May 11, 2022

I think one of the best chances republicans have right now is for their opponents to get cynical

...about confronting them at the points where we're able to serve up accountability.

I read someone today who thought it was a good idea to use their public platform they've fostered as resistance to Trumpy republicans to express how little they think of Democrats' chances to make much out of the hearings about the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Looking at the last decade of anonymous people gaslighting, trolling, and sockpuppeting their way into their political opponent's dialogue, I have to view expressions like that as aid and comfort to those subversive interests. They just are.

Moreover, they further encourage those very people who they claim won't be influenced by the hearings to turn away or dismiss them, instead of advantaging their opposition with what's revealed in that public arena - all of that apathy before the hearings even begin.

I don't claim to know what the actual point is that supposed political allies are trying to make with cynical remarks about Democratic prospects for successfully holding republicans to task and accountability. It's antithetical to advocacy, and counterproductive on its face to be publicly discouraging. It just is.

I'm old enough to remember the gut check of the 'Gingrich revolution,' and lived through countless political setbacks when it looked like the republican opposition would totally end us. And I've lived through countless repudiations of those right wing attempts to take over the country. No one of those rollbacks came out of cynicism.

Whatever you think of the 'Big Dog,' he brought our country back to us in my time with his admonition that, 'cynicism is a luxury.' I took that from him, and carried it with me ever since. We've never had that luxury, and we certainly can't afford it today.


“Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair.” -Bell Hooks