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bluesbassman

(20,387 posts)
Fri May 8, 2026, 06:07 PM 22 hrs ago

I do not want to "move forward" after this era.

Sharing this from a friend’s FB post. It says exactly what I’m feeling.

“I do not want to “move forward” after this era. I want to salt the ground. I had coffee with a Democratic friend who still talks like November is a cure and policy is a balm. Win the midterms, take back the presidency, pass better laws, move forward. That language is how rot survives in America. That is how the worst men in this country learn that no matter what they torch, some clean-suited moderate will eventually bless their crimes as history and call it healing.

America’s core bipartisan religion is forgetting. Republicans light the match, Democrats sweep the ash, and everyone in the press room starts whispering about unity before the smoke has even cleared the rotunda. No. We can win elections and prosecute the people who broke the republic. If you do not do both, your policies are just expensive wallpaper on a burned-out house, and the arsonists are already circling the block with a bigger can of gasoline.

History is a bill we keep dodging. The North won the Civil War, the South won the memory. Reconstruction was left for dead, white terror became law, and Jim Crow swaggered in through the breach. That was a political decision to walk away before the work was finished, to protect comfort over Black lives. America pays interest on cowardice, generation after generation, and the bill never shrinks.

The Supreme Court just gave the game away in the Louisiana Voting Rights Act case. They are willing to let states manipulate maps for partisan gain, even when everyone with a functioning brain knows race is braided through the whole thing, but the second the law tries to remedy racial exclusion directly, the Court recoils. White comfort survives. Black political power gets told to wait. Again.

Power always protects itself in this country. Nixon walks free. Ford tells America to calm down and turn the page. January 6th is followed by Merrick Garland dozing through history while the plotters host podcasts and prep for the next coup. If you do not punish an attempted authoritarian takeover, you are not restoring order. If you treat a coup attempt like a zoning violation, you are begging for a second draft.

Every time Democrats claim policy alone will save us, I want to throw something. I want universal healthcare, labor rights, climate action, all of it. But if you let a movement vandalize the country, loot the courts, and terrorize the public, then hand the next administration a mop, all you have done is build your future on poisoned ground. Policy on top of impunity is wallpaper over black mold. That rot never stays buried.

Hope gets weaponized in America. Hope without truth is a sedative. Hope without memory is a drug. Hope without accountability is a country sleepwalking into its own erasure. I do not want slogans that make frightened liberals feel spiritually exfoliated for six minutes. I want a politics that names the crime, shows the receipts, and refuses to look away.

King’s warning about the white moderate was a police report. The people begging him to slow down were respectable men in suits who loved order more than they hated segregation. That disease is alive every time a liberal pundit calls Trump “divisive” instead of criminal and tells the country to be patient while donors process their feelings.

Blunt voices are oxygen right now because the country is choking on euphemism. Democrats talk like clarity is rude, like naming the threat too directly might upset the donors. Republicans scream their desires with a sledgehammer until the language seeps into the drywall. I want Democrats who can speak with that same force about democracy, civil rights, memory, law, and the price of letting fascists slide.

I want Democrats to win, obviously. But I refuse to clap for another era of polite restoration draped over unpunished evil. I refuse another cycle where Republicans commit crimes against the republic and Democrats are told to show emotional maturity. If this country wants a future, then memory, accountability, and consequence cannot be optional. If we skip that again, the next strongman will not bother with fake electors. He will come with the army.”
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DNrUvPJxQ/?mibextid=wwXIfr

