OPINION: Don't Let the Perfect Become the Enemy of Good

Let’s not complicate matters. The central thing at stake is Democracy in America. Our very form of representative governance, with its constitutionally mandated foundation built upon the Separation of Powers, and limits on those powers by a system of Checks and Balances, is being dismantled piece by piece right before our eyes. This isn’t sensationalism or alarmist exaggeration. It’s happening right now.

Another thing that’s not super complicated is how We got here. The We I am speaking of lost bigly in the last election, and it inhabits a very large tent. It includes Democrats and Republicans. White people and people of color. Immigrants and Indigenous folks. The credentialed class and the working class.

In short, the We I’m addressing here is everyone who agrees that the only legitimate and acceptable form of government is one that operates with our consent and one which we may directly influence and exert constraint over with our voice and our vote.

But all of us who care about Constitutional Democracy lost the election to a person leading a party who demonstrably couldn’t care less about the Constitution, Democracy, or the Rule of Law.   

Donald Trump’s Republican Party is presently trying to replace Representative Democracy in America with autocratic fascism. This means power consolidated in the executive branch designed to benefit specific populations, to the detriment of absolutely everyone else.
 
Make no mistake, team Trump is trying to make America a Dictatorship.
Many people who voted for Trump may not know what this means, and they wouldn’t like it if they did. Many of them only felt, and made known, that the ideas of the far left had left them out of the conversation altogether. 

Seizing the opportunity Trump went full fascist and only a literal handful of Republicans resisted. Wedge issues like transgender rights were successfully used to further divide the nation.

A critical mass of the Democratic Party, for its part, has been pushing a kind of supremacist factionalism too, one that disenfranchised historically Democratic voters by the tens of millions. The perspectives which alienated many are based on a kind of supremacy of viewpoint espoused by far-leftists.

It includes things like Critical Race Theory and Intersectional Feminism. To be certain, these perspectives shed light on some of the sources and causes of institutional and systemic bigotry and oppression in modern day America. But to insist that anyone not signing on and supporting wholesale, the entire suite of associated sociological theories, is to be reviled and shunned as a benighted bigot, is a form of ideological supremacy. It is also ableist insofar as there is a relatively high intellectual threshold to be able to grasp aspects of these theories associated with graduate level university study.

The Fascist Party of Donald Trump understands these dynamics and is taking full advantage of the unforced errors of the Democratic Party. But it is the entire nation and not just the Democratic Party which is suffering as a result.

Immediately following the election, major news outlets published editorials calling for a “great reckoning” of the Democratic Party. That reckoning is yet to happen. 

Recent reporting on NPR reflected that Latino and Black populations felt the Democratic Party had left them behind with their focus on gender and LGBTQ2S+ related issues.

Vice President Kamala Harris gave her opponents the red meat they wanted when she answered in the affirmative that in effect, the U.S. Government is morally bound to use American taxpayer dollars to pay for gender affirming healthcare to incarcerated undocumented immigrants. That may in fact be the ethical position. But seeing as how the healthcare of incarcerated U.S. citizens is woefully negligent, a focus on the gender-care rights of incarcerated and undocumented individuals, was simply a bridge too far for the everyday Joe and Joanne. 

In 2023, in a televised hearing, U.S. Congressman Mark Takano (D) California, was asked if biological males who identify as female, should be allowed to compete with biological females, Takano’s reply was: “The Short answer is yes.” He went on to clarify that it really should be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

But the soundbite, taken out of context, was nevertheless exploited ad infinitum by the internet environs of the far right. 

The social pressure on Vice President Harris and Congressman Takano, from their peers in the educated, professional, and managerial classes was, and remains, so great that any hesitation in saying transgender females should be allowed to compete in sports with biological females… would place them firmly outside the ingroup. They would be labeled as transphobic bigots.

More recently, in the aftermath of what is being called the worst fire in Los Angeles history, LAFD Deputy Chief Kristine Larson addressed concerns that female fire fighters might not be physically strong enough to carry a man out of a burning building, saying, “He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.”

So, full grown men are exempt from receiving emergency services? And it’s their fault if they need them? It is not at all hard to imagine why vast swaths of voting males chose Trump over Vice President Harris.

The Civil Rights movement in America has come a very long way since 1964. Is it perfect? No, not by a long shot. But if our civil rights are lost to the fascist party of Donald Trump, these rights will not be easily won back.

Let’s not give up on Democracy simply because it is not yet as fair, just, and equitable as we would like to be. It will be difficult to protect the civil rights of people of color and LGBTQ2S+ populations in a totalitarian dictatorship.

Midterm elections are in about 21 months. The choice is ours to make. We can continue doubling down on the cult of moral purity, the assertion that no population in human history has ever been as morally superior, decent, or respectable as that of the far-left.

No social, political, religious, ethnic, or ideological group of people has ever had, nor ever will have, an exclusive on goodness or evil. There is not now nor has there ever been a THEM. There is only one BIG US. Humanity.

Whenever humans are involved, humans will get things wrong. From minor violations of human rights to outright atrocities… humans will always be the common factor.

Representative Democracy with a Separation of Powers and a system of checks and balances is still the best solution to the problem of organizing human society.

You are welcome to look down on the Founding Fathers. But these men did not develop the U.S. Constitution on their own. They drew upon the Great Law of Peace of the Iriquois Confederation, among other documents.

They knew then and it holds true today: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. If humans are to have any chance of governing themselves with any semblance of justice, equality, and equity, then the Rule of Law based on a Constitution with a Separation of Powers, within a System of Checks and Balances… which countless lives were long ago self-sacrificed to attain, must be preserved.

The fascist party of Donald Trump does not want the Democratic Party to have that reckoning. Mr. Trump desperately wants its opposition to remain the small and exclusive tent of the “morally pure.” The party of an elite group who look down their noses at everyone who does not see the world exactly as they do.

For Democracy in America to work, it must preserve the rights of its people to hold different perspectives. Though we must always strive for a More Perfect Union, let us not in so doing, allow the Perfect to become the Enemy of the Good.