The Democratic Party needs a backbone

D. Earl Stephens
19 November 2024
FILE PHOTO: A person leaves the election night rally for U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, outside Howard University, in Washington, U.S., November 6, 2024. REUTERS/Craig Hudson/File Photo

I have an admission for you: I never took even a single second to consider the terrible residue of a Democratic loss in this month's elections, precisely because of the terrible things that happened last week.

When others brought it up, I would simply defer and say something that tasted like this: “I can’t allow myself to go there, because the consequences will be too grave to even imagine. My focus and energy need to be on ONE thing: WINNING. We must get Kamala Harris into the White House. Losing is just too devastating to contemplate.”

Now that might sound naive and foolish, and I guess I get that, but I am not built to consider losing. As a half-decent athlete in my younger days, and a high-octane competitor always, there has never been a game, or a contest, or a political battle that I engaged in when I ever considered losing.

I grew up in the days of Hall of Fame football coach and Democrat, Vince Lombardi, who famously said, “Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing.”

ALSO READ: How to find hope in a near-hopeless time

I went onto become a sports writer and then a sports editor before shifting to news, so I’ll spare you the 172 clichés that apply to what just happened in America.

And before I leak too much testosterone all over this page, I am not for one minute comparing some football game to the most important election in American history.

What I am telling you is that a lot of people laid their time, treasure, heart, and soul on the line the past eight years, only to end up right back where we started.

This wasn't just some gut-wrenching loss, it was the end of an America that fancied itself a place that doled out liberty and justice for all. Instead of being a beacon for democracy across the world, we now provide safe harbor for murderous fascists.

This could not have been conceivable even 10 years ago.

I am not writing to knock you further into despair today, good people. I’m really not. I have written during the past week that there are ways out of this, because there simply have to be. Namely, wemust not submit.

Except that is exactly what many in our Democratic leadership seem to be doing right now, and it is positively blowing my mind.

While we are being steamrolled by Trump and his nuclear-powered propaganda machine fueled by greedy, blood-thirsty billionaires, Democratic leaders are pointing fingers, and climbing over one another to tell us all what went wrong in the election.

While they draw attention to themselves in all the wrong ways, the morbid Trump is settling in to what he hopes will be a long and comfortable dictatorship, and picking one revolting loyalist after another to staff his cabinet and inflict as much pain on us as possible.

Consider what happened on Wednesday alone:

Joe Biden symbolically surrendered to the repulsive Trump in front of a roaring fire in our White House (talk about a terrifying metaphor), and actually said, “Welcome back!” This is the guy Biden himself has warned about in the starkest terms, and over and over again.

This is the guy who instead of gracefully conceding defeat attacked our country, did nothing about it for hours, and then told the people who did it that he loved them.

HE TOLD THE PEOPLE WHO ATTACKED US THAT HE LOVED THEM.

The is the guy who is a convicted felon, and a rapist. But, sure, how do you take your coffee, Donald? Would you like some cookies with your shit-eating grin?

And of course, Trump’s billionaire boss, the absolutely repulsive Elon Musk, was in tow, because, well, that’s completely normal ...

And forget the fact, the America-attacker has NOT yet signed (nor will he) the Presidential Transition Ethics Agreement as required by law ...

He deserves nothing but scorn, not public congratulations and warm welcomes by the fire. And if Biden just HAD to do this, why so damn soon? My God, most of us haven’t gotten over the shock yet.

Some never will.

Then there’s news Special Counsel Jack Smith will be quitting, rather than making Trump fire him, and that is pathetic. And has anybody heard from Merrick Garland since he crawled underneath his bed? He, more than anybody, is responsible for this terrible mess we are in by failing to do the most important part of his job: protecting America.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who I like very much, is literally everywhere saying we need to take the high prices in America more seriously, as if Vice President Harris didn't talk about this endlessly on the campaign trail. Unlike her ghastly opponent she actually had a concrete plan to help correct this, and not some bullshit “concept” of one. Again, why so soon, my good man?

Fully five people in Democratic “leadership” have let it leak that they will be running for president in 2028, as if there will even be an election in 2028. They will get no mention here.

Talk about grave-dancing …

And, hey, go ahead and slam me for not considering the consequences of a Trump win, but at least I got the same memo that Harris did. We both understood Trump is a fascist, and is not really keen on elections.

Frankly, she is one of the few who has accorded herself well though this ordeal, and while I have no proof of this, it is starting to feel to me like she is being hung out to dry. Nancy Pelosi can’t stop letting it be known that Biden should have stepped down sooner, and there should have been a primary to determine our Democratic candidate for president.

She might be right about that, but she is dead wrong for intimating we would have got a better candidate than Harris, who ran just one helluva campaign, and is a top-notch person. I’d still run through a brick wall for her, because she is everything right about the nasty world of politics.

Ya know … I’m not advocating a violent attack on America like Trump did, but I am advancing the fact that the Democratic Party needs to stand up straight and tall, and show some damn backbone and grit.

We are fully capable of doing both a thorough autopsy on our terrible loss, while sending the message loud clear that we still have plenty of damn fight left, and aren’t going anywhere — that fascism has no place in America.

There is a prevailing feeling among many outside the Beltway that our leadership has abandoned us, at the very time we need them most, and this will not be forgotten.

It feels like a catastrophic storm has come ashore, is gaining steam and will slowly and methodically wipe out everything in its path. I cannot tell you how many hardworking and good-hearted Democrats who have told me, “Fuck it. I’m done.”

This is how a bad situation gets even worse.

I talked with one of the smartest people I know about this Wednesday night. Christopher Webb is a Democratic Strategist in California, and he’s seeing and hearing the same things I am among the Black community, who are the greatest patriots among us:

“Black folks are tired right now. Sick and tired! Especially Black women. They do the heavy lifting every election cycle. They always lead the way, and this time we had a supremely qualified Black woman nominee, but we had to watch her torn down by racism and misogyny coming from the right. We constantly had to hear that she’s dumb. Where are her policies? She’s a DEI hire. She’s trash. She slept her way to the top. Black women activists put anger aside and pushed back with the facts: Kamala is supremely qualified, and here’s why. She’s here to fight for us. Here are her policies. But it didn’t matter.
Post-election, there’s a lot of anger, frustration, and even hopelessness within our community.
We love the party, but it feels like the party does not love us back.”

“But it feels like the party does not love us back …”

Man, this makes my blood boil. That Democratic leadership I have been trying to slap some sense into here need to hear this. We ALL need to hear it.

I want to add that Christopher said he’s “more than ready” for the fight ahead.

Me too.

While, I totally get the inclination to bolt, I am not done. I will stand here and fight, but I need to know just who in the hell is with us. I need to know who is out there speaking for our concerns and not capitulating to fascists.

We cannot surrender. There is no “waiting it out.” We must take the fight to these bastards right now, because we — not them — stand for what is most certainly good and right in this country.

Or as Lombardi said: “Winners never quit, and quitters never win.”

NOW READ: America is at a crossroads

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

From Your Site Articles