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Bifurcated. Broken. Bought. Our Democracy Requires An Update Now!
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I am not saying They have won, but we could all lose if our democracy doesn’t get to rehab soon, the disharmony is deafening. While I must have high hopes for the Biden-Harris administration, Republicans don’t need the House or the presidency to continue with their autocratic slash and slow burn campaign. Nothing much gets done, even things 80% of Americans want. The odds of anything more substantial getting through, and that lasts beyond Biden’s term, such as a Green New Deal type plan, is very low.
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There must be a way to get things done more efficiently. Why is status quo incrementalism our go-to strategy as a nation? What happens if things must be done in a fast or progressively increased manner, and one party decides such a prognosis is incorrect? Some would call that kind of dilemma the COVID-19 pandemic, or the climate crisis. Huh. Incrementalism may have a purpose here and there, but a dumbstruck reliance on the concept merely corrupts our thinking and planning. Imagine if we debated whether or not to stop Hitler into 1944, and didn’t support Britain at all until then. America 2nd, Nazis 1st?
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Delaying may give you the time needed to come up with better solutions, but it makes little sense to reorganize the deck chairs on the Titanic as it sinks, and watch the insufficient number of lifeboats paddle off without us. Of course, no analogy utilizing past calamities really matches either our current pandemic or the climate crisis. That said, whether we have hit the iceberg, or Hitler is already dining in Manhattan, how would we deal with those two calamities today if we knew what came next, and when? Do we stay ahead of things, or wait until the last minute?
