the doom

Before the doom hit yesterday the news was the muslim travel ban being upheld.  This alarmed me a bit, but it wasn't completely unexpected.  Then the supremes put a nail in the coffin of unions, well who didn't see that happening?

But then the big news was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the young socialist woman who defeated long time dem stalwart Joe Crowley in the Bronx. Cable TV was making a lot of it but it seemed a lot of ado about not much to me.  I just went to the google machine and it appears that Crowley had close ties to Wall Street.  I don't know, don't all incumbents have close ties to the money men, isn't that how they remain incumbents?  Isn't that the American way?  Not that it's completely alright, those guys in the pockets of the Kochs and Adelson certainly carry it too far.  

Another thing against him was that he sent a surrogate to one of the primary debates.  Well that's bad, no way around that.  

The third factor was, well let me quote one of my watercolorist friends on fb.  Old white guys being replaced by young multicultural women? Finally the future has arrived!   I replied, Yup and now she is coming after an old white woman, Nancy Pelosi.  My watercolorist friend by the way is an old white woman.  I mean if my friend had said rah socialism, or serves the bum right for skipping that debate, I could see her point. but to target him simply because he is an old white man, it's just not right.

And then there is that other angle, the split in the democratic party that has remained papered over, the Bernies (Alexandria was a Bernie campaign worker) vs the Hillarys.  Potential problems down the road but I don't see them surfacing until around the 2020 election campaign, but election campaigns start earlier every year.  If I go back to the young Uncle Ken, who wanted to vote for the Peace and Freedom party, but was afraid that when he got into the polling booth he would pull the lever for The Hump (Dump the Hump), so he didn't register to vote in the 68 election, I guess I would like young Alexandria.  And I guess I still believe in those ideals, but I don't see them working, and more importantly I don't see them winning elections.  The old Uncle Ken would be more likely to go with Old Joe Crowley, a seasoned pro in the progressive wing who has maybe made a few missteps, but who is old hasn't?  The young seem so simon pure because they haven't been around long enough to make missteps.

But all that was blown to smithereens by the doom, the retirement of Justice Kennedy.  Holy shit.

The reps have the prez and the reps have the senate and there is nothing to keep them from getting this done before the 2018 elections.  The only hope I see is the reps getting into a fight where the ruby reds get into a fight with the tomato reds over a really really really right wing guy and a merely really right wing guy, and neither one will give an inch, like in that immigration and DACA thing lately.  It's a slim hope, but that is all we dems have this Thursday morning.