Let us say, and why not, that you're a Democrat who came of age in this century and then got elected to Congress. Your adult experience of the Republican party really starts with George W. Bush and the Iraq "war" and the economic meltdown and the fucktastrophe that was the response to Hurricane Katrina. You don't fondly remember Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan getting their Irish on to cut deals. You don't give a goddamn about how chummy Bob Dole and George McGovern were. You don't give a fuck about how there used to be liberal Rockefeller Republicans or there were glory days of cooperation or any of that bullshit that people exaggerate like their dick size on a Grinder profile. You only know Republicans as the savage motherfuckers who have twice wrecked the country and who treated Barack Obama like shit, who blocked progress in every area, who filled the judiciary with brutal idiots with culture warrior and evangelical nutzoid street cred, and who whine like wounded bitches whenever anyone dares to call them on their fuckery.
Imagine how freeing it must be, how liberating to not be burdened by that history. Younger Democrats get it. They know that the Republican Party is just a bunch of cruel capitalism fanatics, Christian nationalists, white supremacists, and conspiracy maniacs. They deal with the GOP as it is, not the fantasy of how it was, not the fantasy of how it could be.
That's why to those of us who have been waiting for this Democratic Party to finally emerge, who hoped that it would move beyond the torpor of tepid tradition and cancerous comity, these last few weeks have been like getting a breath of fresh air after being locked in a closet and having to inhale Joe Lieberman's farts for years.
Look at where things are going: Democrats are embracing the agenda (heavily influenced by the Bernie Sanders left, which, despite what you may think of Sanders himself or some of his more dickish followers, has brought more energy and youth to the Democratic Party since Obama's first campaign, and that's a net good by any fucking stretch of your political imagination) that is supported by the majority of the American people. And most of it is supported by big majorities, like the approval of Biden's COVID relief bill is at roughly 60-66%, including at least a third of Republicans. Who the fuck cares what Marco Rubio or Marsha Blackburn whine about when you've got that much of the public behind you? If you can't run on "We did what the country wanted us to do," then you suck.
The Democrats who have run out of fucks to give about what Republicans think, believe, want, need, or feel are pushing the party leftward (if by "leftward," you mean, "Where nearly every other country in the fucking civilized world has been for decades and calls 'the middle'"). You see it in how vitally important raising the minimum wage is at last, as well as canceling student debt. You see it in how a push for a rational, compassionate immigration policy might actually get off the ground beyond reversing the xenophobic fucknuttery of the Trump administration. President Joe Biden's policies so far have been, on the whole, more progressive than I think anyone anticipated, and his "yeah, suck my balls, we'll go it alone" response to Republicans wanting to negotiate COVID relief to death was encouraging as hell.
The older generation that gets on board will reap rewards, like not being primaried. For instance, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is no idiot, and he's following that leftward tilt to avoid a primary from someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And, frankly, the same goes for Nancy Pelosi's "you can eat my whole ass" approach to slamming through impeachment in the wake of Trump's traitorous encouragement of a coup attempt. Even more to the point, a Republican, fucking Mitt Romney sees the way the wind is blowing and has gotten behind an effort to reduce the number of children living in poverty through, Reagan wept, money from the government (and Biden is supporting it, too).
That's why it's beyond maddening when the traditionalists and the supposedly enlightened "moderate" Democrats rear their dumb fucking heads and advocate for shit like the filibuster, as if a Senate rule is more important than the will of the majority of the country on something like expanding health care, or like the completely dumb means-testing for the financial support in the COVID relief bill. Or even in the fucked way that Democrats are conducting the Senate trial for Trump. Call fuckin' witnesses. If we're throwing down over an insurrection, let's throw the fuck down.
This is not temporary. Democrats have developed a deep, deep bench since 2016, one that includes not only the Squad and Katie Porter, but newcomers like Cori Bush, Ritchie Torres, Jon Ossoff, and Raphael Warnock, all of whom understand that Republicans represent an existential threat to democracy and not just Democrats. They have been given no reason to give a single half-hearted fuck about the GOP. They're right, as are all of us who have been wanting this attitude for years. Maybe Trump finally scared the shit out of Democrats, as if they finally understood that you can't win a game when your opponent has wiped his ass with the rules.
Really, the Republican Party is only alive as long as Donald Trump wants it to be. That's how pathetic it is. That's how useless it is. Fuck them until they're buried in the cold, cold ground and govern as if we can actually fix the shit that needs fixing.
