About Playing Nicely After the Election

A number of Facebook friends have posted an idea which I support in principle. The idea is that the American republic and Constitution worked as designed. We properly elected a president, who won according to the rules, fair and square.  We are being urged to support that president-elect, to play nicely and work to ensure his success. This is how it should be.

But where was this sentiment for the past eight years? Where was the support for President Obama? How many Republicans worked to ensure his success?  Which Republicans supported him in any way?

Seriously, before you read any further, answer those questions for yourself.

Instead, there was every effort to de-legitimize and undermine his presidency.

In Congress, there were unprecedented delays in the approval of nominees to fill critical government posts. Congress acted to block every legislative initiative, regardless of merit. The stated goal, expressed by conservative pundits, congressmen and senators, was to deny President Obama any legislative victory. There would be no compromise on any bill, good or bad; no attempt to improve flawed bills that were needed to address the nation's urgent problems.

President Obama's signature piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act, extended health insurance coverage to about 22 million Americans (including my daughter), who otherwise would not be able to obtain health insurance.  To pass this piece of legislation, the President needed support.  He begged for any Republican votes, even a single vote.  And there were many ways in which Republicans could have participated to make the ACA a better bill.  Instead, the President had to meet the demands of the most liberal Democrats, to include unnecessary bells and whistles on the legislation.  And there were problems with the bill -- to the delight of Republicans who wanted it to fail.

And finally, the Republican Senate blocked of the nomination of Merrick Garland - a judge eminently qualified and praised by prominent Republicans-- to the Supreme Court for nearly one-quarter of Obama’s second term.

Outside of Congress, efforts to undermine President Obama included outlandish lies by the hundreds, gleefully shared by email and on social media.  Stealthier propaganda was disguised as advertising or news.  This includes deeply biased newscasts on television and radio, shading every event with negative innuendo.  It includes substantive false reporting about the state of the nation, in terms of employment, crime, immigration, and taxes -- falsehoods that were repeated in Republican campaign speeches for the past year.

This isn’t about Secretary Clinton, whom I saw as a flawed candidate, but infinitely better in terms of policy and temperament than Mr. Trump.  This is about the treatment of Barack Obama.  Although I sometimes did not agree with his judgment, he is one of the finest men to occupy the oval office in my lifetime.  That is not a subject for debate.  I think his presidency was stolen from the nation by conservative partisans.  Republicans did not play nicely.

Despite all misgivings, it is necessary to peacefully inaugurate Mr. Trump as President, although I feel that he rode a wave of deception, voter suppression and propaganda to victory.  But Democratic Congressional delegation must work to preserve the policy initiatives by President Obama, and strenuously oppose President Trump in his efforts to overturn that progress.

As I said in another post, many years ago I tried to express my about relations between different societies, countries, or individuals from different cultures.   It went something like this:

Celebrate that which is different.

Learn from that which is new and unexpected.

Respect that which you cannot understand. 

Tolerate things which to you are merely unpleasant.

Confront that which is evil.

The Republican Party has come to include something that is evil.  The evil is present not in all people, but is present at all levels of the party: in the leadership, in the right-wing media, and in the common citizens who support the party.  Those evil things include suppression of legitimate voters, de-legitimizing the presidency of President Obama through an outrageous series of lies, deliberate and false slander of President Obama and his programs, spreading false news reports to a gullible audience through social media, encouragement of racism and bigotry, and denial of scientific truth.  I'm sure there is more, but that is enough.  Our political conflict, our culture war, is profound enough that it can not be tolerated, but must be confronted by whatever means without resorting to violence.

So, I feel like I’ve been kicked down by a bully who extends his hand and says, “Let’s be friends!”
NO, I don’t think so.  I don’t see why the Democratic party should play nicely any more.