Fucking Fight, You Useless Fucks

Fucking Angus King edition

As we descend ever further into our ongoing fascist nightmare, it would be nice to have an opposition party. Instead, we have the Democrats, who are, I understand, working on changing their name officially to “Sorry, Spineless Sacks of Shit,” just so they can assure Donald Trump and their Republican colleagues that they really, truly, don’t pose a threat, please don’t be mean to us.

Some of you may feel this is too harsh. I would like to think it is too harsh. But consider two data points from this week.

1. After Gavin Newsom threatened to aggressively gerrymander California if Texas goes through with its own ridiculous partisan gerrymander, the head of the state legislative progressive caucus Alex Lee reared up on his hind legs and did his best Neville Chamberlain impersonation. He insisted he would fight against a partisan gerrymander on the grounds that a partisan gerrymander would be mean and ungentlemanly. “For as long as I’ve been alive, we’ve been the anti-gerrymandering party, anti-corruption and pro-democracy people. And are we going to just stoop to their level?” he told The Bulwark. “It’s a race to the bottom where everyone loses.”

   Newsflash Alex, you dope: fascism is not a “race to the bottom where everyone loses.” Fascism is a deliberate political program of extermination currently aimed at you and your voters. Refusing to fight fascism isn’t being pro democracy; it’s lying down and letting fascists shoot you in the fucking face. Striking fascists in the fist repeatedly with your chin is not bravely standing on principle. It’s bashing your brains out before the fascists can do it for you. You fucking rube.

2. Maine’s pro-choice would-be Lion of the Senate Angus King voted to confirm 35-year-old rabid forced birth asshole Josh Divine to a lifetime federal judgeship. When asked what the fucking fuck he was fucking doing, King dropped his monocle and muttered that he had made “a mistake.” Rather than consulting pro choice groups, he had, apparently, decided to ask Missouri Senator Josh Hawley—an insurrectionist, a fascist, and an opponent of abortion—who he should vote for. Hawley said, “Ha ha, vote for this guy, he’s great, no really.”

   Divine used to be Hawley’s chief counsel—which would be reason enough to vote against him if you had a brain and a heart instead of a fucking useless moustache which, apparently, can’t even by counted on to hold in your sad shit for brains.

Now, you could argue “not all Democrats”. Gavin “I-long-to-throw-trans-people-under-every-bus-I-see” Newsom is in this instance, and somewhat uncharacteristically, making at least vague fighty noises. King is technically an independent, though he caucuses with Ds. You could point to the House, where the Democrats pushed for votes to release the Epstein files, prompting Republican Speaker Mike Johnson to duck and cower and literally shut down the chamber for the summer. Sure, Democrats shilly-shally sometimes. But sometimes they fight somewhat. Shouldn’t we give them the benefit of the doubt?

The thing is, Democrats have for a decade now been saying—accurately!—that Trump is a unique and existential threat to democracy. King called the insurrection (which Hawley supported!) “an unspeakably sad moment for our nation” and declared that “whomever does not speak out is complicit.”

Yet, four years later, Angus King is letting Hawley, a complicit insurrectionist, tell him how to cast his vote for federal judgeships.

Similarly, Alex Lee just last month said that “The federal government is actively terrorizing and kidnapping adults, families, and children across our country.” The Federal government is kidnapping and terrorizing children! That seems really bad! It seems like you should be willing to take pretty extreme measures to stop fascists from kidnapping children!

And yet, Lee isn’t willing to even redraw district lines, since apparently redrawing district lines would be worse than literally kidnapping and torturing children. Gerrymandering might be a slippery slope to…kidnapping and torturing fewer children. Wouldn’t want that.

The hypocrisy is irritating. But what’s worse is that Lee and King and other Democrats clearly understand the stakes and the danger. They see that the fascists are coming for us; they understand that the fascists want to use violence against innocent people. They explain that the fascist Republican party is set on terrorizing, torturing, murdering, and silencing Democrats and their constituents.

But somehow, when actually called on to resist, Democrats equivocate. They mutter. They demure. They vote for Trump appointees. They run away from using leverage to restrain the administration. They refuse to affirm their values in even symbolic impeachment votes. They babble about how they are gym buddies with Republicans.

In some cases, at some moments, some Democrats have matched their rhetoric and their principles and opposed this evil, lawless regime. But too often, Democrats at the national and local level have convinced themselves that conflict and resistance are somehow illegitimate and dangerous. They have yearned for some haven of neutrality, where they can posture as statesman by refusing to take a side. They want to be bipartisan; they want to be collegial; they want to show that they’re working towards democracy by refusing to get in the gutter.

But alas, our problem is not partisanship; it is not conflict; it is not even the gutter. Our problem is fascism. And when Democratic leaders refuse to use their power to kick the fascists in the fucking balls, then the only balls that get kicked are democracy’s.

If Angus King is so lazy he has to ask Josh Hawley to help him with his votes, then Angus King should fucking resign so that voters of Maine can choose a moustache with some fucking gumption. If Alex Lee thinks its unpleasant to fight fascism by fucking fighting it, then Alex Lee should resign and go join some thinktank where he can wash his hands three times a day and not have to worry about getting messy while fighting for the children he knows are being kidnapped. No one is forcing these inert turds to squat in office. Democrats have one job now: fight fascism. King, Lee and any other Democrat who can’t do that, should sit down, shut up, and get the fuck out of the way.

Before You Go

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