52 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
I do not want to "move forward" after this era. (Original Post) bluesbassman 22 hrs ago OP
This is brilliant LearnedHand 22 hrs ago #1
;-{) THEATRE OF LAW Goonch 21 hrs ago #2
The Theatre of Flaw. calimary 13 hrs ago #33
"That language is how rot survives in America." Solly Mack 21 hrs ago #3
You are 100%. Criminals go to jail not back into circulation so they can plot the next attack on law and order. flashman13 20 hrs ago #19
You're right. The Bundy group should have gone to prison. Solly Mack 20 hrs ago #20
Every single one of them. January 6th might not have happened if they had gone to jail. flashman13 20 hrs ago #21
LaVoy Finicum was the example that should have been repeated at Malheur. Thunderbeast 1 min ago #52
This is fiction. And it's probably from 2021. maxsolomon 21 hrs ago #4
And your proof is? paleotn 21 hrs ago #5
So what's the "fantasy"? bluesbassman 21 hrs ago #6
You've never had coffee with a Democratic friend? Scrivener7 19 hrs ago #24
Not sure if it's real or not but democrats having coffee together JI7 19 hrs ago #25
After we struggle to retake the White House in 2028.... paleotn 21 hrs ago #7
Even if we wanted to "move forward", I don't know if it is possible? kentuck 21 hrs ago #8
I agree with you completely. OldBaldy1701E 9 hrs ago #35
Thanks for posting this.. Escape 21 hrs ago #9
I want a NEW DEAL! FakeNoose 21 hrs ago #10
"Heh! You don't like the RAW DEAL?" kentuck 19 hrs ago #27
"It's an art." Kid Berwyn 5 hrs ago #41
And what exactly elevates us above the beasts of the field.. except.. BattleRow 20 hrs ago #11
The world is waiting to see if the Republic has the balls to completely clean house and Bev54 20 hrs ago #12
Brazil did it correctly. brakester 36 min ago #47
This post does an excellent job of defining Buddyzbuddy 20 hrs ago #13
Thanks bluesbassman. Prairie_Seagull 20 hrs ago #14
Outstanding summation of our current situation. NoMoreRepugs 20 hrs ago #15
The Regime & their "supreme" Court need to be held accountable. nt TBF 20 hrs ago #16
A law requiring in-depth explanation/defense of SCROTUM decisions would be a good start dickthegrouch 1 hr ago #46
In retrospect, the United States would have been better off misanthrope 20 hrs ago #17
I've read that anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 displacedvermoter 8 hrs ago #37
No "moving forward". no "vengeance". . . DinahMoeHum 20 hrs ago #18
Agreed, to me "moving forward" was Obama's biggest mistake, although I will admit that I don't know if his hand was Escurumbele 20 hrs ago #22
I'm with this person! Joinfortmill 19 hrs ago #23
I can't move forward with all this baggage. Iggo 19 hrs ago #26
Nothing will happen as long as so many Democratic lawmakers do AIPAC's bidding Ponietz 18 hrs ago #28
America BigMin28 18 hrs ago #29
I agree--Salt the earth! lastlib 18 hrs ago #30
Thank you for sharing this. We need to hear this. yellow dahlia 18 hrs ago #31
Yes and progressoid 17 hrs ago #32
Oh, yes, no f***ing "look forward not back" this time. JHB 13 hrs ago #34
Amen! MiHale 9 hrs ago #36
Excellent statement Hartpi978 7 hrs ago #38
Thank you for sharing, bluesbassman! Kid Berwyn 6 hrs ago #39
I empathize and sympathize with this point of view. As we have seen in South Africa and other countries dealing with Martin68 5 hrs ago #40
Who is to blame? the_liberal_grandpa 5 hrs ago #42
Centered on the Epstein files thorough investigation........come what may LiberalLovinLug 3 hrs ago #43
Formidable! In both its English and French meanings. Mme. Defarge 2 hrs ago #44
SCOTUS's Bush vs Gore ruling started this nightmare DemocracyForever 2 hrs ago #45
Many steps... pardoning Nixon. The Southern Strategy. Goldwater... and back and back themaguffin 24 min ago #49
K&R mvd 32 min ago #48
Agreed. There MUST be a reckoning. NT Happy Hoosier 10 min ago #50
Yes, I'm afraid Hakeem and Chuck and the rest of the moderates will make lip noises about 'healing.' PatrickforB 9 min ago #51

LearnedHand

(5,563 posts)
1. This is brilliant
Fri May 8, 2026, 06:16 PM
22 hrs ago

Says exactly what I’m feeling too. And I fear most of the party is walking right down the middle of that look-forward road. I fear receipts won’t matter. Evidence won’t go anywhere. That it’ll be Merrick Garland on steroids.

Solly Mack

(97,224 posts)
3. "That language is how rot survives in America."
Fri May 8, 2026, 06:50 PM
21 hrs ago

Yep.

People said with the Bush Regime - allow them to escape justice and the next republican president will do worse.

Same could have been said about allowing Nixon to get off without accountability.

Being allowed to resign is NOT punishment.


King’s warning about the white moderate was a police report. The people begging him to slow down were respectable men in suits who loved order more than they hated segregation. That disease is alive every time a liberal pundit calls Trump “divisive” instead of criminal and tells the country to be patient while donors process their feelings.


