The Cliches of Hope and Faith in Our Slow Walk to Catastrophe

When a cliche is true it's not mere repetition that makes it so. It's said Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line. The new "falling in line" is a cultic sycophancy that threatens democracy itself. The pursuit of power and radical ideology has brought the former R-Party to surrender to a criminal, a liar whose shamelessness is matched only by his incompetence and idiocy.

I think the vast majority of Not Trump voters know the danger we face as a nation. That there are people undecided, both-sides-ing, making equivalence, or indifferent tells us how much peril we face should he gain power. I think the nation as we know it will not survive more Trump, to say nothing of the nihilism and religious fanaticism of Project 2025. Trump is their dupe even as his dupes and the clueless American public hide inside their vacant souls.

Our problem is that Joe's decline is manifest and to deny makes the future even more precarious. We who love and admire him are in a quandary because we neither want to humiliate nor demean his good work. I have not fallen out of love, to use the cliche. I have awoken to the fact that there are no good choices before us, that the path to victory which was always narrow looks to be closing down.

In this media environment (siloed, tribal, bothsides-ism, etc.) with its inattentive and civicly illiterate electorate locked into a system that favors minority rule, I think we see no easy way through and no clear alternatives. We cannot coronate VP Harris and there are no clear or well-recognized candidates, all seem to have electoral liabilities.

The real politick lies in this question: who can sustain the Blue Wall, win enough "swing states" to prevent the catastrophe that awaits us if we do not. This is not Reagan or W or some other R with bad ideas. This is the end of democracy, handing power to a fool so inept and dangerous that we know national survival is at stake.

I think Democrats do have a way forward if Joe steps down. And that is to engage a full on media blitz as candidates come forward. Then the convention becomes the will of the people. What is more likely is internecine warfare, a party that is hopelessly driven into corners, interest groups lost in ideological contests that stand no chance of winning those swing states. But I think we have no choice and there may be a chance.

The chance lies in the fact that Americans love new, shiny things. They love drama more than content. They prefer contest to conversation and the superficial to the serious. We must play on exactly those traits: Americans may be unfit for the real tasks of democracy but IF you can get their attention, you can get out a message.

Who has the chops, the charisma, who is the shiny object candidate with just enough gravitas to get this electorate's attention and convince them of their competence? Running against Trump to save democracy will provide 98% of the 47% needed to win. Someone has to grab those last few points in WI, MI, PA, and somewheres else. Who has that kind of presence?

That we don't see that person among the potential candidates, the ones mentioned again as real contenders makes me shudder. and vainly conceal my despair. This can't be a pipe dream or a delusion of ideological grandeur. It has to be someone who can win the midwest and the suburbs: that has to be the plain objective of the D-party. Will that be clear when every candidate ambitious enough to be president is surrounded by people who want to be near power?

I'm not just worried about these facts. I'm downright distraught. And Joe, as far as I can tell, has mistaken being stalwart and steady with stubborn and unaware. It's not fair but Ruth Bader Ginsburg did the same thing: she stayed so long that we could not act before it was too late. And now look where we are.

Hope is what you have when you have nothing else, no real options. Hope is desperation's consoling fantasy. I dislike and distrust hope as much as "have faith"---and saying that wins me fewer friends and is frankly bad for business. But we're going to need hope because we are at an end of sane choices and we're going to have to have faith that those voters who will decide for the majority come to their senses. Fat chance. But it's what you have when your chances are dimmer by the day. Time for someone to step up. Maybe Obama and the wise can mobilize this America? If we lose, we will live to see our end and with that much of the world too will fall to chaos and authoritarianism.

Sally Forth