Weekend Open Thread: Resign, Senator Feinstein!

Why do so few Democrats besides Ro Khanna and Dean Phillips have the courage to demand what needs to be done right now, for Senator Dianne Feinstein (I’m not gonna use her cute nickname any more because there’s nothing cute about what she’s doing) to resign NOW and ride off into the California sunset with a shred of her dignity intact? [As this writer has been calling for for at least 12 years?]

She’s obviously got a powerful Cult of Personality going on in the most Conservative wing of the Democratic Party, but I think the main thing is that Democrat politicians don’t wanna be called *sexist* [ouch!] This comes down all the way from Nancy Pelosi, who snipped “I’ve never seen them go after a MAN who was sick in the Senate.” This is pure woke PC victimy bullshit. First off, the vast majority of us who want Feinstein to resign want her replaced with either Barbara Lee or Katie Porter, who are both women last time I checked.

And you can be sure that, if it were a MAN who:

  • at the age of 89 was showing countless signs of mental and physical deterioration;
  • had been jeopardizing the appointment of decent, essential Biden judges for a month and a half with their absence;
  • made such a poor, passive showing in the hearings for Amy Coney Barrett, climaxed with praising and hugging anti-democracy weasel Lindsey Graham;
  • told the press in 2016 that they thought Donald Trump could evolve into a good President;
  • in 2021 not only refused to carve out the filibuster to pass voting rights, but justified this to Forbes saying, “If democracy were in jeopardy, I would want to protect it, but I don’t see it being in jeopardy right now.” In 2021!
  • voted for the PATRIOT Act, the Invasion of Iraq, and most liberty-abridging “War on Terror” measures, all while married to a spouse who makes millions off war;
  • consistently opposed civil liberties and privacy throughout a 31-year senate career, backing the War on Drugs and “tough-on-crime” measures while showing unwavering allegiance to the Likudnik expansionists in Israel;
  • worked tirelessly for decades on the behalf of her phalanx of huge corporate backers such as California’s Big Agribusiness, G&E, Edison International, Diamond Foods, Pfizer, Sony, Disney, General Electric, General Dynamic, Bechtel, Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, Qualcomm, Wells Fargo and more…

…if a MALE Senator had done even half of all that while representing California, you better believe there would be not only the same voices calling for his resignation, but MANY MANY more, because people wouldn’t be afraid of getting called misogynist meanies. (And no, the temporary situation of Senator Fetterman is in MOST ways not comparable.) Is “hiding behind your own skirts” a thing?

Feinstein is not up to this perilous moment in US History. Not only did she say, as mentioned above, that “I don’t see Democracy as being in jeopardy right now” – in 2021, after the Insurrection and a flashing US map of anti-democracy measures everywhere Republicans have power – the following year she REALLY worried journalist Amy Traister with her inappropriate nonchalance about the state of our nation, as Amy wrote in her piece “Dianne Feinstein the Institutionalist” :

“Nothing she said suggested a deterioration beyond what would be normal for a person her age, but neither did it demonstrate any urgent engagement with the various crises facing the nation. … Every question I asked — about the radicalization of the GOP, the end of Roe, the failures of Congress — was met with a similar sunny imperviousness, evincing an undiminished belief in institutional power that may in fact explain a lot about where Feinstein and other Democratic leaders have gone wrong.”

This is What the Nation Needs.

This might-all be sad for Feinstein and her inexplicable defenders, but we need her to GO NOW so that Governor Newsom can replace her as promised with “a woman of color” whom we all hopefully assume will be the great Barbara Lee, who not only will be a fine Senator for another 7 or 13 years, but has earned it with decades of good hard work in the House. Barbara knows what danger our democracy is in!

So do Adam Schiff and Katie Porter, but I imagine they wouldn’t waste their time running against an incumbent Barbara next year. So we have an expensive distracting D-on-D bloodbath out of our way, and very importantly KATIE has a face-saving reason to stay in her house seat for another few terms, WHERE THE NATION NEEDS HER.

And all this of course will be a disappointment and complication to State Senators Dave Min and Josh Newman, who will have to fight over the same State Senate seat next year, as was foretold last year after redistricting. Oh well, DOMINOES VOBISCUM.

But first we need the distinguished, pathbreaking, beloved (by some) Senator Dianne Feinstein to:

Don’t go away sad
Don’t go away mad
Don’t go be bad
Like you’ve been had…

But then, maybe I’m full of shit.

What do you think?

This is your Weekend Open Thread.

Have at it!

About Vern Nelson

Greatest pianist/composer in Orange County, and official political troubadour of Anaheim and most other OC towns. Regularly makes solo performances, sometimes with his savage-jazz band The Vern Nelson Problem. Reach at vernpnelson@gmail.com, or 714-235-VERN.