I believe we are in an inflection point over the last several years that have arisen due to a concerted effort of anti-government Libertarians, evangelicals, and wealthy right-wing corporatists and oligarchs uniting to push the age-old narrative that “socialism” is trying to infiltrate our society. Using the fear of socialism and culture wars as their boogeymen, this conglomerate of right-wing radicals continue to create a juggernaut within Congress, preventing Democrats from getting much done in terms of actual policy that will change people’s lives for the better. (Although Biden, even in this dire climate, has managed to get A LOT of historic legislation passed and many don’t recognize this accomplishment for what it is).

Wealthy corporate elites want zero regulations and taxes. Instead, they want to push taxes off on the lower and middle classes, freeing up their own capital in order to pay off politicians (which is easier now thanks to the Supreme Court Citizens United decision); they want to get rid of what they consider frivolous spending, which translates to getting rid of the corporate responsibility of paying into social security and Medicare through the FICA tax (because an extremely bloated military budget apparently isn’t frivolous…again, playing on fears and offering contracts through the “good ol’ boy” system); and they want to dismantle the administrative state created out of the FDR era, essentially hamstringing useful agency agendas such as the EPA that regulate clean water, food processing and manufacturing safety standards, etc, attempting to rid this country of any business regulation whatsoever because a Congress that has been unsuccessful at passing much of anything over the last two decades won’t be able to get simple life-saving regulations passed through Congress either. That is by design and a specific strategy on the Right. Essentially, today’s Republican party wants to go back to the 1920s-state of government that led to the Great Depression.

What completely boggles my mind is how Republicans constantly spout the debt and deficit as being a huge problem. However, over the last forty years it is the Democrats who have reduced deficits after huge spending from the Republicans. I am referring to the Iraq War and Great Recession under Bush and huge tax cuts of the wealthy under Trump. The Pandemic also contributed to the spending under Trump, but the tax cuts to the wealthy don’t get talked about enough even though those cuts did not benefit the lower and middle class. It is the Democrats who have had to work hard to reduce the debt; yet Republicans still push the narrative that entitlements cost too much and the Democrats are irresponsible with spending. That claim is laughable. Trump had the third highest spending and contribution to the debt of any president ever (and it was large BEFORE the pandemic hit). Did you know that? So when Republicans use the narrative “responsible spending and reducing the debt” as justification to get rid of entitlement and/or welfare programs (that are popular by the way), just know that they are being disingenuous.

The hypocrisy on the Right is why I am tired. They tell you exactly who they are, but if you aren’t paying attention and listen to the highly paid shills who do their bidding (I.e. Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram, or any right wing pundit calling themselves journalists…news flash: they aren’t journalists) and push a narrative that benefits the corporate wealthy elite, then you are being manipulated to sign onto their agenda through culture wars and fear-mongering such as immigration and CRT, and that agenda does NOT benefit you. It is a distraction tactic.

It IS interesting to see the Republican Party in such disarray. Because the Democrats have such a wide tent of constituents, ideas, and policies, it is usually them that have a tough time staying in a united front, but it is the Republicans who are fighting for the appropriate definition of their party. But when your main agenda is fear-mongering and obstruction rather than policy-making, when you want to dismantle government rather than make it more functional, you will have a difficult time bringing sane people into your fold. And so, Republicans have opted for authoritarianism through mechanisms like gerrymandering, voter suppression laws, and capturing the Supreme Court. I say “capture” because I don’t believe they won the majority of seats through fair means. I won’t go into that here, but the marriage of the corporate Republicans to the “pro-life” evangelicals and the successful obstruction and procedural manipulation of the Supreme Court judicial appointments by Mitch McConnell from 2012-2020, insured that we have a very unpopular extreme right-wing majority on the bench, a court that is now suffering illegitimacy and questionable ethics behavior accusations.

This inflection point is a battle between a shrinking minority that is the Republican Party and a Democratic Party trying to stay united despite its wide-constituency base. As Republicans use authoritative and more extreme means to gain back and maintain power, the rest of us are responding, trying to get out the correct narrative in an information landscape flooded with disinformation and propoganda. Democrats have managed in this last few years to stay united because we recognize that under current conditions, the fight is against Fascism. Infighting is only detrimental to our cause. We must stay cohesive in our pro-democracy agenda and push back against authoritarian figures trying to capture our government. Now is not the time to shrivel and go inward. Now is the time to use our voices to sing the song of true freedom. Socialism isn’t our greatest threat; it is quite the opposite. Every expert on authoritarianism will tell you that Fascism is what threatens this moment. Fascists know how to play on your fears. Don’t give into it.

Under Biden we have the lowest unemployment since 1969. Inflation is an issue (caused by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and by corporations taking advantage and bloating their prices as many see record profits), but Biden has taken measures to ease that burden. We also have much stronger relationships with our allies such as NATO (of which Trump threatened to leave) and the Indo-Pacific alliance. Biden is also bringing chip manufacturing back home to the U.S., creating competition with China and securing our technological intellectual property. Biden passed a historic infractstructure bill to repair bridges and roads that have needed repair for decades, creating thousands of jobs. Biden is centering woman and children as well as families through attempting to pass much needed reforms to our soft infrastructure. He was unsuccessful at bringing on Republicans to this but continues to promote the need. During the pandemic response, he reduced child poverty through the child tax credit. When it expired, Republicans refused to make it permanent.

Our lives are better under Biden. He is quietly and meticulously negotiating on both sides of the aisle and modeling how government is supposed to work, rather than the Trump way of grandstanding and creating highly polarizing controversies to rally his base. Government shouldn’t be front and center in our lives. We should be able to trust our politicians to run our government and quietly negotiate deals that solve our daily problems. Current Democrats are trying to do that. Republicans, instead, are trying to take back power by any means necessary, even if that means holding our country hostage by refusing to raise the debt ceiling (which would be catastrophic to our economy and world-standing as well as to the global economy). If you made it this far into my rant, congratulations…this is why I still use my voice and voting power and don’t give up hope.