News

Rare?

Democrats have a pattern of vocally opposing issues only after they irreparably solidify them.

In 1986 they helped pass draconian drug laws and mandatory minimums that supercharged mass incarceration, then decades later turned around and branded the “war on drugs” a moral failure.

In 1994 they wrote and championed the crime bill that funded more cages and longer sentences; only once whole communities were gutted did it become fashionable for them to “reckon” with mass incarceration.

In 1996 they joined Republicans to “end welfare as we know it,” slapping work requirements and time limits on poor families, then years later started admitting it deepened extreme poverty.

That same ’90s crew pushed NAFTA and the broader free-trade consensus that helped ship industrial jobs overseas, then reinvented themselves as champions of the working class once the damage was locked in.

They joined in financial deregulation at the end of the decade, tearing down New Deal banking walls, and after the 2008 crash, suddenly discovered the virtues of regulation.

On social issues it’s the same story: they crafted “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and passed DOMA, then only when public opinion flipped did they pretend they’d always been on the side of LGBT rights.

They voted for the 2002 Iraq AUMF and let Bush have his war, then spent the next decade calling it a catastrophic mistake.

They backed the 2006 Secure Fence Act to harden the southern border, then later denounced wall-style politics as cruel and nativist.

So no, Epstein Island wasn’t some weird one-off “bipartisan moment.” Bipartisanship is the rule whenever it comes to locking people up, bombing someone, cutting social supports, or serving corporate interests, and Democrats in particular have a long record of helping build the machinery first and only discovering their consciences after it’s too late to dismantle it. At least the Republicans consistently tell you they hate you to your face.