Democrats On The Slippery Slope

We need an opposition that simply says NO!

Coop Scoop - January 14, 2025

With the American media falling quickly into line to sane-wash and pander to Trump, it is more important than ever that independent citizen media like The Coop Scoop remain in the fight. This is possible only through your support. If you are a free subscriber become a paid one. If you got this forwarded to you, sign up as a free subscriber. And in any case please forward to as many as possible. In solidarity, thank you. In the end, it is the paid subscriptions that keep us above water,

By Marc Cooper

Santiago, Chile

I’ve spent the last few days guiding two American friends around to some of the historic political “sites” in this country of 20 million.

These are the types of places that I hope our grandchildren will never have to see in the United States — but I wouldn’t bet my house on it.

Chile has designated several locations as Official Sites of Memory. These are places where the Pinochet dictatorship imprisoned, tortured, and executed thousands. The Museum of Memory honors the 3,200 people murdered by the dictatorship. The house at Londres 38, where the secret police executed and “disappeared” dozens. Villa Grimaldi, where another 5,000 detainees passed through, and more than 400 disappeared. And there are too many other horrific sites to list here.

“It can’t happen here,” as Americans like to say. But it certainly happened in Chile, where 51 years after the military coup, there are still thousands of open cases of abuse, torture, and murder unresolved in a glacial justice system, and where the military still keeps its archives sealed more than three decades after the fall of the dictatorship.

One week before the inauguration of Donald Trump, these sites, which I have visited before, take on added significance. I don’t think Trump will become a Pinochet, nor do I think we will immediately be confronted by a bloody dictatorship.

However, I am convinced that we are one week away from seating a lawless administration that scorns the rule of law, and don’t forget the highest expression of that principle is, precisely, dictatorship.

Further, I fear that the American people are not prepared for what’s about to come, even if it falls short of dictatorship. The president-elect is a towering, big-mouthed ignoramus and bully who demonstrates zero human compassion. He is, quite simply, a psychopath. A dangerous one.

He is supported by a majority in both houses of Congress that are a mongrel mix of cowardly lemmings, opportunists, and fellow morons. They are a principal detachment of the Trump brigades. The other battalion is made up of the shameless and greedy oligarchs, and in the case of Elon Musk, a mentally bent one, for whom there is never enough — never, ever. If they have $10 billion, they want $20 billion. If they have $100 billion, $300 billion would be much better.

They are a predatory breed, veritable vultures, who feed off the carrion of average people, constantly inventing new ways to increase their profit margins while eternally avoiding any real taxation or accountability.

They scorn anything and everything public: public schools, public parks, public medical care — and, as we see in burned-out Los Angeles, even the public fire department. They prefer to pay $2,000 a day to private firefighters to defend and preserve their oh-so-precious material riches, jewels, and gaudy, obscene mansions.

And the third component of the Trump machine is the MAGA masses. The ground troops, ready to obey any order handed down from their King. Most of them are politically ignorant beyond any measure. Allergic to news and facts. Racist and xenophobic. Alienated from any broad sense of community and country, and this week preoccupied with celebrating the firestorms that reduced Radical Left Democrat California to ashes. It is a revolting spectacle to watch Trumpworld mock California and Los Angeles as it is incinerated, rather than offering the help, solidarity and unified compassion that these sort of disasters usually compel. The twisted mind of the richest man in the world blamed the inferno on DEI in the Fire Department, suggesting that only white men are capable of doing the hard work.

Just exactly what do well-thinking Americans think is going to emerge from this toxic mix of extremists, know-nothings, zealots, and fools? Nothing good. The only question is how bad, and how fast. Given that a resolution supporting Trump acquiring Greenland has already been introduced in the House, I would wager it will be sooner rather than later.

And while there is another party in America — the Democrats — they seem to be walking around mostly with their heads up their asses. Joe Biden has spent the last month in public self-pity and mostly blaming the defeat in November on his own vice president. They are asserting absolutely no leadership to oppose Trump. And that is precisely what we need right now.

Not a symbolic “resistance,” but rather a solid brick wall of opposition (one can dream). We need an OPPOSITION party. OPPOSITION social movements. And OPPOSITION media (another dream). That last wish is being shattered daily by the ongoing pre-surrender of the media and social media. I lack the vocabulary to express my burning disdain for the semi-autistic Mark Zuckerberg, who is now openly touting Trump as a good guy and is now buying into the sickening manosphere rhetoric…an odd position for such a puny little wimp.

