TIME TO BUST OUT OF THE PENALTY BOX

MARCH 16, 2025 – We’ve all seen the latest polls reflecting extreme displeasure with the Democrats in Congress. The bottom line is a huge “thumbs down.” I don’t watch FoxProp (as in “FoxPropaganda,” distinct from MSNBCBOP (for “MSNBC Biased Opinion”), but I can imagine the hosts and guests are howling with glee. That reaction is a propagandistic misinterpretation of the prevailing public sentiment. I believe the “thumbs down” reflects two conditions. First, a majority of people—though not necessarily an overwhelming majority quite yet—are opposed to President Musk’s rampage, Vice President Trump’s chaos, and Vice-vice President Vance’s slavish adherence to nonsense. Second, a head-turning supermajority of the majority perceive the Democrats as having no effective organized opposition to the Musk-Trump-Vance “Trumpvirate.” That feeling does not bode well for a Democratic Republic.

If you listen to pundits and commentators and most important, to regular folks, who oppose the “Trumpvirate,” you’ll hear an assortment of reactions and ideas, but they all boil down to “They’ve got to do something,” expressed with varying degrees of sophistication but always with forceful indignation.

I understand the frustration. I share it. But I also recognize the box we’re in. It’s a penalty box of sorts into which we’ve been consigned for an indeterminate duration. How and why this confinement developed is complicated. Perhaps be examining it closely we can develop an effective way to get ourselves back on the ice and into the game—before the final buzzer announces, “Game over!”

One factor, I believe, is that we had multiple goalies in the net—Federal, state, and local advocates fighting climate change, promoting infrastructural development, and defending the rights of disparate interest groups—each jostling for primacy. Narrowly focused on their individual objectives, all three (star) goalies took their eyes off the puck, creating wide-open opportunities for slapshots off the sticks of rank amateurs.

Second, besides having too many goalies in the net, we had too many players on the ice. Moreover, they were skating in all directions, often inadvertently hip-checking themselves into and even over the boards. Left wingers made DEI and gender equality the name of the game, leaving the center overwhelmed and blueliners (defensemen) on the sidelines.

Third, it turns out that the arena in which the game is being played doubles as an entertainment multi-plex, starting with the Ice Follies and sliding down rink from there. In a vicious cycle of supply and demand, traditional NHL hockey featuring Canadian, European (and former Minnesota Gopher) stars has devolved into a clown circus featuring . . . well, clowns . . . and every 10-second wonder devisable by social media marketing moguls, from indoor pyrotechnical displays to excruciating cacophony to the hallucinogenic bits and bytes of disinformation. For good measure, elixirs of the mind flow from every beer dispenser. Under such conditions, we must ask, can the long-established rules of the game be observed and enforced?

Long retired—or ejected from the ice; strike that—from the arena are the stars of yore; the players who could skate and handle a stick at the same time, who knew the difference between a “major penalty” and a “match penalty,” who were higher in assists than in goals . . . and so on. Now it’s a free-for-all, in which bullies equipped for broomball with battle axes compete for attention with figure skaters with radioactive hair. Everyone with a loud mouth, wild ideas and flames fueled by flatulence is allotted ice time in 10-second increments.

The most critical features of the whole crazy scene, however, are the entertainment addicts who crowd the arena. They can’t get enough of the show.

And now that the refrigeration pipes under the ice are failing, a big melt is underway. The actual hockey fans in the house are in a panic. “What’s happening?!” they cry to one another. “What is to be done?” The loudest among them points to the crowded penalty box and yell in unison, “Why aren’t you doing something?! Why aren’t you busting down the door, climbing over the boards, storming the ice, slashing at the clowns and farting fakers who’ve seized control? Meanwhile, a few of the hockey fans—the ones with an engineering background, perhaps—begin to shout, “First we’ve got to fix the pipes under the ice!” but in response, a wit “pipes” up, “But Lordie . . . Howe?[1]”

Maybe it’s because I’ve reached an age of seven times 10 and have white whiskers gracing my snout. In other words, I’m no longer hip-checking opponents into the boards as I cycle the puck into position for a pass to the center (who happens to be captain, as well) and a shot on goal. Without knowing all the behind-the-scene details, I can’t say with confidence what the Schumer character in the box should have done—or not done—last Friday. What I will say, however, is that over the years I’ve not been impressed by his publicly visible/audible leadership—or that of Democratic whip, Richard Durbin (IL).

Those two need to lead a bust-out from the penalty box and “flood the zone” with blades steaming and sticks slashing. If they aren’t up to the task, their compatriots in their penalty box “caucus” need to lead the charge. A leading contender for that role would be Sen. Chris Murphy (CT). Their old playbook needs to be tossed and a new one written for the new game that is being played by the “Trumpvirate” and their sycophants-in-tow. The playbook needs to be memorized and executed by every single Democrat in the penalty box—both on the House side and Senate side. The plays need to be simple and straight-forward; reducible to a pitch broadcast by every means and medium possible.

And it can’t be any longer than . . . drum roll, drum roll . . . 10 seconds. Every American with a smart phone must see it, hear it, not once, not twice, but a thousand times a day, because America—the whole damn country—is now crowded into an arena in which two realities permeate ice and air: 1. The people who control our attention control everything else; and 2. Repeat something enough, and it becomes true, and if that applies to boldfaced lies, it applies with equal force to irrefutable TRUTHs?

Okay. Pass me a beer (not the puck), please, after a slap (not a slapshot) on the back.

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© 2025 by Eric Nilsson

[1] A reference to “Gordie Howe,” who for readers oblivious to the great game of hocky, was the Canadian star, playing 26 seasons in the NHL, 25 of them with the Detroit Redwings.