I've been thinking about the same thing today. (Letter From a Birmingham Jail)

flashman13

(2,548 posts)
19. You are 100%. Criminals go to jail not back into circulation so they can plot the next attack on law and order.
Fri May 8, 2026, 08:16 PM
20 hrs ago

One item that was left out of the post. The DOJ under Obama failed to arrest and prosecute the criminals that pointed guns at Federal agents during the Bundy Mini-Rebellion in Utah. They never collected any of that owed lease money from Bundy either. And his crazy son went out and did the same thing all over again.



This is what I'm talking about:

Not this:

Solly Mack

(97,224 posts)
20. You're right. The Bundy group should have gone to prison.
Fri May 8, 2026, 08:19 PM
20 hrs ago

So-called/Self-styled "Constitutional Sheriffs" need to be brought down too.

Thunderbeast

(3,831 posts)
52. LaVoy Finicum was the example that should have been repeated at Malheur.
Sat May 9, 2026, 04:34 PM
1 min ago

Without their weapons, these man-babies are powerless.

maxsolomon

(39,099 posts)
4. This is fiction. And it's probably from 2021.
Fri May 8, 2026, 06:50 PM
21 hrs ago

They didn't have "coffee with a Democratic friend who still talks like November is a cure and policy is a balm."

They made up a straw man so they could write a little fantasy.

bluesbassman

(20,387 posts)
6. So what's the "fantasy"?
Fri May 8, 2026, 06:57 PM
21 hrs ago

Do you think accountability is lost? Do you think if and when Democrats take back the power they should just follow the same path as their predecessors and “forgive and forget”? How do you think we got to this point we’re at now? I don’t understand your hostility towards what was written, please explain.

JI7

(93,849 posts)
25. Not sure if it's real or not but democrats having coffee together
Fri May 8, 2026, 09:02 PM
19 hrs ago

is a common thing.

paleotn

(22,603 posts)
7. After we struggle to retake the White House in 2028....
Fri May 8, 2026, 06:58 PM
21 hrs ago

Burn the fucking bastards to the ground and piss on their ashes. No more making nice. Not after this. And any Dem who says otherwise needs to be labeled an appeaser and promptly run out of the party.

kentuck

(115,552 posts)
8. Even if we wanted to "move forward", I don't know if it is possible?
Fri May 8, 2026, 07:05 PM
21 hrs ago

Too much damage has been done. The mess has to be cleaned up. We have to change the status quo. We have no choice.

OldBaldy1701E

(11,463 posts)
35. I agree with you completely.
Sat May 9, 2026, 07:00 AM
9 hrs ago

Unfortunately, those who will lose their power and prestige do not.

And, people listen to them.... not us.

To do what you are suggesting will require some... effort... to make it happen.

We have already seen the fact that the status quo is not going to allow us to remove the societal model that gives them all of the power. That will not change once the current regime is removed.

Which sucks big ole donkey balls, as we used to say.

Escape

(510 posts)
9. Thanks for posting this..
Fri May 8, 2026, 07:30 PM
21 hrs ago

Last edited Fri May 8, 2026, 09:51 PM - Edit history (1)

It IS the most important issue of our time.

I want...and ..we should DEMAND, that EVERY person in the Trump administration who broke the law, be punished to the fullest extent of that law.

No fucking compromises or lame ass penalties. No deals cut and no apologies accepted.

If we have to build bigger prisons for the ICE Nazis and the military fools who followed illegal orders and for the cabinet members and their enablers, we should joyfully build them, with no concern for their cost.

And...every person who was illegally detained, deported or worse, should be fully compensated for every wrong they were dealt.



FakeNoose

(42,229 posts)
10. I want a NEW DEAL!
Fri May 8, 2026, 07:33 PM
21 hrs ago

I want Franklin Delano Roosevelt - or someone very much like him - to come forward with all new ideas and a whole "New Deal." It's the best way to sweep the MAGAs into the dust bucket of history and start over.

Please please please - make it happen very soon!

BattleRow

(2,656 posts)
11. And what exactly elevates us above the beasts of the field.. except..
Fri May 8, 2026, 07:35 PM
20 hrs ago

Our ability to read,write,speak..and then create law to provide accountability ...to establish a groundwork for responsibility . individually and collectively.

