Mr. Harrison: Can you Wake the Democratic Party up to the war we all face?

 Memo to Jamie Harrison

Chair,

Democratic National Committee

Washington D.C. July 18, 2022

Good morning Mr. Harrison:

Although I have joined the growing group of American people/voters who believe that the country is unravelling, ‘going to hell in a handbasket’ if you like, and have given up on dedicating effort to writing op-ed’s to reflect my angst, disappointment and concern, nevertheless, last night my wife and I watched the documentary on Bernie Steve Bannon on CNN. Earlier in the day, clips of Senator Bernie Sanders exposing his contempt for Joe Manchin for having sabotaged Biden’s environmental package were aired, as an ‘existential threat for all humanity’ (a sentiment and conviction with which I totally concur).

Sadly, I am left with no option this morning but to write to you to encourage, support, counsel, even to beg, ( I have no shame here!), to rally all of the forces, human, financial, time, energy, creativity and courage within the Democratic Party to re-focus the party’s and all of the public spokespersons’, including candidates for election, on the danger already injected into the American body politic by Bannon and his acolytes, sycophants and terrorists. Linked to other far-right deconstructionists like Orban, Le Pin, Balsonaro, LaFarge, and likely even Putin, Bannon is alleged to be determined to wage a scorched-earth war against Democrats and neo-liberals, against internationalism, against international refugees, migrants all in the name of something called the Judao-Christian culture. His adulation of Reni Reifenstahl, Hitler’s communications agent, and the maker of the historic film, Triumph of the Will, and his control and manipulation of ‘a very imperfect instrument but…an armor-piercing shell’ (Donald Trump) linked to his relentless, “oracle” role in each and every disaster inflicted by trump on himself and the world, make Bannon a far more toxic and cancerous political operative than Mr. Manchin.

And, what’s more, Mr. Harrison, the Democratic Party, given its woke-reliance on the legal system, and the Justice Department for a criminal indictment of the former president, like Sanders’ strong opposition to Manchin, fails to take as seriously as required, the battle they (and we, including Canada and the rest of the civilized world) currently face. If Manchin is blocking any move in the Senate to address the existential threat of climate change and global warming, (clearly, he is!) then what are we to make of the role Bannon is playing on the American and the global stage? Without a functioning government, (and by functioning that includes and implies and demands the full force of all of the instruments and processes of democracy), who is going to take action against those right-wing deep pockets like the Koch’s and others, whose cash has been underwriting the Bannon conspiracy, effectively underwriting political terrorism and its agents, while slipping past two impeachments, two fraudulent presidential elections (aided and armed by Putin’s agents), a reactionary political ideology that strips “Roe” from the law books, and has already set its sights on contraception, mixed marriage, and who knows what else?

A perspective that is fixated on tackling each individual political issue on its own merits, as if it were being argued before a court, has already cost two presidential elections. Without a fully-acknowledged and addressed “gestalt” that holds Bannon and his army as the most dangerous opponent of the actual state, the United States of America, fixed in the cross-hairs of all of the many weapons (rhetorical, intellectual and emotional, and even and especially ethical) that are at the disposal of the Democratic Party, the hubristic prediction and vision that the “republicans” will take over the House, the Senate and the White House, and then rule for 100 years, as Bannon shouts, cannot be dismissed as empty rhetoric.

“Attack, Attack, Attack,” regardless of whatever crisis might crop up, in the headwinds of Bannon, is nothing short of a declaration of war….not unlike the overt and lethal declaration of war that Putin has imposed on Ukraine, and whichever country he might choose next. If the Bannon strategy and tactics have not already galvanized the Democratic brain-trust, (presuming that such a “trust” can arrive at a committed consensus, a singularity of opinion, based on the overwhelming evidence of destroy and divide, that governs the Bannon tyranny/terror), then one has to ask, what more evidence is needed?

We know that catastrophizing has been relegated to the trash-bin of political rhetoric, except by those under the seductive persuasion of Bannon. However, given that the world is and has faced multiple crises over the last several years, (and we are not out of the woods on any of those previous crises), and given that Bannon’s tactics and strategies have bent the body politic into a twisted vortex of hate, violence, lies, deception and tyranny, (not the least of which has seen three new highly questionable appointees to the Supreme Court), can the Democrats not both see and seize the moment for what it really is?

