) have worked for, a prosperous, dynamic
country, where a person with hard work and a good idea can become successful.
Not a place where only the winners survive, and all the little people can be squashed.
