We should inform ourselves about the many consequences of having almost total functional failure in the US Congress. If you are not aware, the main cause of this failure is the Republican Party. No member of this party either functions as a real representative of the people’s interest or a guardian of the Constitution, something he/she pledged when taking office.

Be aware, any legislative success due to Democrats is only temporary. They have 2 chances to pass legislation without Republican help or interference. It is a fluke called budget reconciliation.

The first was a relief measure that provided unemployment benefits, delayed evictions and foreclosures for those out of work, granted needed child tax credits, and provided overall pandemic relief. The second is the Build Back Better legislation, yet to be approved by two Democrats, Manchin and Sinema (two of 50 needed in the Senate, VP Harris making it 51), who obviously enjoy their power. Both legislations deal with needs that Republicans would never meet in this life.

This will end soon. It will even get worse with any control the GOP might garner with the 2022 election if voters give them a majority in either House, most likely the House of Representatives due to gerrymandering after the census.

Then the consequences will pile up. Republicans are set on an authoritarian course which will mean they will use their power to punish the opposition with 24/7 partisan pursuits like impeachment of Joe Biden, intimidating investigations, and vicious partisan attacks filtered through lies or even manufactured charges. Constructive legislation will halt, maybe forever.

All will be done for themselves or for the corporations they serve. They simply will not concern themselves with anything that will not cement their continued control of government. That control is in the hands of their campaign benefactors who finance their elections and re-elections. For everything else, they will continue to be ineffective or shortsighted.

The death of 100,000 Fentanyl overdose victims, the three-quarter million COVID-19 deaths, the growing army of the homeless (500,000+), the raging global pandemic – all are casualties that don’t affect their continued control. How can that be? Past experience shows this.

Only Democrats are dealing with these problems without Republican help. This fact does not seem to be affecting the poll numbers for Joe Biden whose approval numbers dropped to 38% in spite of effectively dealing with the pandemic and steering the economy forward.

Disinformation and misinformation are 24/7 occurrences on Fox Spews, Newsmax and Breitbart. So far, Facebook and social media operate for profit not for truth. The mainstream media is corporate and not particularly forthcoming about Biden achievement and certainly not critical about Republican corruption, violence-mongering, and lies.

Besides, Republicans have big money financing them, the filibuster, which is still protected by the duality of Manchin and Sinema, gerrymandering in a majority of states, and suppression of the vote. So far Democrats couldn’t convince Manchin and Sinema to support suspension of the filibuster to help restore the vote and stop voter suppression by Republicans. Wouldn’t you say they have the vote covered?

With the radical conservative control of SCOTUS, Republicans expect enough support to please their corporate masters, manage voter suppression, and keep a minority government in control.

We of course already have consequences of Republican refusal to govern in the interests of the people. Republicans have been so busy trying to stifle voting against them, misinforming the public, and attacking and demonizing Biden to discredit him that they wouldn’t have time to govern even if they desired to.

For one thing to please fossil fuel companies and big business, they have been deniers of climate change for some two generations. As a result, they’ve had little interest in replacing the internal combustion engine with electric. Even China saw this need and the economic advantage of cornering the market on cobalt that improves battery life. Thus, China now controls cobalt mining in the Congo, even buying a mine from an American source during the Trump administration.

China ran rampant over a free Hong Kong in 2019-20 without Trump resistance and China seems to be emboldened in preparing to threaten Taiwan’s independence

Republican lack of concern for the casualties of overdose and the pandemic has been apparent from the Trump administration to the present with Republican governors helping feed the perils of COVID-19.

For Republicans, the dead have no bearing on maintaining power when you can use all the tools of government, a friendly media like Fox News, and unified GOP lying to convince enough voters. Republican misinformation also takes credit for the relief bill by Biden which Republicans had no part in.

Ultimately with enough information, truth-telling, and voting by the informed, our democracy could prevail, but we are in the deepest hole of untruth. Trump is the bigger part of that effort, and the GOP has ceded its control to him. Criminal law being slow to corral him now if ever, he is still free to corrupt all aspects of American life and culture.

Hopefully democracy can prevail but we seem to be in our “Darkest Hour” a phrase we associate with Winston Churchill’s time as Prime Minister of Great Britain. The vigilance of the anti-Trump majority is required, but many are still convinced that we can be rescued. That remains to be seen.

We indeed are in our darkest hour and even many progressive forces are concluding that we may even have to take up arms to pull ourselves out of this lying and cheating funk engineered by Republicans as agents of the rich controllers of America.

Much money is available for right-wing causes. The rich provided a $2 million defense for Rittenhouse, the young murderer of BLM demonstrators. In this case alone they defended 2^nd Amendment rights over 1^st Amendment rights of free speech.

How chilling that the courts made public protest of injustice a dangerous exercise in which the justice system supports murder of protestors. Such decisions have made America a “backsliding” democracy in the eyes of a Stockholm-based European Think Tank.

Do we still have enough determination to save a faulty democracy which only elects Republican presidents with a minority of popular votes, but a majority of antiquated electoral votes, and which still elects insurrectionist Republicans who spew lies to Congressional seats?

It is a tainted democracy that tolerates 24/7 disinformation and lies, poisoning American minds, a democracy where the rich and powerful finance the forces that spread the toxins in our air, our water and in our minds.

How can any viable democracy overcome all of this?

Sounds as though we are nearing our end?