Bev54

(13,507 posts)
12. The world is waiting to see if the Republic has the balls to completely clean house and
Fri May 8, 2026, 07:39 PM
20 hrs ago

punish those who have ruined the country or not. If not, then kiss any close alliances goodbye for a very long time. There can be no half way and that means the supreme court as well.

Buddyzbuddy

(2,826 posts)
13. This post does an excellent job of defining
Fri May 8, 2026, 07:40 PM
20 hrs ago

what's wrong with my party and what we need to do to fix it. At least one aspect of it.

dickthegrouch

(4,624 posts)
46. A law requiring in-depth explanation/defense of SCROTUM decisions would be a good start
Sat May 9, 2026, 02:37 PM
1 hr ago

I hope someone is keeping track of all the new constitutional protections needed for the Country not to get itself into this kind of disastrous mess again.

misanthrope

(9,597 posts)
17. In retrospect, the United States would have been better off
Fri May 8, 2026, 07:49 PM
20 hrs ago

if they had given the former Confederacy the Carthage treatment after the Civil War. Because what was tried didn't work whatsoever.

displacedvermoter

(4,938 posts)
37. I've read that anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000
Sat May 9, 2026, 08:27 AM
8 hrs ago

Politicians, military officers, and others in the active rebellion merited hanging using then existing treason laws and past practice. Recall that line from Franklin about "hanging together, or separately", he wasn't kidding.

Just saying...

Escurumbele

(4,107 posts)
22. Agreed, to me "moving forward" was Obama's biggest mistake, although I will admit that I don't know if his hand was
Fri May 8, 2026, 08:22 PM
20 hrs ago

forced to make that decision, or maybe, the decision was made for him. Thugs and the mafia have ways of making decisions for other people.

But this time around, Democrats better have their cojones in the right place and prosecute all these thugs, otherwise, like said in the article, these thugs will continue to do their evil because why not? if there are no consequences, if accountability doesn't exist, then why not continue doing the crimes that make them so happy.

BigMin28

(1,872 posts)
29. America
Fri May 8, 2026, 09:54 PM
18 hrs ago

Has to reckon with it's crimes . All of them. From the beginning to current events. Until we do so honestly and openly, we as a country will never heal and live up to it's ideals.

lastlib

(28,537 posts)
30. I agree--Salt the earth!
Fri May 8, 2026, 10:07 PM
18 hrs ago

Hunt them all down and take them away. Remove them from society Maybe we COULD use all those camps The Traitor wants to build. As I've often said, Shakespeare had the right idea, just the wrong target: "the first thing we do, let's kill all the billionaires." I'm also tired and sick to death of that "look forward, not backward." crap. Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it; I don't want another repeat of the last half-century.

progressoid

(53,350 posts)
32. Yes and
Fri May 8, 2026, 11:00 PM
17 hrs ago

Yes and do something about the media and Dem messaging.

IMHO, we wouldn't be in this mess if it weren't for an enabling and complicit media.

JHB

(38,315 posts)
34. Oh, yes, no f***ing "look forward not back" this time.
Sat May 9, 2026, 03:23 AM
13 hrs ago

Both Clinton and Obama took that attitude with the malfeasance of their predecessors, and Joe was too entrenched in avoiding the appearance of partisanship.

These people have held a knife to our throats and a gun to the heads of out children. They have a track record of political extermination, and they're not going to stop until we meet the same fate as the Rockefeller Republicans: extermination. Initially politically, but it won't take long for them to get around to making it literal.

Go full bore at the right-wing organizations using the Republican Party as their vehicle. The Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society should be treated as seditious organizations, as well as all of their funders.

Have you ever read old anti-communist propaganda? From the first Red Scare, about a century ago now? They warned about how the commies would take control here, by using the rules of our system to put themselves in positions of power. And once enough people were in position, especially positions to enforce the rules, they'd start enforcing the rules on their opponents, but not on themselves, and use that leverage to take total control.

The Republicans have turned themselves into the literal Red Menace. Their guiding light to taking total power is Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Hartpi978

(46 posts)
38. Excellent statement
Sat May 9, 2026, 09:30 AM
7 hrs ago

Everyone should read this post. It is so well said. It is an excellent analysis of the situation we have put ourselves in. We have to stop deceiving ourselves. Everyone must do what is required to save our country. Voters have to vote, the media has to question those in power, and we have to stop justifying immoral and unlawful acts by those in power.

