The framers of our Constitution feared three things above all: kingship, religious influence and foreign interference in our political processes. Today, thanks in large part to the Republican party, we have a dictator-king, evangelicals and other religious zealots interfering in secular legislative matters and a clearly identified assault on our electoral processes by Russia above all, and probably other foreign governments.
We are in a game. We are in a vital, frightening game for survival, and the democratic republic called the United States of America is in danger of losing. The game is between the majority Democratic party electorate and the minority Republican citizenry. In order to play this particular game, the most important outcome of which will be the election of the next President of the United States, on November 3, 2020, we need balls. We need a large number of balls, balls of high quality. In the political game, these are called policies. The point of the game is to dribble and score, shoot through hoops on our end of the court projects, laws, regulations and protections that will benefit the American people, all the American people, and temporary and long-term visitors.
We Democrats have the best policies, the highest quality balls with which to win the game. We propose these policies as we play the game, we legislate these policies as we play the game, or promise to legislate them when we win; and we vow to protect and improve these policies as needed, later. We choose these policies because we Democrats actually believe that all men and women are created equal and that they are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We Democrats believe the promise of the framers of the Constitution that the laws in this document to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare of all Americans must be implemented and defended. We Democrats believe that with these balls we can win the game, and thereby protect and improve the conditions of our nation and all nations and the earth itself.
We promote these policies, not in isolation. We are playing the game for the benefit of American citizens. We ask the American people, who elect an executive to supervise, a bicameral Congress to legislate and fund, and an elaborate judiciary system to implement, promote and protect the policies that the majority of American citizens favor and demand and have a right to expect from their elected representatives.
The game is underway. The game used to be called civics in the classroom, sometimes political science, and these days, by almost everyone, politics. Politics. The collective affairs of the people of the city, its Greek origin tells us. This is our game.
We have the balls. We Democrats have the balls, the policies that Americans favor. The policies that the majority of our party and the majority of the entire American electorate and citizenry favor. Their will, the majority will, is what makes a democracy a democracy.
What do they wish? We, Democrats, favor and honor their wishes. The American people, in majority numbers overall including all parties, favor gun controls, the limited and regulated ownership of certain high-powered weapons intended only for use by trained military personnel, and not even by most civilian law enforcement officers. The requirement of registration and a license to own a gun; the sale of a gun only to an adult, and only following his background check. The majority of Americans polled on the question favor a woman’s right—and her man’s— to choose abortion when subject to unplanned or unwanted or unsustainable pregnancy. We hold that ball in our court.
We, Democrats, support equal pay for equal work for women who do the same work or provide the same service as men in equal situations, in the Federal government, as well as in the public sector. Republicans don’t carry that ball. We Democrats will protect and strengthen the Social Security system. Republicans long to bounce that ball into private corporate hands. We carry the ball-stamped Medicare. Democrats, with majority public support, will strengthen the Affordable Care Act. The Republican health care bill is stamped insurance corporations and Big Pharma. Immigration laws need above all to provide more judges to clear applications for United States citizenship. Republican xenophobes dribble a ball labeled the Presidential pronouncement, “The United States is full.” We majority Democrats know that the right thing to do is to naturalize DACA men and women. Republicans keep passing that ball around the court, without taking a shot.
Democrats, inspired these days by the soulful memory of John Lewis, will attack the basket again to score a new Voting Rights Bill, to keep the game honest. While Republicans re-apportion and re-district constituencies and suppress votes.
All other world governments and the Democratic party recognize the damaging effects of global warming. All acknowledge the scientific data that show human industrial and agricultural practices are responsible for the rapid rise in temperatures worldwide that literally inflame the earth; and for the poisoning of the air, the land and the waters by the fossil fuel corporate-industrial complex. The Republican party, unique among nations, denies the scientific facts and the corroborating evidence collected and labels the entire climate change phenomenon a hoax. No balls. Democrats are dribbling and shooting in the court of awareness.
The US Postal Service is one of the two most respected American Federal institutions—along with the U.S. military—and it is remarkably efficient. It has been pummeled and bounced around by the Republican party for several decades in an effort to weaken it, delegitimize it, and condemn it to private ownership. Their efforts threaten a fair election. Their obstruction and efforts to discredit the Postal Service itself is another example of cheating to win. Because they do not have the balls to win honestly. One Democratic ball can legitimately be said to carry the patriotic logo “In honor of the USPS.”
In honor of the United States Postal Service, which is being dishonorably weaponized by the Republican party to do what they can’t do honestly: play a fair game. They do not have the balls.
When one team does not have the balls, it can’t play the game. If it can’t play the game, the only chance it has of winning is to cheat and lie. If Republicans keep repeating that this economy is a Republican economy, it is lying. This economy is the longest continuously growing economy in our history. It started in the Democratic administration of President Barak Obama. It has not yet been halted by the present Republican leadership. But it will be. Unless Democrats take over in time, on January 20, 2021. We have the balls. They don’t.
Some of the Republican cheating can’t be remedied. Many—too many—ultra-Conservative judges have been appointed by the grim reaper and approved by the block-voting lockstep Republican Senate. Many of these judges, as reported by the legitimate watchdogs who rate them, according to their evaluations, are under-qualified for their high, lifetime appointed positions. The Republicans did not have the balls, that is, the declared will of the majority electorate, so they stuffed in and railroaded through their ideological enforcers as quickly and invisibly as they could. By winning in November, we Democrats can halt the cheats and lies, and prevent further damage to our judicial system. Americans want qualified justices. We Democrats represent the majority. We have the balls.
If they had had the balls, they would have welcomed Democratic opinions for a bipartisan or compromised decision in every case. If you don’t have the balls, bend, even break the system of laws, to win. On the Supreme Court sit two bent-law appointees, situated to influence for decades policies, inevitably, favored by only a minority of United States citizens. We Democrats had the balls, but we didn’t have the court.
We have the balls to win, this time. And we must. We have the balls, for this election, to win the court advantage. To win the game.
A pandemic is killing thousands worldwide. We have had these before. On the Democrat watch of Barak Obama and Joe Biden, a plan to deal with future pandemics was written and preserved. The Democratic president handled the Ebola crisis so well that few died. He had the balls. He played the leadership game and won for the United States. The plan to check a future pandemic was scuttled by the Republican president and his Republican Senate. They threw away the ball. Principally because the plan bore the name of his predecessor, not because it wasn’t useful. When we win in November, our plan will be activated, and Democrats will rescue the nation once again.
This president is dangerous. The evidence is clear. He must not win. Democrats must prevail. We have the balls to win again. We’ll play the election game and win. The majority of our national electorate are on our side. If they play with us, they can’t lose. And even if the Republicans cheat and lie, they can’t win. The stands are full of voters who favor our team. They came out to games all across the nation in the mid-terms. They cheered and voted, and Democrats, playing with superior balls, won…. bigly. Republicans will lose this time, too. Because they don’t have the balls.