QOTD -- "Onward. Forward."

 

"... We need to accept the nature of the political contest that will continue to define our era for many years, maybe decades to come. It is a struggle of world-historic significance, part of a much broader conflict that is playing out in democracies across the 'West' and beyond. Is it possible to establish an egalitarian democracy under conditions of multiracial, multi-religious pluralism? Or will the reactionary mobilization against such a true democracy succeed in imposing its ethno-religious nationalism and entrench white Christian patriarchy as the 'real America'?

"An egalitarian multiracial, pluralistic democracy in which an individual’s status was not determined to a large degree by race, gender, religion, or wealth has never been achieved anywhere.Therein lies the challenge, the danger – but also the very real chance of making the leap to becoming the kind of country America has long promised to be, but never has been yet. In 2024 and beyond: Onward. Forward." -- Georgetown University historian Thomas Zimmer, concluding an essay on his Substack "Democracy Americana" on the victories and challenges of the year past and why we need to gird ourselves for the long haul in the fight for American democracy. It's an excellent, sobering read, and a good message for us all on the cusp of another critical new year.

 

QOTD -- "Entitled To Rule"

 

"Even if they don’t subscribe to the more outlandish conspiracies propagated by Trumpists, many Republicans agree that the Democratic party is a fundamentally illegitimate political faction – and that any election outcome that would lead to Democratic governance must be rejected as illegitimate as well. Republicans didn’t start from an assessment of how the 2020 election went down and come away from that exercise with sincerely held doubts. The rationalization worked backwards: They looked at the outcome and decided it must not stand. In other words, accusations of fraud gain plausibility among conservatives not because of empirical evidence, but because they adhere to the 'higher truth' of who is and who is not legitimately representing – and therefore entitled to rule – 'real' America. " -- Thomas Zimmer in The Guardian, on the roots of why the seditionist Republican/ Christofascist party doesn't accept President Biden's -- or any Democrat's -- legitimacy in office.  (It's the attitude you see playing out this week in the Brown Jackson hearings, where racist, culture war Republicans are whining about how various awful Republican SCOTUS nominees were treated over the last 40 years while doing their worst to smear an honorable, historic nominee.)

We've said it before:  there's no compromising with or accommodating these "real Americans", who reject the norms and the very foundation of American democracy.  To them, "We the People" reads "We the White, Privileged People."  They have to be stopped at every opportunity.