I was reading an article in The Hill penned by Jonathan Turley discussing upcoming Democrat plans to investigate Republican lawmakers in regard to the January 6 riot commission. The FBI recently released a report stating there was almost zero evidence that there was anything approaching a coordinated attack on the Capital building that day. Not satisfied with this assessment, Democrats have decided to begin a massive “subpoena tsunami” in search of any type of dirt they can use to smear their political enemies.
This isn’t part of a new playbook being developed and run by Democrats. Adam Schiff led with this tactic two years ago leading up to impeachment proceedings. The Democrat in charge of this year’s dirty tricks is following Schiff’s footsteps from two years ago – even going so far as to bar the companies from informing targets their communications are under investigation. When the Democrats don’t have hard evidence, they have no problem abusing our system of both laws and norms to try and find some political advantage.
The Pressure Begins Building
I’m old enough to remember when it was the right that was the aggressors but over the past decade it’s almost solely Democrats and the illiberal left that continue to escalate on almost every front - be it the Culture War or dismantling long-standing political norms. I think it’s even possible to pinpoint the exact moment the left became unburdened by past norms and rules with the 2013 change by Harry Reid to get rid of the filibuster on most judicial and executive branch nominees, allowing the Senate to confirm those picks with a simple majority vote. It seems to have only snowballed since that time.
After the Chosen One (a.k.a. Hillary Clinton) lost to Trump in 2016 the Democrats threw the baby out with the bathwater and their mania and phobia knew no bounds. Urged on by the corporate media Russia Truthers, everyone was a Russian spy. Everyone was a racist member of the Klan. Donald Trump or one of his underlings was bound to be frog-marched out of the White House at any moment. White House officials were chased out of restaurants while Maxine Waters whipped the frothing masses to confront administration staffers in department stores and gasoline stations.
Not content with inciting possible violence by the likes of evil toads like Waters, Democrats then decided to use impeachment as a pure political process and went to work to impeach Donald Trump not once but twice. The second time they impeached, they had won an election and rather than being content and magnanimous with this turn of events they removed a man from office that wasn’t even in office. To Democrats, this is what passes for sound logic.
It didn’t end with Trump’s departure from the White House. Now completely maniacal and unhinged at this point, every far left idea that could possibly keep them in power was now unleashed as something “necessary to keep our democracy.” Add D.C. and Puerto Rico as states to get four more Democratic senators? Why not? Federalize elections? Sure! Abolish the electoral college? That one is a no brainer! Pack the Supreme Court? You’d have to be stupid not to!
Tit for Tat is Not the Answer
This leads to the question of what can Republicans do about this insanity and the obvious problem is that they are technically damned if they do and damned if they don’t. In a perfect world, Republicans could take the high road, recognize that the continuing escalation is tearing the country apart, and be the adults in the room. They could hopefully pull enough independents and disaffected Democrats to achieve a coalition and maybe Democrat politicians will realize that moderation is their only way back into power. This steadies the ship, calms passions, and the steam evaporates from a pressure cooker which was ready to blow.
Of course, this isn’t that perfect world. After Democrats removed the filibuster for federal judges, Republicans changed the filibuster so it didn’t apply to Supreme Court judges which yielded a 6-3 conservative majority and the absolute insanity of the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings where Democrats had to pretend to believe a woman that couldn’t remember more details other than that Brett Kavanaugh and one his friends supposedly assaulted her. Blasey-Ford’s own friend discounted her recollection of the event. That was followed by Senators asking what the meaning of the word “boof” was while they poured over a teenager’s summer calendar as their fever pitch of desperation to find anything at all on a man who seemed to have lived a good life and had been a mentor to woman and girls was targeted for character assassination.
Frankly, the odds of Biden impeachment proceedings being started if Republicans take the House I put at 8 out of 10 - even if there’s no possibility the Senate would remove. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander and the Democrats have this coming to them in spades. You don’t get to wield the political cudgel in bad faith and not get a smack of it yourself. Republicans should fight back. To not do so at this point would make them look weak and ineffectual. Republicans can not continue to be speed bumps as Democrats push the country further and further left. There is a certain class of voter that will peel off. It’s not enough to slow down Democrats. At some point, they will need to be stopped and reeled back towards the center.
A Possible Solution
This leads to why America needs a stronger third party. America is so divided at the moment that there may not be a way of stepping back from the brink with the parties aligned as they are right now. The Republican party is clearly becoming more hostile and eager to engage with the left in the fight to stop them. The left in its zealousness and self-righteousness feels entitled to pursue political power via any means necessary.
The corporate media (which is slowly dying) still wields an outsize influence and they are firmly committed to the causes of the left and are often marked by outright hostility to the right. The tech oligarchs regularly censor opposing viewpoints and even verified facts if it doesn’t fit their causes. In the current media environment that so often consists of “bubbles” there simply isn’t going to be a way to cobble together a majority when both sides have their own set of facts. Beyond the scrum, there’s no clear path to dominance for either side.
What would a viable third party look like? It most likely be would a centrist party as the extremes are already well covered via the two current dominant parties (more so on the left than the right). The effect on the political outcome would essentially be the same regardless if it was center left or center right. A center left party would reign in some of the craziness we’ve seen on the Democratic side of the aisle. A center right party would reign in the tit-for-tat escalations that Republicans have to engage in to not look weak and maybe rein in some of the more outspoken and cringe pols on the right.
We’ve already begun a great realignment in politics. Who saw Jen Rubin becoming a Biden sycophant? Or Ann Coulter praising Joe Biden’s disaster of a withdraw from Afghanistan? How about Gleen Greenwald or Jimmy Dore going on Tucker every now and then? The parties are changing as the upper class, college educated, suburbanites become the party of Democrats and the party of the working class shifts Republican. 20 years ago in Kentucky, this state was completely blue. Now, it’s deep red.
Once these big shifts and shake-outs are completed, there’s a good opportunity for a the rise of a third party as more minor and nuanced shifts occur. Not everyone that has switched party affiliations is going to be completely happy with what they’ve found in their new party and there’s certainly going to be ideas brought over that don’t mesh 100%. That’s a good thing. Let’s continue to hope new blood shakes up the old orthodoxy and if we can get a third party that can be a moderating force – that can only be a positive for the country.