We cannot give them an inch

[ehrnst]

18. I think right now Democracy is being held hostage by terrorists.

Some, like Israel, might take the position that you never negotiate with terrorists, you don't make deals, you just demand that they come out with their hands up, or you blow up the building and burn it all down. Don't even give them a minute of time, or an inch in their demands.

But if your goal is to get the hostages out alive, you understand the need for strategy. You let the expert hostage negotiaters do their job, in peace, out of the media, no matter how impatient people are for someone to DO something.

The familes and kids killed in the Branch Davidian standoff were casualties of impatience and the pressure of the public and the authorities for an end to it. Hostage negotiators were not listened to when they said that going before Koresh was ready would be disastrous. The authorities thought that they were looking weak in the press, because people were outraged at the reports about child abuse in the Branch Davidians, and wanted retribution on Koresh.

I don't want the same thing to happen to our democracy, because people think that there is somehow a way to prevent the GOP from doing things that only the courts can stop - and sometimes not even they can do it. I think that Congress is in the role of hostage negotiator, and pressuring them for RESULTS RIGHT NOW instead of letting them handle this in the way that gets the most out alive (including giving us the best chance at the Senate in 2020), is giving the GOP the gift of distracting Congress from doing what they need to do.

I know, it's overwhelming to confront overwhelming powerlessness in a situation, especially if one has grown up with the privilege of being white, and one's demands that something be changed RIGHT NOW are usually acted on. White people are faced with the first time a system that that isn't responding to their demands, and want need someone to blame for not FIXING THIS RIGHT NOW. Someone MUST be able to do SOMETHING about this!!!!!

But right now, the RW has power, and there is actually little we can do about it before 2020. We have seen firsthand the weaknesses and loopholes in the constitution and laws that allow them to hang on to it. No "manager" can fix this situation right now, no matter how much you rage at them, no matter how much you threaten to get them fired.