Impeachment Is a Chance for Democrats to Take Back Patriotism

If there is one rhetorical success that has held back Democrats even when we win elections, it's the lie that Republicans are more patriotic than Democrats. While it used to be the province of right-wing nutzoids like Joe McCarthy and other red baiters that liberals were un-American, the odious scumfucker Ronald Reagan propagated that Republicans held the true mantle of the United States and that Democrats merely sought to tear it down with their gender equality and multiculturalism and civil rights and income equality and queasiness about war. This was couched in purely heteronormative and racist terms, that there was something inherently white and masculine about being a real American.  It was an attack on academics and the media who would dare point out "facts" and "reality" as opposed to the will of the American ubermensch in the form of Reagan. 

Goddamn, the right has been painting Democrats with that broad brush for so long and fucking Democrats bought into it. They fucking bought that they had to be more like Republicans in order to seem more patriotic. They had to be "tough on crime" with harsher penalties; they had to support stupid, worthless wars; they had to cut programs for the poor; they had to go along with tax cuts. Oh, yeah, there was that economic part, too, of patriotism: make sure the rich are as rich as fucking possible because you wanna be rich like that some day in the impossible future. It was selfishness as an end in itself. Me above nation.

The rubes bought into it because they weren't given an alternative way of viewing patriotism. Sure, with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, there was a brief window where it looked like we were finally going to change the narrative to an idea of a nation above individuals, but then Democrats returned to their natural state of allowing Republicans to define the terms of national identity (thanks in no small part to Joe Biden, but that's a rant for another time). Like I always say, motherfuckers fuck their mothers. It's all they know how to do. It's right there in the word. And Republicans are motherfuckingest motherfuckers around.

Now, Democrats have another chance to take back what it means to be American. I'll get to that in a moment.

There is something so clarifying about Trump's call to Ukraine's president and his brutish attempt to muscle info on Joe Biden out of Zelensky. It's like a distillation of everything that millions of us have been saying about Trump for decades: he does nothing unless there's something in it for him. When his crimes were obfuscated by layers of bullshit provided by conservative hacks on Fox "news" and elsewhere, as well as by the mainstream media contorting itself in order to please some false god of fairness, Americans could put on blinders. But Trump's such a toxic combination of narcissist and dumbass that he really thought his phone call pseudo-transcript would exonerate him, that everyone would buy into his story. How fucking ludicrous. 

It helps that there is genuine affection in the country and in the media for Joe Biden. Whatever you think of him (and, as I said, I've got a few problems), the man has been a DC fixture for nearly 50 years. You don't think that he's built up some good will? He's probably been to weddings, funerals, and parties with every reporter in the DC and New York press. He probably has sent presents and gift baskets and letters of encouragement, congratulations, and comfort. Whatever you think of the too-cozy relationship between our leaders and our reporters, this time it fucking worked.

'Cause, see, unlike every allegation against the Clintons and Barack Obama, Republicans are getting confronted with facts at every turn, and not just in a "well, some people say" way. Watch CNN's Jake Tapper absolutely lay into creepy goblin and child-fucking enabler Jim Jordan. Watch Fox's own Chris Wallace not have any of creepy psychopath Stephen Miller's bullshit. Watch CBS's Scott Pelley calmly vivisect bitch-faced creep Kevin McCarthy over what facts are. 

Now, the tidal wave of revelations, like the Intelligence Community is finally fuckin' done with Trump, has added to the sense that shit's really going on. We're no longer talking about what Trump did before he was president (although, to be fair, you're a pretty shitty human if you were in any way fine with or apathetic about Trump before these latest revelations). He's manipulating an election while president. And he's using our money to do it by threatening to withhold funds from Ukraine for Biden dirt. 

The country is primed to wrench its primary identity away from Republicans. Nancy Pelosi couched the impeachment inquiry announcement in very specific terms to appeal to patriotism, with its hearkening to our founders and the Constitution. Adam Schiff did the same in his opening remarks at the House Intelligence Committee hearing last Thursday. 

Essentially, they are saying, "You want to be a real patriots? Then fuck these traitors up." That's a powerful message. It's one that a majority of Americans are responding to, with a clear majority supporting the inquiry and a 10% jump in support for the removal of Trump from office. Democrats are the ones upholding the laws and traditions of the nation. Republicans are merely aiding and abetting a criminal, if they're not doing crimes themselves. That's as crystal-fuckin'-clear as it gets.

For the first time in I can't remember how long (maybe since the Affordable Care Act), Democrats are leading the charge on something, and they're telling Republicans to get the fuck on board this train or fuck off and get run over. 

And maybe the happy-clappy end result of this is that we take back the American story and try to make the country great. Not again. But for once.

(Note: Whatever optimism I have here is not that Trump will be removed. It's that Democrats will successfully set the terms for 2020 and that Trump will keep punching himself in the face along the way.)