For Congressional Democrats: The Secret To Riding A Tiger

Congratulations to the Congressional Democrats; you’ve taken the first step in your journey to becoming a viable opposition party.

Well done, you.

I’ve mentioned riding a tiger here before, in the context of managing the COVID pandemic. I said there:

One thing about riding a tiger is that it can be way more dangerous to try to get off before the ride’s over than it is to just hang on.

The same thing applies here to dealing with the fascist coup from your position in Congress: once you decide to oppose that coup, it’d be far more dangerous to stop than it would be to hang on until the process is done and its perpetrators are arrested.

Dangerous for the whole country, as well as dangerous for you personally.

Tigers are not known for the care and precision they apply to the exercise of their power.

And neither are aspiring dictators.

But the only way out is through, as the saying goes.

Like the U.S. failed to do with COVID, the only safe thing you can do now is to hang on:

no negotiation that doesn’t restore the country to a pre-January-2025 government
no funding for further destruction of the country
no legitimization of what’s already been done
no Congressional business at all that doesn’t address reversing the coup

Spend some time with Robert’s Rules of Order and a copy of your chamber’s current rules document; you’ll be amazed at how many wrenches those give you for throwing into the procedural gears.