Fury Alone Won't Destroy Trumpism. We Need a Plan B.

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

Ezra Klein
@ezraklein
I’ll say this for the right: They pay attention to where the power lies in the American system, in ways the left sometimes doesn’t.

Bannon calls this “the precinct strategy,” and it’s working.
An election worker in Port Orchard, Wash., on Nov. 3, 2020.
Opinion | Fury Alone Won’t Destroy Trumpism. We Need a Plan B.
Steve Bannon is thinking globally and acting locally. He’s not wrong.
nytimes.com
9:29 AM · Jan 9, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/09/opinion/trump-bannon-trumpism-democracy.html

No paywall
https://archive.fo/za8IY

In his 2020 book “Politics Is for Power,” Eitan Hersh, a political scientist at Tufts, sketched a day in the life of many political obsessives in sharp, if cruel, terms.

I refresh my Twitter feed to keep up on the latest political crisis, then toggle over to Facebook to read clickbait news stories, then over to YouTube to see a montage of juicy clips from the latest congressional hearing. I then complain to my family about all the things I don’t like that I have seen.

To Hersh, that’s not politics. It’s what he calls “political hobbyism.” And it’s close to a national pastime. “A third of Americans say they spend two hours or more each day on politics,” he writes. “Of these people, four out of five say that not one minute of that time is spent on any kind of real political work. It’s all TV news and podcasts and radio shows and social media and cheering and booing and complaining to friends and family.”

Real political work, for Hersh, is the intentional, strategic accumulation of power in service of a defined end. It is action in service of change, not information in service of outrage. This distinction is on my mind because, like so many others, I’ve spent the week revisiting the attempted coup of Jan. 6, marinating in my fury toward the Republicans who put fealty toward Donald Trump above loyalty toward country and the few but pivotal Senate Democrats who are proving, day after day, that they think the filibuster more important than the franchise. Let me tell you, the tweets and columns I drafted in my head were searing.

But fury is useful only as fuel. We need a Plan B for democracy. Plan A was to pass H.R. 1 and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Neither bill, as of now, has a path to President Biden’s desk. I’ve found that you provoke a peculiar anger if you state this, as if admitting the problem were the cause of the problem. I fear denial has left many Democrats stuck on a national strategy with little hope of near-term success. In order to protect democracy, Democrats have to win more elections. And to do that, they need to make sure the country’s local electoral machinery isn’t corrupted by the Trumpist right.

*snip*

[2naSalit]

1. Too late for Montana.

Already there.

[Irish_Dem]

2. The battle for our democracy is being fought precinct by precinct.

In WWII, battles were fought hill by hill. Small segments of ground.

The GOP is doing the same kind of thing right now.
Precinct by precinct. And we need to understand we can lose badly.

[samsingh]

3. we on the left and our leaders are not doing enough to protect Democracy. The fact that repugs can

win with a minority of the popular vote and our side isn't out there crying bloody murder (see the big lie for how the repugs get people to believe lies) and whipping up support is depressing

[Alexander Of Assyria]

4. President Biden is executing plan A. Ignore the racings of lunatics and charlatans.

And keep calm, Carey on with governing like an adult.

Isn’t that Biden's plan? No need for any fury at all, the justice system is furious enough, soon enough and has already rained down some hellfire on the middle man insurrectionists, not fast and furious enough for some, but of no matter.

More fury to come from the courts,

Biden is patient, so am I.

[Bayard]

5. I can say that for Bannon,

He's not stupid.

I think too many on the left read/see what's going on, and say--that's terrible, how can they do that. But that's as far as it goes. They will vote, but either don't know how, or don't have the energy, to do anything about it.

I'd like to hear honest opinions about what we can do on a local level.

[MagickMuffin]

6. I had to help ignorant people vote for that POS in 2016

As Precinct Chair and alternate Election Judge, I decided then and there I could not do this again. These people have no clue how democracy works.


I believe every America citizen should be required to work elections. I learned so much in the 8 years that I got involved. You learn how elections are run. Candidate Obama got me interested in working at the local level. My precinct didn't have a Chair so I stepped up and became one.


Now the threats are real and I think that is their tactic. Make people afraid to work the elections and the voters afraid to cast a ballot (another reason Vote By Mail is imperative, but now more monkey wrenches with even this, It's who counts the votes).

I was called an election nazi several years ago (I had the audacity to tell him you cannot talk politics inside the polling location) he was a biker dude and I was actually scared he'd come back with a gun. The Election Judge did not do any thing about it.

My counter parts I called the 3 Bears as it was a mom, pop, and baby boy. The boy was home schooled and they were extremely weird people. But they did believe in democracy (we were a well oiled machine for Democracy, always had our polls ready before 7:00) and I never had real issues with them. But boy oh boy did they like to bicker, after 14 hours of that whew time to call it a day.


I'd love to still participate but circumstances and uncertainty has a way of making one question one's sanity.

[Qutzupalotl]

7. "Democrats fall in love. Republicans fall in line."

Seems to apply here.

Good article. K&R