It’s Time For Democrats To Toughen Up
By: Jonathan Fuentes
Tags: Democrats, Elections, Republican Party, Trump, Politics

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

The Electoral College convened on Monday and affirmed what everyone near the internet, TV, or radio has known for over a month: Joe Biden will be the 46th President of the United States.

Even with this taking place, some Republican lawmakers couldn’t bring themselves to admit what the results meant, like Senator Kevin Cramer (R.) from North Dakota.

“Well, it seems to me that being elected by the Electoral College is a threshold where a title like that is probably most appropriate, and it’s — I suppose you can say — official, if there is such a thing as official president-elect, or anything else-elect,” Sen. Cramer commented when asked whether Joe Biden should be publicly acknowledged as president-elect.

And according to Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), “That’s like the gotcha question of the day.”

Why do members of GOP leadership feel like they can continue to ignore the results of the election and undermine the incoming administration’s legitimacy?

Simply put, Democrats won’t fight back against it.

For the longest time, Democrats have been slapped with being elitist and condescending. They’ve been accused of thinking they are smarter than everyone else. And they have done nothing to convince voters otherwise.

“When they go low, we go high.”

These words were said by First Lady Michelle Obama at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. She was talking about how to deal with the onslaught of vitriolic hate being spewed in the run up to the election.

In a November 2018 interview with The New York Times to promote her memoir, she expanded in the slogan, saying “‘Going high’ doesn’t mean you don’t feel the hurt, or you’re not entitled to an emotion.”

She continued, “It means that your response has to reflect the solution. It shouldn’t come from a place of anger or vengefulness. Barack and I had to figure that out. Anger may feel good in the moment, but it’s not going to move the ball forward.”

While the idea of the slogan is the adult and responsible one, it’s also what leads to Democrats getting run roughshod over by Republicans.

While Dems are busy formulating a well-thought-out response to one of the countless disparaging comments made by their political opponents, GOP lawmakers and pundits have usually unloaded a barrage of follow-up comments and accusations, drowning out any response.

Is it any wonder why more outspoken members of the liberal party like Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY) have become largely influential in the Democratic party?

While they are less malicious than their Republican counterparts, they are also not afraid to go after GOP members publicly with gusto. Their vigorous criticism and condemnation of conservative politicians has endeared them to a portion of the Democratic Party that is ready to go low a little more often.

So, what has been the response from Democrats as Donald Trump and his sycophants have continuously tried all sorts of manners in which to overturn the results of the election and disenfranchise millions of voters?

“Trust the process. Democracy will prevail.” The same tired sound bites that frustrate their supporters who want a bit more backbone from their political representatives.

While there has been public denunciation of the failed lawsuit brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that sought to toss out over 20 million votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, it’s a sad state of affairs that it took that extreme of an attempt to make Democrats finally hit back.

Worse yet, 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives were so unafraid of any repercussions that they signed an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit, which was so ridiculous that the Supreme Court refused to even hear arguments.

Gone are the days of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the tough Democrat president who shoved his progressive agenda down the throats of the legislative branch and brow-beat them into passing the Civil Rights Act and establishing social programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

As problematic his crude and obnoxious behavior would be these days (he famously had a penchant for displaying his penis), the steadfastness and toughness he displayed would be a welcome part of a new Democratic strategy.

When I think of the current state of the Democratic Party, I always seem to come back to part of a speech Aaron Sorkin wrote for Jeff Daniels’ character on his show, The Newsroom:

“You know why people don’t like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so f****** smart, how come they lose so goddamn always?”

Even with a crushing win in the presidential election that saw an unprecedented turnout, Democrats still lost seats in the House and are hoping to get a tie in the Senate, at best.

Maybe it’s time to stop needing to be so smart and time to start being a little tougher.