Our New Three-Party System: Democrats, Republicans, and Kleptocrats

Not long ago, all of us had spent our lives as part of a well-structured, generally well ordered political system made up of two parties, one more conservative in its outlook, preferring limited government, balanced budgets, and limited constraints on business and commerce, and another that favored using the economic power of the taxpayers to improve living conditions for all people at every socio-economic level. This structure had been in place since well before any of us wandered the planet, and the dialectic between liberal and conservative generally worked, with occasional conflicts that could often be resolved through compromise, and the nation muddled through.

While those of us who advocate a liberal approach believe strongly that people should have the right to live their lives as they wish, and we often feel that the other side is just plain wrong, we accepted that people have rights to their own opinions and that the democratic process was structured so that those opinions could be voiced and evaluated through the mechanism of free and fair elections, as mandated by the Constitution.

Even with the weirdness of Donald Trump’s first administration and his claim that he was cheated out of a victory in 2020, the system, though distorted badly because of Trump's sycophants and opportunists, was still built around two parties and the concept of a representative democracy. As Trump gained power, though, traditional Republicans were overwhelmed by their wacko counterparts and while they voiced opposition, they were either ostracized like Lynne Cheney and Adam Kinzinger or silenced like Mitt Romney. But we all assumed that the democratic process would continue to work and, eventually, there would be an opportunity to correct the country’s wild ride into Trump’s small and avaricious mind.

Yes, we lost the election, and yes, Trump and his followers are a clear and present danger to our nation, but we had checks and balances, we had a free press, and we could fix this, somehow.

Now that Trump regime II is in place, it’s clear that we were dead wrong. Trump and his buddies have no intention of playing by the rules as set out in the Constitution. They are taking over the U.S. Government and using their control to create a structure that benefits only them at the expense of our citizenry and the stability of the world. And they are doing it with the help of the owners of social media megaphones and a cowed press.

In a few short weeks, they have destroyed institutions that have served the American people for three centuries and, along the way, wiped out essential services and fundamental protections of our livelihood and way of life. What they are creating is a horrifying distortion of our democracy into a kleptocracy, a government designed to steal the value of a nation and its people for the benefit of a privileged few. These are not Republicans; these are thieves using the guise of a formerly legitimate political party to plunder our nation and the world. We’re no longer in a two-party system, we now have three parties: Democrats, Republicans, and Kleptocrats.

I’m not a Republican but if I were I would be freaking out, not only about the insanity that we’re experiencing, but I would be pissed that that the first thing that the Kleptocratic party stole was the Republican party. I have no idea what the intelligent and reasonable individuals who used to lead that party are planning, but I would hope that their desire to remove this tumor on our democracy is equal to ours.

As Democrats, we need to recognize that there is only one objective that matters right now: the removal and elimination of the Kleptocratic party in every organization and at every level in our country. Our fully justified battles for social equality, economic protection of those who need assistance, and protection of liberal democracies around the world are all subordinate to that one goal. We need the independents, moderates, and traditional Republicans to make that happen. We cannot do it alone.

This is indeed time for the “big tent”, but the tent that we need must have a single purpose: eliminate the Kleptocrats. All other issues are irrelevant unless we can do that, and we need a bunch more people than the Democratic party to make that happen. I urge the leaders of the Democratic party to aggressively reach outside of our party to help build a massive, unified resistance, with the single objective of destroying Trump’s Kleptocratic party. And I urge Republicans and Independents who value our democracy and way of life to join the fight with us.

We can get back to fighting about other stuff after that’s done, but not before.