We also know that Bannon’s whole world view is premised on arousing, and then capitalizing on that arousal of, the fear among millions of Americans that “something is deeply wrong in the ‘state of Denmark’ (to borrow from Macbeth). Left-leaning intellectuals who have formal education, who speak in language that is not replete with hate, anger and venom, but rather is sprinkled with nuance and sensibilities, adherence of and respect for the rules of the game, both formal and informal, legal and procedural, who then attempt to defend what has been taken for granted for over two centuries, as the dependable  institutional framework of the American experiment in democracy,  are literally no match for either the venom, hate and bull-headed determination of a fanatical tyrant like Bannon, nor of the puppet trump, merely a pawn in his tyrannical mind-manipulation. And, unless and until that realization becomes an integral component of the brain-and-mind-set of the Democrats, it is not only the loss of the mid-term elections that is at stake. Indeed, if Bannon et al are allowed to continue unopposed in the most clarifying and even clairvoyant and ‘call-to-arms’ rhetoric, by the most honourable, respected and vigorous among the Democratic ‘stable’ of talent, we are all facing a future depleted of much of the hope many of us continue to include in our vision of the future of the world.

Racism, environmental catastrophe, a renewed arms race in many quarters, an attempt at ghettoizing minorities who are not either Jewish or Christian, in the name of some fabricated deity whose identity and purview seem known and accessible only to those brainy enough to drink Bannon’s kool-aid….these are just some of the potential risks that follow the air-raids of Bannon rhetoric that, like those Russian missiles and rockets landing on apartment and office and hospital and school buildings in Ukraine, will leave little of what we know as the evolving, progressive, compassionate and aspiring-for-equality-and-justice we are dedicated to preserving and enhancing.

And, please do not even for a moment think that Bannon’s impact and influence is or can be restricted and restrained within the borders of the American state. Deconstruction, chaos and nihilism, are the precursors of anarchy, and even the former German Ambassador to the United States, upon hearing Bannon address his colleagues in his home land, expressed “fear” about the havoc he can and will create. The Germans actually thought and believed that they had rid themselves and their nation from such political thought, and the tyranny it brought. And then, it all came back to their consciousness, (likely their conscience) as well, in and through the Bannon experience.

Let them call you racist, a bigot,….wear them as a badge of courage…these are the kind of words for which Bannon is infamous. And those are the kind of attitudes that, like the tumors that have invaded the lives of millions, seem so far out of the reach of both the research and the clinical trial community in the political arena. In fact, given the world’s avoidance, denial and dismissal of those phrases like “Never again” and “war to end all wars”…. birthed following two world wars, it is not either surprising nor unexpected that another voice like that of the Fuhrer has arrived on the stage in plain sight and within earshot of the world’s eyes and ears….

Can  and will those voices in the Bannon arsenal waken the minds and the hearts and the bodies and the consciences of the Democratic Party in the United States? And can those voices and attitudes and ideology, based as they are on the overweening need for and will to power that drives Bannon and his surrogates/sycophants….including three highly susceptible and highly manipulated women in Georgia featured on the documentary who have been seduced into drinking the Bannon cocktail…one now a candidate for the Georgia Legislature, another a Precinct Captain…along with the hundreds of others across the nation who have put their names forward for elections to positions like State Secretary of State, in charge of elections, or even for Governor in Pennsylvania, who publicly claims to be able to control the election in his state, if elected. In fact, such a claim is one of the more prominent planks in his election campaign….

Imagine, running on a promise of being able to overturn the election results in his state, if the result of the public vote is not to his and his followers’ liking! And there are hundreds, potentially thousands, who, fully convinced that the election of 2020 was stolen and fraudulent, are now committed to assuring the American people that Donald Trump, having been wronged in the last election, shall prevail in 2024.

Mr. Harrison, in closing, please speak to Senator Sanders, and attempt to convince him that his rhetoric, passion and ethical force and energy are desperately needed by the party and the country, along with that of all other prominent Democratic leaders, to go to battle in the fight against not only the tyranny that is Putin and Orban and LePin and Bolsonaro and others, but is also, right within the United States itself..in  bannon/trump/desantis/youngkin/mastriano/taylor-green and many others….

There is no time to waste!

Respectfully,

A Canadian observer.