Attacking him will land flat if we defend the existing system

I went to the Detroit Film Theater this afternoon for their annual showing of the British Arrows. These are the winners of the best in British commercials. Yes, I sat through 75 minutes of nothing but commercials and did it willingly (and paid money) because their sense of what is appropriate for commercials is so different from ours (then again, I watch very few American commercials). Some of my favorites: A boy who plants a seed, perhaps expecting a pine tree, and gets a huge Venus flytrap (a friendlier version of Little Shop of Horrors). I don’t know what the product was. A tennis tournament in which the players and audience are naked – except for the clothed “streaker” who interrupts the game. This is for Puma. A woman on a farm is ready to tell us about the glories of living there but the animals tell horror stories of being abused for our clothing – the shorn sheep is bloody, the cow and snake are dead because they gave of their skin. Put out by PETA. The woman who thanks us for our investments in oil companies through our pension funds. Pot Noodles has the tagline, “Nothing Fills a Hole Like Pot Noodles,” and we see all the types of holes it fills – the slot on a mailbox, a front-load clothes washer, an actual pothole, and many more. The Marie Curie hospice organization (I think that’s what they do) says death isn’t the opposite of life, just a part of it. Goats in hang gliders for Virgin Media. An ad for Greenpeace that shows people partying as the staff becomes more frazzled and disasters mount in the kitchen. They say petroleum companies are still partying because of record profits. Pregnant women eat marmite and do an ultrasound to see if their unborn baby will like the stuff. I see from the website that the program shown at the DFT was not all of the winners. While I don’t mind missing a few Coke and Burger King commercials some of the others did look interesting and I saw a few at home. Some of those I enjoyed: RNIB has a commercial about getting people with vision problems together video game companies to help create games even those with reduced vision can enjoy. National Art Pass has a commercial of people looking at art while their brain waves are recorded. That shows our minds become a great deal more active then. Personal Voice on iPhone allows a voiceless dad tell his daughter bedtime stories. Greg Sargent of The New Republic interviewed Sen. Chris Murphy. The topic was a thread Murphy wrote (on X so I don’t have access) about the nasty guy’s plan to cripple democracy. Those plans are going into effect before he takes office. The trigger for Murphy’s thread was a House report accusing Liz Cheney (of what doesn’t really matter because it was created out of thin air, but headlines don’t tell you that). Based on that report the nasty guy is saying Cheney is in a lot of trouble. A reminder, Cheney was the Republican head of the committee that investigated the nasty guy’s involvement in the January 6 Capitol attack. Kash Patel, nominated to head the FBI, believes anyone who has opposed the nasty guy should be prosecuted and go to jail. Pam Bondi as AG won’t interfere. A court with a judge appointed by the nasty guy won’t stand in the way. His political opponents, perhaps starting with Cheney, could go to jail in 2025. We need to emphasize how damaging this will be to democracy, perhaps fatally. That’s because people will look at Cheney and say I’ve got commitments at home, opposing the nasty guy isn’t worth it. And that has a chilling effect on speech. The nasty guy sued ABC News for libel. Instead of fighting the network settled for a $15 million. That is the first sign media companies are folding. Another example is Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post. When the media doesn’t tell the full story, when people are reluctant to engage in political opposition because of threats of jail, that’s not a democracy. We’re not two years or six months from that, all of that might begin in a month. If we don’t explain why the nasty guy’s nasty picks are nasty, if we don’t put up a fight, then we tell Americans they aren’t a big deal. And Democrats aren’t saying enough about how bad they are. If Democrats don’t say they’re bad, no one will and they’ll be seen as normal. Democrats may believe that the only way voters will pay attention to them is on economic issues. But Democrats need to have a loud and unified stand against the nasty guy and these nominees. Murphy is aware voters will only listen if they feel Democrats are serious about reforming government. But in the last campaign voters believed Democrats are serious only about the current version of democracy, which doesn’t work for anyone. That means no marginal steps. Get money out of politics. Stop the revolving door in and out of government. No one should be able to trade on their influence to make money. Big banks and big corporations, including big tech, need to be broken up. Raise minimum wage. Strengthen unions. Democrats’ attacks on the nasty guy will land flat if they defend the existing system. But Democrats could say that, could define a position that shows the nasty guy’s populism to be false and insincere. I add: The failure of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to get a high committee position means too many Democrats are too invested in the current version of Democracy. Democrats not saying much now is not a problem. There was a huge amount of work to get done by the end of the year. But Democrats remaining silent until January 20 is a problem. They may not be able to defeat the bad nominees, but the fight must happen anyway. If it doesn’t Democrats won’t be believed later. According to Murphy this is how democracy dies: A couple Democrats get thrown in jail. The number of people wanting to get into politics in the opposition – which is Democrats – drops. Donors stop donating. Volunteers stay home. The media stops criticizing the nasty guy. They don’t publish polls of tight races because they don’t want lawsuits or their FCC license pulled. They don’t discuss opposition opinions. By the time of the 2025 elections the opposition doesn’t have enough oxygen to breathe. Effectively there will be no opposition.