Here's the lead into American Historian Heather Cox Richardson's letter the day before yesterday, all of which can be seen by clicking on the link:
Americans appear to be waking up to the reality that our democracy is on the ropes. Emerging details about how hard Trump lawyer John Eastman pushed his memo with the plan of how Trump could steal the 2020 election, along with the chronology of the events surrounding the January 6 insurrection compiled by reporters for the Washington Post, show that we came perilously close to a successful coup d’état.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/november-1-2021
Sloan Bashinsky
America indeed appears mired in very deep doo doo.
My recollection is, the conservative media and Republican crybabies cursed Barack Obama for 8 years, and yet if the Democrats had steered clear of plainly and painfully flawed Hillary Clinton and run Joe Biden in 2016, America would not be in the sad shape it's now in.
More bluntly, the South would not have risen again, and a lot of other awful things would not have happened, because Joe Biden would have beaten Donald Trump in 2016 and that would have been the end of Trump's political career. I don't imagine that is being taught on CNN and to American school children.
I did not care for Barack Obama after he accepted the Nobel Prize for Peace while continuing the Bush-Cheney wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which made a lot of rich white men a great deal more money. However, compared to Donald Trump, Barack Obama was a saint. Ditto, Joe Biden.
Short of joining forces with Elizabeth Cheney, I see little Joe Biden can do, and little the Democrats can do, to make a dent in the red side of the spectrum. The red side of Congress, starting at the Mitch McConnell top, are not going to cooperate with the Democrats - it's not in their genetic make up. So, the Democrats in Congress, and elsewhere, need to move past that and get their own very divided house in order, don't you think? Or, did the Democrats learn nothing from the 2016 election?
Independents such as Alabama native me, who make up about 1/3 of the voting base, have been disenfranchised for decades. We are left with voting each time for presidential, congressional and state candidates we did not put on the ballot. We don't feel like we live in a democracy.
Bruce(Georgia, USA)
Same thing here in one of the Trumplandia parts of Georgia, Sloan. Voting here continues to be a futile exercise, but I do it anyway. The House Representative from here is on the same off-the-charts "Nut Scale" as Ms. Taylor-Greene (who comes from the district abutting this one). He doesn't represent one single thing I agree with. This is not a democracy, IMO, and I've felt disenfranchised for many years. As you know, it can be very disheartening. But still, I vote...maybe one day things will change.
Sloan Bashinsky
I turned 79 last month and have seen much happen in America and elsewhere. I have traveled some overseas, twice to the other side of the planet, above and below the equator, but not to South America. I tended not to vote in national elections, or I voted third party or wrote in the name of someone I liked. However, in 2016, I reluctantly voted for Joe Biden, because he and his base did not cause me to fear for the safety of my daughters and their families and he was talking about saving the planet from humanity, aka the invasive species. I think Biden basically is a decent human being. He has his blind spots, as we all do. I hope he and the Democrats, and the Independents, are able to stop the Trumpification of America. It's hard for me to take in how any person, who thinks or believes there is such a thing as God, or who is trying to live a moral responsible life, would want to have anything to do with Donald Trump. But, he got more popular votes in 2020 than any earlier presidential candidate had gotten, and Joe Biden got even more votes. Perhaps that trend will go forward. I hope so. Meanwhile, I keep shooting off my mouth here and there, not figuring it will change anything, but I feel holding silent carries karma I probably don't want to have to deal with in this life, or whenever.
sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com
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