Senator Schumer:

The immutable vision of the far right goes back to the “Planters” and their genteel slave society, but its current enactment has more recent roots.  Seventy years ago the far-right was outraged by “judicial activists” on the Supreme Court who threatened to overturn centuries of social tradition when they found, 9-0, that “separate but equal” was unconstitutional.  Several wealthy reactionaries soon founded a political movement that eventually morphed into MAGA, funded by “Libertarian” billionaire money, today as it was then.  

These reactionaries have the same vision and aim today as when the then-fringe John Birch Society was launched by Charles Koch’s father and a few wealthy comrades in 1958 —  a return to a mythical golden age of society-wide freedom, unregulated oligarchy with a robust police state to deal with malcontents. 

They have always had the same set of self-serving, destructive policies they’re intent on enacting no matter what the vast majority of Americans need or want.   After polling 1% in the 1980 presidential election, they’ve doggedly connived through nonelectoral means to get their grimly unpopular vision for America enacted as law.  They’ve done this by any means necessary.   They created countless influential “think tanks” (like the prestigious Heritage Foundation, creator of Project 2025), networks of nefarious nonprofits, a vast public influence operation (aided by fellow travelers like Rupert Murdoch), as well as the doctrinaire far-right judicial fraternity and career ladder that trained and promoted most of their 6-3 Supreme Court majority.  

The law and Constitution have been swallowed time and again by 6-3 rulings, increasingly on the fast-tracked (for POTUS) shadow docket — no record, no debate, no signatures, no reasoning or explanation, except Article II and “The Unitary Executive”.   Issues the majority doesn’t want to touch are deemed “political questions” and the Supreme Court may not hear arguments about those.   We know very clearly what the values and vision of this group of six people is.  It perfectly reflects the values of their political party and its wealthiest donors.

The right has never made their vision for America clearer than under the current president, a vile man who brings out the worst in everyone and licenses his allies’ and followers’ lowest impulses.  As much as he might personally disgust many of our over 800 billionaires, nobody has been more useful to them than this crass, greedy, corrupt, criminal, violence loving, easily manipulable fellow billionaire.

What is your vision of America’s future, Charles Schumer?   

What is the democratic vision of the eight who fell on their swords for that bipartisan vision of what democracy requires?   Is there any common vision of our democratic future among corporate Democrats, outside of somehow retaining power?  

You don’t win elections by pointing to a party acting like actual Nazis — deliberately and defiantly starving your own citizens, children and other poor people, and rushing to the nation’s highest court to enforce the leader’s right to starve children —  and saying “we’re the good guys”.   You especially don’t cooperate with the party acting like actual Nazis.  Bipartisanship is a relic of a bygone age, by design of the party acting like actual Nazis.  There is no such thing as cooperation with Nazis, it never ends well for anybody involved.   In this regard I’ll mention only two names:  Jeff Sessions and Mike Pence. 

What is your vision for the future of our democracy?  I ask this seriously.

Should you and I find ourselves in the same cattle car, I’ll make sure to introduce myself to you.

Meantime, my question remains:  what is your “moderate” vision for American democracy going forward, and how do you square it with this recent Democratic betrayal of tens of millions of our fellow citizens, all of the most vulnerable among us?    I ask this sincerely and hope one of your staffers will write me a thoughtful answer.

Your constituent,

Eliot Widaen