A supplicant is a person who asks for something from someone in a humble or respectful way. For example, a supplicant might pray to God for help or ask a powerful person for a favor. A supplicant goes to the Godfather on bent knee, kissing his ring and tearfully requesting some action or effort to address a problem.
There are many of us over the years who have gone on bent knees to the Democratic Party and pleaded with them to help us out. They have been oblivious to our supplications. Our requests have been ignored. They have turned a deaf ear to our entreaties. Now they are complaining that they are getting too many requests from voters to have a spine.
“Meanwhile, Democratic congressional leaders held an internal “gripe-fest” last week. Not griping about Trump’s authoritarian assault – but about their own grassroots constituents inundating them with calls and emails demanding that they grow spines and start fighting the rising oligarchy.” — Jim Hightower, “The Lowdown”
I confess. Mea Culpa. I have voted for Obama, Hillary, Biden and Harris. I too have thought the Democrats were the answer to the right-wing madness taking over the country. I might as well have exhorted a lamb to go fight it out with a wolf or cougar. The stalwarts of the Democratic Party have grown up placating so many people, they no more have the ability to tackle trump, than I have of wresting with a grizzly bear.
I listened to NPR today when they were interviewing some big shot from the Democratic Party about the trump speech. They asked him what he thought of the speech. He replied, “I think there were a lot of “Mischaracterizations” in his talk.” WTF is a “mischaracterization?” Did he mean that every other fucking sentence trump speaks is a lie? The lamb thinks it is standing up to the wolf when it runs in the other direction. Steven Colbert held up a sign on his nightly broadcast urging Democrats to “Do Something.” The Democrats really showed trump during his excretory diatribe that they would thwart him by doing nothing and saying nothing. Funny how this would work? Very few people in history have accomplished anything by doing and saying nothing except holding up a few unreadable signs.
Let me get to the point. Forget pleading with the Democratic Party to get a spine. You are wasting your breath. There are only three positions to take with the Democratic Party. They are as follows:
- Some of the Democratic Party members might be helpful but most are too much a part of the system to ever risk a major change.
- The more time you spend supplicating the Democratic Party leadership to stand up and be counted, the more effort you waste that is fruitless. Forget helping the Democratic Party to find a “new direction.” They could not find a new direction if they had a Genie in a lamp to guide them.
- We need to build a mass movement with our own leadership first and foremost. Any assistance from the Democratic Party would be “icing on the cake.” The change is going to come from the people like you and me who owe nothing to the Democratic Party.
We need to start communications between all the anti-trump movements in the entire country. We need boots on the ground and willing hearts and minds. We need to take a different path than the fundraising path that so many organizations take. Time is money and if we can get people who are not rich but who will devote time and effort, we won’t need billions of advertising dollars to defeat trump.
If you think I am being too harsh in my criticism of the Democratic Party and you need more proof of what I am saying, then regard the following Democratic responses to the rather bold move by Rep Al Green to speak out against trump. The Democrats are subsequently considering joining an effort by the Republican Party to censure Rep Al Green. You might expect this kind of behavior from the Republicans, but it is from the Democrats themselves who are willing to censure Rep Green for his behavior. They should be giving him a medal.
“What [Green] did was inappropriate — and he became the story, not the price of eggs,” a centrist House Democrat said.
Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Don Davis (D-N.C.) said they are undecided about censuring Green.
Rep. George Latimer (D-N.Y.) said he felt the disruptions were “inappropriate.” He said, “When a president — my president, your president — is speaking, we don’t interrupt, we don’t pull those stunts.”
How many Republicans have ever been willing to censure Bobick or Green for their antics during Biden’s presidency? How many people spoke out against Adolf Hitler when he was speaking?
A give you a part of Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech which rings in my ears. I am taking the liberty to paraphrase it here:
“Trump is destroying our democracy and plans to set up a dictatorship. And what have we to oppose to him? Shall we try argument? We have been trying that for the last ten years with his followers. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted?”
“Let us not, I beseech you, deceive ourselves. We have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have sued, we have brought felony charges, we have demonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before friends and relatives and have implored their good intentions to arrest the tyrannical hands of trump and his sycophants. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt by trump and his followers.”
“In vain, after these things, there are still those who believe trump is bluffing and does not really mean to do what he says in plan 2025. There are those who indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation between opposing political positions. I say that there is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free– if we mean to preserve inviolate our democracy and its tolerance for the poor, the needy, the minorities and the weak — for which we have been so long contending–if we mean not basely to abandon the noble virtues in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon — we must fight! I repeat it, we must fight! Mass resistance is our only avenue, our only means and our only path to destroy this plague which has descended upon our country.” (My apologies to Patrick Henry)
Only by joining together with all people who believe in morals, ethics, democracy and integrity can we triumph over this scourge which threatens all of humanity. As Benjamin Franklin so wisely said “Either we all hang together, or we all hang separately.”
For more information on organizing to prevent an autocratic takeover, see the following document:
“Pro-democracy Organizing against Autocracy in the United States: A Strategic Assessment & Recommendations” — Harvard Kennedy School, Faculty Research Working Paper Series by Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks
You also might want to call any of the following if they are leaders in your state.
Aging Capriciously 