You’ve read the news so I’m not really blowing your mind when I say that the Supreme Court is a disaster. I obviously hate pretty much every ruling on a moral level, but it’s also appalling that to make those rulings, the justices were willing to abandon judicial precedent, cite centuries-old laws from other countries over the laws of this one, and pretty much just throw logic out the window.

But honestly, I’m tired of complaining about them, because we knew what they were. The people who installed them have been telling us their plan for decades. They didn’t even use coded language or anything, they just straight up told us. They bragged about it on TV, wrote books about what they were gonna do. It’s hard to be mad at someone doing what they promised.

No, I’m far more angry at the Democratic Party for ignoring those direct, straightforward promises for longer than I’ve been alive, then acting utterly blindsided when it happened. It’s amazing that any opposition party could be as utterly useless, and yet here they are, a bunch of willfully ignorant suit-fillers whose only response to the trauma of the people who voted for them is to repeatedly ask for money.

So this column goes out to the Democratic Party and its leadership. I hope you’re happy with yourselves.

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Sex Pistols — “I’m a Lazy Sod”

Most senior establishment Democrats are, in the most literal definition, lazy. They don’t want to do things.

Congressional Republicans are awful people who want to strip the vulnerable of their rights and overturn Democracy, but at least they have a goal and work toward it. Democrats’ only goal is to get reelected, and they don’t even want to work hard for that. They keep passing rules that campaign contractors will be blacklisted if they work for a primary challenger to an incumbent.

Having principles that change based on the difficulty of upholding them and refusing action because you might lose or you might make someone who calls you a pedophile on Q forums angry is pure laziness. It’s a bunch of old people coasting on previous accomplishments as the world burns around them, figuratively and often literally.

Rush — “Freewill”

I was driving home from my parents’ place Wednesday night and this song came on the radio. I’m not really a Rush fan. Geddy Lee’s vocals are like nails on a chalkboard to me, but one line really struck me: “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

As the Supreme Court took a sledgehammer to civil rights and the foundations of our nation, Democrats have made weak statements about their disapproval followed by stronger statements that they won’t act on any of it. They like to frame it as neutrality, that they don’t want to make anyone mad at them, so they’re just going to straddle the line. But that’s not how it works. By doing nothing, they’re allowing it, which means despite those statements, they’re approving of all of this.

If they really cared so much, they’d write bills to fix it and put them to a vote, force their colleagues to set their position in stone. And they’d have to put ending the filibuster to a vote too, which would also show how serious Senators are about their proclamations in fundraising emails.

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Rihanna — “Bitch Better Have My Money”

Next to this entry is most of an excruciatingly long text I got from Nancy Pelosi’s campaign the day Roe v. Wade was overturned. The text is probably too small to read but you get the idea: This is terrible so you have to send me money to show the Republicans that they screwed up.

But here’s the thing: We did elect Democrats to stop this, way back in 2020. Despite the electoral college, gerrymandering and voter suppression, people came out and gave the Democrats both chambers of Congress and the Presidency. They got exactly what they’re asking for now.

And what did they do with it? Nothing. Two Senators decided to play hardball, and instead of applying pressure to them, either through the public or by withholding money, they just rolled over and gave up. But this time, if we give them more money, maybe they’ll do what we elected them to do last time.

You people aren’t getting a dime of my money until you earn the vote I gave you last election. Maybe you could save some cash by not buying lists of phone numbers, because I never signed up for texts from you.

Taylor Swift — “Look What You Made Me Do”

There are Democrats who are trying to actually do something. With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as an unofficial spokesperson, there’s a small but growing group of Representatives and Senators calling for an end to the filibuster and an up-or-down vote on exercising Constitutional checks and balances and overruling the Supreme Court.

Well, if there’s one thing Republicans and Democrats will publicly agree on, it’s that this is all that group’s fault.

Both sides love to blame “leftists” for all the nation’s problems, as well as their individual problems. If a Democrat loses an election, it’s not because they’re ineffective or didn’t follow through with their campaign promises, it’s those danged leftists. Manchin and Sinema stonewalling the entire party? Leftists must have provoked them. The fact that there are so many far-right justices in the first place? Leftists in 2016.

These are the people in the party trying to actually follow through with the Democrats’ promises, and the only thing party leadership can do is scapegoat them. It’s really very telling.

CeeLo Green — “Fuck You”

Am I going to vote for Democrats in the next election? As I always do, I’m going to vote for the best options presented to me, and in my district, that’s incumbents Mark DeSaulnier and Alex Padilla, both Democrats. They’re both part of the group openly calling for meaningful change.

But am I going to donate to the party? Am I going to campaign for anyone who wants change but without changing anything? Absolutely not. Am I going to use any platform I have to apply pressure, openly expecting Congress to do their jobs and criticizing them if they don’t? Absolutely.

It’s not a sin to criticize Democrats for being bad at their jobs. It’s not telling people not to vote, and it is not counterproductive. It is our right at citizens. We spent too long not making our voices heard and pushing our own side to be better, and it got us into this mess by teaching party leadership that they’re allowed to be ineffective. They’re not.

If Democrats screw up, they’re gonna take heat for it, because that’s part of the job. If they don’t like it, they should retire and spare us all even more of this mess.

Follow editor Daniel J. Willis and tweet column ideas to him at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.