There is a terrible inevitability to tragedy. The characters are locked in their roles in a way that, afterward, seems foreordained. Willy Loman goes out on the road, trying to sell his unnamed product. Mary Tyrone slips upstairs for more medicine. “Another shot in the arm!” her son shouts. Oedipus takes a wife.
And while each struggles against the tightening bonds of fate, it’s as if they’ve been seized at the elbows by the marshals of implacable destiny and are being firmly escorted toward a grim appointment.
Hard not to feel that way since New Hampshire anointed Donald Trump, while Republican VP hopefuls strain forward like a classroom of eager 2nd graders, arms waving, straining in their sockets — “Me me me!” — the tone of the mainstream media sags, like a newspaper left out in the rain, already damp with defeat.
Meanwhile, Democrats assemble into their traditional circular firing squad. When I read an article by Audrey Hettleman in Wednesday’s Sun-Times about a group called Bodies Outside of Unjust Laws: Coalition for Reproductive Justice and LGBTQ+ Liberation planning a protest the day before the start of the Democratic National Convention in August, my first thought was: Why? Protest to whom?
Aren’t the Democrats the good guys regarding reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights? Did I miss something? Maybe the BOUL:CRJ&LGBTQ+L would prefer to go to Milwaukee to bring their message to the Republican convention, but lack carfare. It seems a shoestring operation.
”For years the Democrats have taken us for granted, thereby enabling the far right’s attacks on us,” their press release stated.
What’s that line from “Fatal Attraction”? “I’m not going to be ignored!”
It can’t be mere wounded pride. Can it? I tried to follow their logic. So if only the Democrats had ... what? Taken them more seriously ... then those Republicans would ... I couldn’t quite make sense of it.
Maybe they could offer insight. I caught organizer Andy Thayer getting into an Uber.
”We’ve had 50 years of the anti-abortion Hyde amendment,” he began. “Plenty of years when the Democrats had both houses of Congress and the presidency and could have repealed that.”
The Hyde Amendment, for those just joining us, is a 1976 law restricting the federal government from funding abortion. Rather than repeal it, Congress has approved it, year after year. Then again, most Americans, while supporting choice for themselves, are against the government paying for other people’s abortions.
Thayer argued that by assuming those on the left will fall in line, Democrats shift right, drawn by the gravitational pull of Republicans.
”Over the last half century, the Democrats have played a game of stealing the Republicans’ thunder,” he said. “The classic example of when President Obama took Romneycare, getting the Republicans to go even further right, denouncing their previous plan.”
Looking back to the summer of 1968, the anti-war youth of America gathered in Chicago, battled police, and helped usher in Richard Nixon, who’d keep the war machine grinding on for five more years, greased with American blood. Good work, kids.
I wondered: Do you see a difference between Donald Trump and Joe Biden?
”Unfortunately, on more and more issues it’s becoming, they have different rhetoric, but you end up with the same border wall,” said Thayer, before softening. “No, they’re not the same. The Democratic Party failures have played a big role in giving us creeps like Trump. They’re the ones who set up Trump as their opponent. That’s clearly who Biden wanted to run against.”
Trying to be thorough, I sought out Kristi Keorkunian-Rivers, another protest organizer. Does the justification matter if they end up supplying images for Fox News to terrify their sheep into defeating Biden?
”I would say that if the Democrats lose then they didn’t meet expectations, not that our disobedience is the problem,” said Keorkunian-Rivers. “Democrats will never shift to more appropriate policies until we make them. Left to their own devices, they just slide more and more to the right.”
Well, I suppose if you consider yourself the spoon that stirs the pot, your duty is clear. Me, I’d rather step back and let Democrats huff on the flickering ember of enthusiasm for Old Joe for a few days this August. Obviously not gonna happen.
What was that line of Ann Richards, the governor of Texas back when a Democrat could do that. Oh yes: “I’ve always said that in politics, your enemies can’t hurt you, but your friends will kill you.”
