With both houses under Democratic control, legislation might be passed that would reinstate a fair distribution of tax burdens, election reform might be enacted, resolutions might be passed that would forbid wars of aggression. Following the approval of bills of impeachment by the House, conviction and removal of President Bush and possibly Dick Cheney by the Senate becomes a distinct possibility.
Accordingly, the GOP simply cannot allow the Democrats to win either house of the Congress, and they are fully capable of preventing a Democratic victory, regardless of the will of the voters, just as they have in recent elections.
And that situation is unprecedented in our history. So too, perhaps, must be the remedy. As Abraham Lincoln told the Congress in December, 1862: "The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."
A Proposal: A New Coalition.
Given the GOP control of the vote-counting mechanisms, it is quite possible that on Monday, November 6, the opinion polls will predict a Democratic landslide, and then on Wednesday, November 8, the day following the election, there will be press and pundit reports of yet another "Republican miracle."
What then? Will the American people finally wake up to the grim fact that they now live under the rule of a one-party dictatorship?
And if they do, will there be no the remedy for We the People, short of a counter-coup or armed insurrection?
Perhaps there is another way out, rarely discussed, but still plausible: a coalition of moderate Republicans (turned "Independent") and Democrats sufficient to reorganize each house of Congress, outvote the Bush loyalists, and initiate Congressional investigations of the crimes of the Bush administration and the GOP, including the crime of voting fraud. Today, that would require fifteen members of Congress and five Senators. Of course, come November, those numbers will change.
This happened as recently as June, 2001, with the defection of one Republican Senator: James Jeffords of Vermont. However, the resulting Democratic Senate turned out to be a toothless tiger that was overturned in the 2002 election, which suggests that even if the Democrats were to win in November, the result might fall far short of the hoped-for panacea.
The Jeffords defection, however, was an anomaly. Political coalitions, standard operating procedure in multi-party European parliaments, are almost unknown to American history. The closest approximation was the GOP-Southern Democrat alliance that ended with the mid-sixties civil rights legislation, which caused many Southern Democrats, including Strom Thurmond, Phil Gramm and Richard Shelby, to join the Republican party.
Following a pre-ordained Republican victory in November, is such a coalition possible? Not likely, and yet not impossible. Even today, numerous prominent Republicans outside of Congress have left the party. John Dean and Kevin Philips come immediately to mind. Around the country, several elected Republican officials or candidates have switched parties: In Kansas, nine former Republicans are now seeking office as Democrats. In Virginia, James Webb, a former Republican who served as Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Navy, is running for the Senate as a Democrat. Other defections can be found in South Carolina and Alabama. Perhaps such a trend might reach into the U.S. Congress.
If such a political realignment is to take place, the Congressional Democrats will have to make significant concessions. Much of the liberal/progressive agenda might have to be set aside for the short term. The newly-independent ex-Republicans and the Democrats would agree to unite in these few over-arching objectives: the restoration of a Constitutional Republic, of the rule of law, and of the international good will and reputation of the United States. In addition, the new coalition would work toward the marginalization of the right-wing extremism, theocracy, and regressivism that has captured the Republican Party, and toward the restoration of a moderate Republican Party. The Democrats should no more desire a one-party Democratic autocracy, than the current one-party regressive Republican regime.
Once a functioning two-party Congressional system is restored, the Democrats may resume the task of enacting progressive legislation.
Every GOP senator and congressperson took an oath to defend the Constitution of the US. None took an oath to defend the Republican Party. Who can deny that the Constitution is in urgent and immediate need of defense? Are there enough Republicans in Congress to join with the Democrats in a coalition that will preserve the Constitution and restore the rule of law?
Upon that question may depend a decisive reversal of our nation's slide toward unremitting despotism, and the restoration of our Constitutional republic.
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