America loves to get to reconciliation without truth

In this episode of Gaslit Nation, host Andrea Chalupa interviewed Wajahat Ali, who is the author of the book Go Back to Where You Came From, which recommends how to become American. The episode is 40 minutes. I worked from the transcript. Chalupa posed the basic question of the interview. With America losing patience with the nasty guy, Republicans, and the MAGA movement so much that the Senate might be in play, how might Democrats screw it up? Ali said:

I've always said the three major sins in America are sins that we refuse to confront. Our white supremacy, greed and misogyny. And Donald Trump is the inevitable end result of us unwilling to confront this truth about ourselves.

Ali then listed some contradictory aspects of America. An example is the Statue of Liberty welcoming immigrants, including Ali’s parents. Then people like the nasty guy tell them to go away. A rage is building and Democrats don’t understand its cause. Democrats think restoring them to power is the answer. But Democrats and Republicans have the same donors. They go to the same golf clubs. Both are still wedded to the rich. Democrats are acting like the nasty guy is so corrosive we’ll gain power without having to promise anything. Have you seen a Project 2028? They intend business as usual. But the AI bubble will burst and the AI and crypto people will say their company is too big to fail. Things can change quickly. Eric Swalwell is suddenly out. Orbán is out. Zohran Mamdani, now mayor of NYC, seemed to come from nowhere.

I'm seeing like this is a massive populist vibe. People want accountability. They want fighters and they want change. And if you don't give it to them, my fear is, okay, Democrats win. You give them same old, same old. 2032, you get your first America First Nazi president.

Chalupa discussed the swamp of Washington DC. The nasty guys says he is cleaning it up, but he is actually at its center.

I want to point out, because my sister was in DC for many years, and word on the street is a lot of those partners, a lot of those wives are on the payroll of foreign governments like Saudi Arabia to further their interests. There was a social club of elite political women and media wives that Ivanka Trump was welcomed into during the first Trump term. And that is an underground, under the radar form of lobbying. Everybody is paid off in DC. And that's why we have the swamp in the first place. That's what the swamp is.

Ali said:

I could close my eyes and throw a pebble in DC and I'll hit someone being paid by UAE, Quatar, Saudi Arabia, or Israel. Notice I didn't say Democrat or Republican.

Ali told the story of working as a reporter at the White House. Sean Spicer, the nasty guy’s first press secretary, gave his first press conference. He lied to and mocked the press. And then the press people invited him to their party where he seemed to be pals with everyone.

For the average Jose who sees that, they're like, "Oh, you're actually friends with the guy who mocked you, ridiculed you, called you enemy of the people and is having the best time at your party."

Ali said that America loves to get to reconciliation without truth. We have monuments to Confederates. Nixon was pardoned. Financial criminals were declared too big to fail. Even though Joe Biden did great things, Ketanji Jackson being one of them, there are three major sins of his presidency that will harm his legacy. The biggest is Merrick Garland, who slow walked the investigations into the nasty guy. The Attorney General should have had brass knuckles. The second sin is his blindness of what was going on in Gaza. Biden’s base stayed home because they could see genocide unfolding. The third sin is he tried to run for a second term. That left Kamala Harris – or any other Democrat – insufficient time to effectively campaign. The blindness includes the Democratic Party. They still refuse to tax the rich. They still give unwavering support to Israel. If we vote for them things will be different? Ali said:

And folks, anyone who's waiting for the DNC to change, Andrea, it's been 10 years, 10 years. This is who they are. They won't change. They can't change. They're not made for this moment. They're not built for this fight. Thank you for your service. We appreciate you. It's time for you to either evolve or we have to cull you in the next six months and replace you with fighters. Too much is at stake.

Chalupa said that Democrats experienced the Capitol attack, an insurrection, and they did very little in response. They had Constitutional powers they didn’t use, powers that would have kept the traitors out of power. Yeah, the went after the foot soldiers, but not the coup plotters. Ali said:

That's what the lesson that Republicans learned was, "Wow, you're weak. You're pathetic. You guys don't know how to flex power. You didn't stop us. Awesome. That was a dress rehearsal. We'll do it again." And the one credit I'll give Republicans, I don't want to give them credit, but I have to, is when they get in power, Andrea, they flex. They don't give an F. They don't look at the polls. They're like, "We'll do whatever the hell we want. Stop us.”

That’s why most of the Democrats must be replaced. Another example. Randy Fine, Andy Ogles, and Tommy Tuberville say the worst genocidal and anti-Muslim stuff, and Rashida Tlaib, who has Palestinian ancestry, is the one Democrats censure. Democrats are overperforming in elections yet the Democratic brand is worse than that of the nasty guy. How does that make sense? Ali said,

People do not trust these institutions anymore. People are not voting for Democrats. They're voting against Trump. ... So Democrats are misreading this and saying, "Aha. People love the Democratic Party,” but then I give you the poll that the Democrats are ranked lower than Donald Trump, who has the lowest favorability rating.

Ali’s fear is Democrats end up back in office, perhaps even win the presidency in 2028, then proceed with business as usual. They won’t go after the infrastructure that made the nasty guy possible. And a fascist wins in 2032. The people are rising up. And the Democratic leadership remains tone deaf, to be Republican light. One key aspect of fighting this is to hold fast to our own humanity. They discussed Eric Swalwell. His team knew about his sexual harassment and still tried to get him to be the governor of California. Swalwell’s survivors held onto their humanity and declared they would not tolerate the hiding. And now he’s out. Republicans might worship a rapist. But people knew about Swalwell long before he was taken down. Swalwell was part of the Epstein class (and this identification does not rely on being an Epstein client). Chalupa said,

Ukraine is a laboratory of Kremlin aggression and Ukrainian civil society, the independent journalists, the activists, the anti-corruption reformers, they are the reason why Ukraine still exists as a country, as a democracy, and they hold Zelensky accountable. Their grassroots engine is extraordinary. It's historic. And we're seeing resistance here in America on the same level of Ukraine.

To overthrow the guy before Zelenskyy Ukrainians ran towards danger. We’re seeing the same thing in the US in Renee Good and Alex Pretti running towards danger. That’s what gives Chalupa hope. We’re not just fighting fascism. We’re fighting corruption generally. We’re fighting on two fronts. We’re fighting MAGA and fascism. We’re also fighting Democrats who are part of the system, who are complicit in genocide, who take money from AI and crypto and help them with “deregulation,” who think billionaires are part of the party’s Big Tent (a line Gavin Newsom has used), who are unwilling to hold the criminals accountable. Me talking: Not long ago I wrote that we should not blame Democrats for not acting now, because they don’t hold the levers of power and there isn’t much they can do. After working through this interview I see we can blame them for not loudly proclaiming all the things they will do to protect the country and democracy once they are back in power. They’ve been way too silent, which implies they don’t intend to protect democracy. I’ve got a few letters from various Democratic organizations, including from Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. In the recent past I’ve sent a few back, not with checks, but with writing on the donation form that says that I won’t send a check as long as they keep accepting checks from billionaires. I think I now need to change the message to be: If you accept donations from billionaires you’re not enough different from Republicans. That’s a project for tomorrow.