This past Sunday, the first Sunday of the new year, I decided to take a break from cleaning my cat’s room to see what was going on on Facebook. This is typically a bad idea, but this time it was extra frustrating/hilarious/wtf. The first thing I saw was this post by Dennis Crawford, who claims to be a “Prairie Progressive”, which contains this quote:
So this “prairie progressive” says straight up that the Democratic Party is not antifascist, which we all already knew as they prove it over and over by not only enabling right wing extremists and fascists, but even inviting them to join the Democratic Party. Everyone from the Dems on the Lincoln Public Schools Board and the Omaha City Council all the way up to Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden have proven they care more about perceived power and “keeping the peace” and not hurting Nazi feelings than they do about gay people, non-white people, poor people, immigrants, victims of gun violence, people caught up in the “justice” system, disabled people, kids, women, or really any average person just trying to fucking live these days.
It is not an opinion that the Democrats are right wing capitalist sellouts, it is a fucking fact. Most of Nebraska’s Democratic Senators voted to pass Ricketts’s steaming pile of shit “tax relief” bill that will do nothing but defund public schools and social services while making Little Peter and his friends even richer. Here we see Mayor Leirion cheerfully normalizing fascist Governor Pete Ricketts by standing next to him and serving soup for a photo opp on Thanksgiving in 2019.
The Dems in both Lincoln and Omaha continue to support and give raises to the police despite both the Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office and the Omaha Police Department having been called out nationwide by ProPublica for committing human rights abuses against peaceful protestors. In October, one of the cops named in that ProPublica article, Captain Ben Houchin, was promoted to Chief Deputy and not one single prominent Democrat said a word, despite presumably having seen the video of him forcefully throwing a woman to the ground by her braids a mere second after telling her to “get out of here”. (Video is linked here) A few months ago the Lincoln Police Department decided it would be a good idea to serve a warrant on a person they presumed to be an armed and dangerous individual, in the heart of Lincoln, in the middle of a school day, with no regard for the safety of the children at the elementary school half a block away. I can assure you the cops would NEVER have pulled this stunt near an elementary school in a rich white neighborhood, and if they had, those parents would be suing the unholy shit out of them right now for traumatizing their kids. The terrified kids had to go into hiding instead of eating their lunch and worse, a cop got killed, and Mayor Leirion decided to put that murdered cop’s widow on her police oversight board.
The Democrats on the Omaha City Council just unanimously voted in Colleen Brennan, a racist conspiracy-theory enthusiast who doesn’t think COVID is that big of a deal and who defended Don Kleine to take the place of fascist GOP darling Rich Pahls. During last year’s Legislative session two Democrats, two Democrat women, Senator Sue Crawford and Senator Lynne Walz, voted in favor of Senator Suzanne Geist’s fascist abortion ban. Wannabe prominent Democrat Brad Ashford publicly endorsed god’s gift to white supremacist teens Don Bacon. The COVID positive percentage rate in Lincoln for the week so far this week is 40.6%, and Lincoln Public Schools are back in session, just business as usual, with no regard at all for the safety of our teachers, staff, and kids because everyone in town is too cowardly to stand up to Ricketts.
Most horrifically, a ten year old girl from El Salvador died in Omaha and her life was immediately erased – not one word from the Nebraska Democrats.
So, Dennis is correct – Democrats are not antifascists. They are cowards and fascist enablers and capitalist sellouts and upholders of white supremacy.
The right has known for years that concession is bullshit, ever since they flung open the doors to the Tea Party (remember when we thought the Tea Party was extreme?). They just go right and keep going right. The center right Democratic Party agrees with them more than they do the center left (because they are capitalist sellouts), so everyone moved right. The only way to progress is to push from the left and stop welcoming the right. Believing that people shouldn’t die because of hunger or racism or lack of health care or back-alley abortions or toxic masculinity or police violence or capitalism isn’t radical thinking. It’s the least we should all commit to. If the Democrats can’t say they are antifascist, they should stop claiming they are working for the people.
