An Accountability for Power Will Be Met With Fierce Resistance

An Accountability for Power Will Be Met With Fierce Resistance

Justice has no arch towards goodness. I steadfastly reject that "hope" as little more than wishful thinking.  It serves only to permit fictions of justice. Justice must be made and so it must first be imagined and considered---fantasies about goodness are nothing better than soporific consolations.  Indulge if you must, at your own peril.

But just can be made to bend if there is enough collective will and time. The Supreme Court be damned, there will be change. Today's ruling on gerrymandering effectively tells politicians that they can choose their own voters and make sure others, even the majority, have their place in the conversation. This is another victory for white supremacy but Republicans have become entirely shameless in that too.

Last night put Julián Castro on stage pursuing the US Presidency. He stands no chance. Not yet. Not this time. We are still in the strangleholds of Reaganism.

But I will say this about the courage and insight of Julian Castro last night. What he proposed was not merely "criminal justice reform" that carries on the usual strategy of merely running scared from Reaganism. That running scared policy reduced Democratic ideas to locking morm people up more humanely, throwing a stick at rehabilitation, better opportunities, and all the rest.

All we have done is traumatize our society and leave an entire segment of the population in abject fear for their lives by virtue of not being favored by the police (because they aren't white.) Castro grasped that perfectly, as did Booker. All I think but especially them.

Instead Castro was suggesting that we look at it from the other direction, turn it completely around and demand better police, better behavior from those who enforce the law, a clearer sense of the culture of law and its enforcement.

But I tell you nothing scares or angers the white status quo more than this inversion of the argument. Around here the meme is all about that blue line in the flags. What the locals, as unsophisticated as they are, understand is that if _they_ are held accountable as the police then their own abuses are in account and their power is challenged.

Trump will run on fear of immigrants but he will also code in a heavy dose of Nixonian law and order. What is changing is that the Democrats are _finally_ turning the tables and offering not a revised, kinder, gentler Reaganism but a new model. That model will be fiercely rejected and despised.

Castro told the truth and when is doing the right thing ever the wrong thing? But I do not think it is yet a winner. There are innumerable examples of the truth that demands this reversal, this turning inside out of the model but fear of otherness, fear of loss of power, these are all far too dominant in the narrative yet.

That Castro speaks with clarity and passion only makes him more dangerous. He can't win this election but I tell you, this issue will be used to try to defeat whoever is the nominee. Even Biden will turn this corner as quickly as he can because the Democratic electorate now stands wholly opposed to more of the Run from Reaganism that has failed everyone, and I mean that, sooner than even he thinks. He is nothing if not wanting to win and he will adjust and learn because they all must.

This is what leaves characters like Delaney and Jim Webb and others with no place to go---they aren't quite as vile as Republicans but can't yet fathom a genuinely different world. No one will leave themselves behind in pursuit of office who understands the invidious Republican agenda.  They will not long survive as a candidate for anything. Republicans aren't yet cowering---as Democrats have since Reagan---but they know the jig is up. They are going to need that gerrymandering more than ever.