O P I N I O N

NOT THAT PROFOUND

By Nathan Graziano

Sens. Maggie Hassan, left, and Jeanne Shaheen. Photo/Jeanne Shaheen on Facebook

My wife has been existing in an almost-perpetual apoplectic state since Donald J. Trump took office again in January and he started—with the help of an immigrant and a sycophantic group of GOP sociopaths—dismantling our democracy.

However, in a weird turn of events, I have become a voice of reason in our marriage, assuring my wife that Trump will eventually implode.

“Besides,” I told my frantic wife, “those of us in New Hampshire have a delegation of all Democrats fighting for us and our views.”

But my wife didn’t trust this, nor did she particularly trust New Hampshire’s senators, the former-governors Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan. She claimed that both of these women had been conspicuously quiet, not aggressively opposing the Trump administration or voicing their opposition, as Trump and his gestapo continue to bulldoze Washington.

I told my wife that she was being paranoid—although after more than two decades of marriage I know not to tell her to “calm down”—and when push comes to shove, both Shaheen and Hassan would do the right thing.

As it turns out, I was wrong, and my wife was very right.

On Friday afternoon, both of New Hampshire’s senators joined the gutless minority leader Chuck Schumer and seven other Democratic traitors in voting to pass the GOP House’s obscene Trump-backed spending bill to avert the shutdown of the federal government as our federal government continues to shutdown decency and democracy, laying off millions of American workers.

While I can understand Schumer, our New Hampshire senators, and the other turtles’ reasoning for voting for the bill—Trump could cause more harm with a government shutdown—this is exactly the reason that Trump is back in office.

The Democrats are entirely spineless and unwilling to stand up to him.

Granted, I am not a politician, nor am I an expert on political science, but I remember this much from elementary school: If you don’t stand up to a bully, they will eventually own you.

Trump’s endorsement of Schumer’s decision should tell you everything you need to know, and the fact that both of our senators in New Hampshire followed in lock-step with Schumer should have all of us in the Granite State who oppose this push toward fascism shaking our heads.

Sure, both senators released statements defending their decisions, trying to persuade Granite Staters that their decisions were in the interests of the American people.

But I don’t buy it. This is something that I learned long ago, growing up in mob-run Rhode Island: You don’t give your money to people who you don’t trust and who will slit your throat without a second thought.

Ralph Nader once said that “The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocity with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door. That’s the only difference.”

I can’t help but wonder if corporate forces were knocking at our senators’s doors. Why would these women, who have historically stood up to the GOP bullies, choose now to capitulate?

But unless there is a compelling reason that I’m missing to keep funding Trump’s authoritarian regime—other than the lame excuse that shutting down the government, which your fisticuff Republican colleagues have never been afraid to do—then shame on you, Maggie Hassan. And shame on you, Jeanne Shaheen.

Maybe my wife is right: It’s time for all of us who care about other people to be apoplectic because, clearly, the senators we elected in New Hampshire don’t want to dig in, resist, and fight this fascist.