What Comes Next?

Almost 100 years ago, the US government evolved.

After many decades of business-focused governance, wherein lawmakers steered clear of societal concerns and were first and foremost business-friendly, the lack of regulation over banking led to a meltdown that plunged the nation into 10 years of darkness, wiping out oceans of wealth overnight and throwing tens of millions of citizens into poverty.

And in that moment, a president seized the moment, introducing a packet of legislation – the New Deal – that brought about a rebirth of government in the US. Franklin Roosevelt’s initiatives redefined the role of Washington in both the business and social landscapes, curbing the excesses of the former and improving the health of the latter. The rights of US citizens – particularly the marginalized ones – were brought center-stage, where they would receive long-overdue attention, and a set of safeguards were put in place to curb poverty. Education would soon become far more accessible, and all of these innovations served to create the middle class.

The next 40 years were astonishingly prosperous, and the quality of life in the US improved drastically over what it had been only a generation before. The government invested heavily in support of new technologies, and incentivized business to do the same. We leapt from the first powered air flight, a mere quarter-century before Black Thursday, to the surface of the moon.

And women made great progress. And minorities made great progress. And the arts and the economy made great progress.

The playing field between worker and employer was made more level; the wealthy were required to pay their fair share.

And not everyone was okay with it.

Conservatives opposed the New Deal. Conservatives opposed women’s suffrage. Conservatives opposed the right of African-Americans to vote. Conservatives opposed Social Security, and the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act. And Medicare. And the end of racial segregation.

But the majority of the US citizenry liked the stronger economy, and greater access to education, and a more fair and equitable society, and the safer environment that business regulation was delivering. The conservatives opposing the measures that had delivered this new society, from this re-invented, post-New Deal government, were in the political minority, and had little recourse.

Yet they were determined to reassert themselves, on behalf of the segment of society they represented, over the majority. They were focused on returning women and persons of color to their designated places.

Increasingly, conservatives consolidated in the Republican Party, realizing that they needed optimum political clout to effect change. Increasingly, those who realized the progress being made under this new kind of government became Democrats, converging to preserve the gains that had been made. Women, African-Americans, and other traditionally disenfranchised minority groups coalesced into a consensual entity, the Democratic Party being its haven.

What came next?

The increasingly conservative Republican Party began an on-going appeal to the white male, launching a persistent rhetoric that painted liberals as “communists,” intent on taking away their hard-earned money – and painting African-Americans as lazy louts and women who didn’t stay in their place as their nefarious agents.

This didn’t work. As women and racial minorities settled into their new roles, the Democratic Party was only strengthened and GOP arguments against them rang increasingly hollow. Democrats won consistently at the ballot box, resulting in a lengthy blue majority tenure in Congress.

What came next?

Since the ballot box was increasingly the battleground that mattered, especially after the Voting Rights Act and the Democratic moves to make voter registration easier, Democratic dominance grew still more. So the GOP created a new narrative that they began playing alongside the old one – that Democrats won because they were cheating. They never produced any evidence that it was true, but used it as justification to push back against voting access, implementing voter suppression where they could, paradoxically to make voting more “fair.”

What came next?

The GOP themselves, while howling “Unfair!”, began to not play fair themselves. They began to gerrymander congressional districts to give themselves a mathematical advantage.

And all the gerrymandering and voter suppression they managed to put in place gave them only temporary gains, as women and African-Americans became more and more empowered and US business, cognizant of the broader consumer base that social equality had been delivering, began to side with the left.

What came next?

With no more legal recourse, and unethical rules-bending not getting the job done, the GOP looked the other way as its worst elements rallied around a corrupt, narcissistic standard-bearer to cry “Foul!” over his electoral defeat and convince millions that the Democrats had not only stolen power, but were out to destroy the government and, by extension, the country. And they gathered together at the Capitol in insurrection, attacking their own government.

What came next?

The leadership of the GOP, observing the failure of the attempted coup to move the dial, evaded responsibility for its own participation, piled deception and denial atop deception and denial, and doubled down on the leaders that had indulged in treasonous support of this now decades-old enterprise to roll back the clock 100 years.

And as the Democrats, returned to power, have delivered again and again for the people, the GOP’s determination to bring them down has only intensified. Legislative recourse is beyond them; legal recourse has not delivered for them; violence, even deadly violence, is no longer off the table.

What comes next?