Before You Get Pissed Off At The Entire Democratic Caucus, Read This

When fellow liberals condemn all Democrats, they’re condemning the Democrats who passed a lot of the things we asked for, and more.

REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

by Bob Cesca

WASHINGTON, DC -- Liberals love a good freak-out and, right now, there are plenty of reasons for daily conniptions. 

The Senate is hopelessly gridlocked thanks to Mitch McConnell and two very stubborn Democrats who are collectively blocking key elements of President Biden’s agenda. 

The nation continues to teeter on the razor’s edge between democracy and fascist idiocracy. 

Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice has recently aided the twice-impeached loser, Donald Trump, in both the Trump-Russia matter and the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit. 

State-level Republican trifectas are passing paleoconservative laws that make it more difficult to vote, more difficult to receive reproductive healthcare, and less difficult to stock up with a practically anonymous arsenal of firearms. 

And, as always, Fox News and the broader Red Hat entertainment complex continues to make shit up with reckless abandon.

These, and many more issues, are legitimate points of concern, worthy of outrage and existential stress, especially if you’re one of the many oppressed groups in a nation where nearly half of all voters openly despise you for no other reason than who you are. 

That aside, part of the problem is a phenomenon observed by blogger Oliver Willis on Twitter some time ago. Willis wrote that when Democrats win the White House liberals have a tendency to believe everything’s fixed, therefore we don’t have to worry about politics for a while. But when the usual villains shock us out of our complacent torpor, liberals react with dismay, anger, and a sense of betrayal, as if our newly elected leaders lied to us about everything being fixed.

Consequently, we take it out on fellow Democrats. All the time. There’s a cancerous political party that’s hastily canceling all of the best things about the previous century (civil rights, the social safety net, liberal democracy, assault weapons bans, and so on), while elevating fakers and entertainers who do nothing but pander to the dumbstupid voting bloc -- the aforementioned villains. And yet we liberals can’t wait to demonize our own people, undermining the issues we cherish by depressing voter turnout. We not only demonize the actual turncoats and hotheads, but literally all Democrats.

Just scroll through your Facebook newsfeed or your Twitter timeline and you’ll see liberal after liberal condemning the entire Democratic establishment for betraying all of us who sent them to leadership posts in the last election. The same thing happened in 2009 and 2010 after the election of Barack Obama. “I’m disappointed in Obama,” was the most frequently overheard gripe during that era, even after he rescued the economy from a second Great Depression, after he rescued the auto industry, and after he passed the now-beloved Affordable Care Act. Once the 2010 midterms rolled around, Democratic enthusiasm was a mere shadow of its 2008 glory -- enthusiasm that not only elected Obama, but which also elected a 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate. The Republicans took over in 2011, and you know the story from there.

We’re on that same collision course with the 2022 midterms unless Democrats can stow their (unjustified, in my opinion) sense of betrayal and disappointment. At the very least, we should at least make an effort to assert our rage in the faces of the political leaders who actually deserve it. In this case, we’re talking about Trump and all his disciples and copycats, Mitch McConnell, the Red Hat media, and, yes, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. 

Generally speaking, the leaders who don’t deserve our liberal disgust and disappointment are the other 48 senators in the Democratic caucus, as well as nearly all of the House Democrats. The latter group, the House Dems, have passed literally all of the major wish-list items on the docket this year. For example, the House Democrats passed:

The Equality Act -- “H.R. 5, the Equality Act, was passed with unanimous support from House Democrats on February 25. The Equality Act would ensure LGBTQ Americans are guaranteed the full protections of federal civil rights laws and extends anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQ Americans with regard to employment, education, access to credit, jury service, federal funding, housing, and public housing.”

The For the People Act -- “H.R. 1 passed the House on March 3; this bill will strengthen access to the ballot box and make it easier for Americans to vote, put in place national redistricting reform, end the influence of dark money in politics, and strengthen elections.”

The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act -- “A reform bill that would ban chokeholds and alter so-called qualified immunity for law enforcement, which would make it easier to pursue claims of police misconduct…The wide-ranging legislation would also ban no-knock warrants in certain cases, mandate data collection on police encounters, prohibit racial and religious profiling and redirect funding to community-based policing programs.”

The American Rescue Plan -- “House Democrats worked with the Biden Administration to secure emergency relief to struggling Americans by passing the American Rescue Plan through the House on February 27, before passing the final version on March 10. This law will help bring this pandemic to an end, help keep families and small businesses from falling through the cracks as the economy comes back, and lift millions into the middle class by cutting child poverty in half. The American Rescue Plan enjoys continued support from the American people.”

Removal of the Arbitrary Deadline for Passage of the Equal Rights Amendment -- “On March 17, House Democrats marked Women’s History Month by again passing legislation to remove the arbitrary deadline to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.”

The Violence Against Women Act -- “On March 17, the House passed legislation to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).”

The Dream and Promise Act -- “House Democrats remain committed to fixing our nation’s broken immigration system. On March 18, the House passed H.R. 6, the Dream and Promise Act, to enable Dreamers and those holding TPS and DED status to remain in the country they have long called home and where they contribute greatly to their local communities and economies.”

So, when fellow liberals condemn all Democrats, they’re condemning the Democrats who passed a lot of the things we asked for, and more. No, the House Democrats can’t do anything about the Senate side, nor can they force Manchin and Sinema to pass all those bills into law because it’s not the House’s venue or constitutional mandate to do so. Sadly, voters didn’t send enough Democrats to the Senate in order to finish the job. And that’s what needs to happen in 2022, but it won’t if liberals continue to categorically destroy all Democratic leaders, including the ones who are actually fixing things -- and every single one of those House Democrats will be on the ballot next year. Act accordingly.

Read an excerpt of the latest Members Only article for Banter Subscribers:

Beware Democrats: Wokeness Will Tank You In 2022

A new report suggests that 'Woke' politics will destroy the Democrats’ majority in the House and Senate in 2022.

by Ben Cohen

If you live in a big city in America, coming across a real life Republican is a bit like spotting a white tiger in the wild. Even when you do, conservatives in big cities are unlikely to be your gun loving, Trump supporting variety. It is quite easy then, for big city liberals to forget that half of the country sees you as just as insane as you think Trump supporters are.

This phenomenon proved to be a very big problem in 2016, almost tanked Joe Biden in 2020, and, as a new report suggest, may destroy the Democrats’ majority in the House and Senate in 2022. More on this later.

The happy liberal bubble

I take it as a given that all my neighbor support LGBTQ rights, want police reform, do their recycling proudly, and voted for Joe Biden last year. Political conversations aren’t hard in my area: Donald Trump bad, Democrats good, isn’t global warming terrible? etc, etc. The conservatives I know disagree with me on economic policies, favor looser gun restrictions, and think Mitt Romney is pretty great, but most despise Trump and believe global warming is real.

This is all to say that big city liberalism (and conservatism, to a degree), is a bubble that too many liberals — and particularly young liberals — don’t seem to be particularly aware of. Last week for example, I made a light hearted joke about my three year old son only being interested in mud and cars to a young lesbian couple I met at a local coffee shop. “Boys are pretty simple,” I joked. “Girls are far more advanced at this age, I’m told”. One of the women looked at me as if I were an alien. “You know that gender is just a social construct,” she said…

This is an excerpt of today’s Members Only piece. Continue reading here and get a 2 month free trial on a Banter Membership!