Well, if that was what we can expect the rest of the way, we are deader than fucking fried chicken. A press that does not push back on lies at all, that embraces the framing of bad actors, that has spent the past thirty years somberly reporting that opinions differ on the nature of the Emperor’s new wardrobe and who is to say what is true – that is a media that will carry a liar around the world while the truth is trying to get a word in edgewise.
The structure is broken. Thanks to 1929, we are fixed at 435 Representatives and thus 538 electoral votes. If the Congress expanded at the rate it should have in order to remain proportional to population, we would have a couple thousand members of the House, and the gerrymander afforded by the Senate would be reduced. But then, the Senate itself would be less of an issue if the filibuster were properly done away with – which couldn’t happen because the Democratic majority hung on two senators who have since left the party to huff their own righteous farts.
The problem isn’t that Biden is old, or sick, or too moderate. The problem is that the structural issues in our government skew things one way in the favor of those who lie, those who trade in bad faith, and those who benefit from keeping a broken system that puts a thumb on the scales. And their commitment to keeping it broken has gotten them a Supreme Court whose “NOT TOUCHING YOU” jurisprudence is allowing states to secede in everything but name and keep pocketing blue-state tax dollars while they establish theocratic bigotry – and then point the finger of blame at the victims for fighting back, with the willing compliance of a docile press.
The time to fight back was 2001, when the Court gave defeat to the candidate with the most votes. The time to fight back was 2009, when there were enough votes to break the filibuster and end the obvious practice of using it to defeat legislation that would have won on a majority vote. The time to fight back was 2016, when the Senate refused to allow a vote on a new Supreme Court justice with no pushback from the press or the electorate. The time to fight back was 2021, when one side used actual physical violence to try to undo the result of an election.
The time to fight back is now. But there are too many people who will roll their eyes because Joe doesn’t give them tingly feelings in their chicken parts, too many people who will say that Trump is good for the markets, too many people who will shrug and say there’s no difference really, and the indolence and malice of the stupid will deliver a body blow to American democracy that we might not come back from this time. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
The courts are rigged. The Congress is broken. There is no plan B. It’s Joe or nothing. And when the public doesn’t grasp and act on that, we will all be absolutely fucked.