Kid Berwyn

(24,958 posts)
39. Thank you for sharing, bluesbassman!
Sat May 9, 2026, 09:39 AM
6 hrs ago

“Policy on top of impunity is wallpaper over black mold. That rot never stays buried.”

Martin68

(28,040 posts)
40. I empathize and sympathize with this point of view. As we have seen in South Africa and other countries dealing with
Sat May 9, 2026, 10:43 AM
5 hrs ago

similarly heinous eras political immorality, truth and reconciliation commissions are probably the best way to deal with the situation. According to Wikipedia, South Africa's "Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was a court-like restorative justice[1] body assembled in South Africa in 1996 after the end of apartheid.[a] Authorised by Nelson Mandela and chaired by Desmond Tutu, the commission invited witnesses who were identified as victims of gross human rights violations to give statements about their experiences, and selected some for public hearings. Perpetrators of violence could also give testimony and request amnesty from both civil and criminal prosecution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commission_(South_Africa)

42. Who is to blame?
Sat May 9, 2026, 11:00 AM
5 hrs ago

I agree with this sentiment 100%.

But you know who is to blame?

We are.

The voters

These mofos GET VOTED into office by the people and we accept the candidates put in front of
us by those that own this country.

They don't just magically arrive.

We invite them in.

But don't be fooled. We have the power to support candidates who believe what we believe and change what we want to change.

I invite you to read UNFTR's 5 Non Negotiables when deciding who to vote for or donate to:

https://www.unftr.com/blog/5nn

I think George Carlin summed it up best.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXlzqjClNC3/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==


LiberalLovinLug

(14,751 posts)
43. Centered on the Epstein files thorough investigation........come what may
Sat May 9, 2026, 01:12 PM
3 hrs ago

John Kerry, Bill Clinton, whomever it uncovers. Go for it all.

I think you start with this because a bi partisan American appetite for investigating further political corruption since the infamous "suicide", will hinge on first finding massive dirt on Trump and others in his cabinet and supporters in regards to Epstein's island.

If you start with "russia russia russia" or some other angle and put the Epstein on the back burner, the RW social media, owned by RW operators, will flood their sites with propaganda to offset it, and rile up the R base against D's as doing retribution with fake indictments.

Only after you open a massive wound from that exposure, and while MAGA is in shock, can you do a sideways shift to re-examining all the corruption that is now going on in Trump's regime, and will be more palatable to his former base to swallow, and harder for FOX News to dispute

DemocracyForever

(144 posts)
45. SCOTUS's Bush vs Gore ruling started this nightmare
Sat May 9, 2026, 02:21 PM
2 hrs ago

and the Dem leadership moved on as if nothing bad had happened despite the fact that enough Florida dem votes had been unconstitutionally thrown out which changed the outcome of the 2000 election to the GOP.. This "never mind, go along to get along" Dem strategy has brought our country to the verge of becoming a 1 party dictatorship. I totally agree with the OP. If our country manages to survive to 2028 and dems again control the White House and Congress, there must be a serious reckoning and house cleaning with accountability to make sure this never happens again. The truth is brutal and ugly but it must now be spoken if our democratic form of government is to have a chance to survive.

mvd

(65,944 posts)
48. K&R
Sat May 9, 2026, 04:02 PM
32 min ago

Our opponents are not normal so we can’t follow normal rules. Be nice and they will ruin our country for sure.

PatrickforB

(15,508 posts)
51. Yes, I'm afraid Hakeem and Chuck and the rest of the moderates will make lip noises about 'healing.'
Sat May 9, 2026, 04:26 PM
9 min ago

We need to actively prosecute these assholes for TREASON, get rid of the McConnell 'justices' and judges, overturn Citizens United, change the rules of corporate governance to insist on truth in news reporting, and go through those Epstein files with a fine tooth comb and hold everyone of those immoral child rapists and murderers accountable.

In the words of the immortal Filch in Harry Potter - My cat has been petrified! I want to see some PUNISHMENT!

Can we say 1789, guillotines and firing squads? Many younger people I speak to are saying that and if the Dems think this is gonna be business as usual 'moving forward,' they may find themselves surprised by the white-hot rage that most Americans feel towards these corrupt asshats.

THERE HAD BETTER BE SOME REAL ACCOUNTABILITY.

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