This wish-casting on my part can, however, be translated into actual policy and a viable political strategy. And it has nothing to do with which ambitious soul winds up as chair of the DNC. It has nothing to do with Democrats moving left or right. They need to move down, down into the electorate, into as many communities as possible, and create a permanent opposition presence (yet another dream).

But I digress… back to policy. It’s a simple one. It’s not even a sentence long. It is no more than two letters: NO. I repeat: NO. NO. NO.

No, Joe Biden should not attend the inauguration, though he will. Some have spoken of his need to do so to preserve “the majesty of the presidency.” Are they out of their minds? What majesty remains if, for a second time, this convicted felon, serial liar, slanderer, and overall sleaze bag is seated in the Oval Office? What credibility do Biden and other Democrats retain when, after warning that Trump is a mortal threat to democracy, Joe Biden decides to become a sane-washing prop in Trump’s coronation?

There should be NO bipartisan legislation. NO deals with MAGA. Let Trump and his Congress take 100% ownership of the clusterfuck he is creating. Some Democrats are pouting and complaining that former Fox second-string anchor and nominee to run the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, has not scheduled any one-on-one meetings with Democrats prior to his confirmation hearing this week.

What the hell is that about? The Democrats should be happy not to contaminate their offices with his bullshit. And they should have announced that they, in fact, want NO meetings with the miscreants who Trump has nominated for his cabinet. The only job the Democrats should take on in the confirmation process is to ask the hardest questions possible, show no amity, NO goodwill, NO acceptance, and resolve simply to vote NO on each and every one of Trump’s picks, including the two or three “normal” nominees. They will also be part of the Trump bulldozer, and they too must be opposed.

This position of NO should be maintained invariably in Congress. Not a single Democratic "yes" vote for anything that would avert a Trump catastrophe. NO on his budget. NO on saving the Speaker in March. And even NO on extending the debt limit. And if the U.S. defaults on its credit, let Trump own that as well, 100%. Let Trump crash his beloved stock market and cede ownership to him for the global economic crisis it could provoke.

There should be nothing offered but shame and opprobrium for any Democrat who collaborates in any way, shape, or form with MAGA. We have already seen a smattering of House Democrats vote yes on the MAGA-written Laken-Riley Immigration Act that further opens the door to deportations. Worse, this bill got a unanimous vote from MAGA, meaning the Democratic votes were not even “needed.” Do they think Fox News will now suddenly celebrate them for joining the xenophobes behind the bill? I don’t think so.

Oh sure, some Democrats will lie and say they “improved” the bill. Horsefeathers. The New Republic fully takes apart that assertion.

It is full of holes that will not impede but rather expedite mass deportation. Even more deplorable, Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) is not only co-sponsoring the measure in the Senate, but he already made the Quisling Trek to Mar-A-Lago to do what? Kiss Donald Trump’s fat ass, as that is the only activity allowed there. And Trump responded by lavishing praise on his new Democratic flunky.

So, the warm and fuzzy oddball senator has morphed into an ice-cold opportunist goofball, clearly more interested in re-election rather than the general welfare of the nation. He should be hounded and despised, as should any other Democratic senator who goes along with this travesty.

Did I miss something, or was the filibuster struck down? That should be the Democratic position on this fraud of a bill. NO to a bill whose very name was used as a demagogic talking point for Trump for months to further stigmatize ALL migrants.

But it looks like some Democrats are more interested in saying, “Me too, hey we also voted for a bipartisan immigration bill,” rather than denouncing it for what it is, no matter how bad that bill is.

Clearly, this opposition is not going to materialize in the next week, if ever. Maybe it’s only going to emerge after Trump begins swinging his wrecking ball into American democracy. If ever. If not, we only have ourselves to blame.

The sleepwalking into authoritarianism continues right on Trump’s schedule. I am going to say it for the third or fourth time, and I will continue to do so: Nobody is coming to save us. Not the Democrats, not the courts, not the media, and certainly not any grotesque “bipartisan” deal-making with the Democrats sloshing around in the dung piles of MAGA’s neo-fascism. NO. NO. NO. And NO.++

The media is buckling to Trump and the continued existence of independent voices like the Coop Scoop must survive.

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