(from my post on Facebook)
Every republican voted for the $2 Trillion tax cut for the wealthy which the non partisan Congressional Budget Office stated almost exclusively benefited the rich in 2017 under President Donald Trump. Every democrat voted against the tax cuts for the wealthy.
Every republican voted against the $2 Trillion American Rescue Plan providing $1400 direct payments to the middle class and the poor. Every democrat voted in the Senate and all but two in the US House of Representatives voted for the American Rescue Plan.
These two votes make it crystal clear that the republicans in Congress only vote to help and support the wealthy and they all oppose the poor and the middle class. These two votes also make it clear that the Democratic Party votes for and supports the poor and the middle class but not the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us.
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70+% of voters support the American Rescue Plan including a majority of republican voters.
If you needed that direct payment, you needed to vote for democrats. If there were more democrats in Congress, then more people would have gotten direct payments. The reason for that is that the 50th Democrat in the US Senate is Senator Joe Manchin who represents along with Senator Shelley Capito Moore the state of West Virginia, a state Donald Trump won by nearly 40 points. As a result, he is not as progressive as the rest of his caucus. If we had one more or possibly two more (Senator Krysten Sinema is pretty damn conservative for a democrat and she represents a state Joe Biden won and so did Captain Mark Kelly who is the other US Senator who represents Arizona) progressive Democrats in the US Senate, then even more people would be getting that direct payment. Because of these two conservative Democrats, no family earning more than $160,000 in 2019 will get that direct payment. They are the two democrats who reduced the ceiling on who would get the direct payments from $200,000 to $160,000.
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However, republicans limited it to families earning $100,000 or individuals earning $50,000 in 2019. But 2019 wasn’t the year of the fucking pandemic. So, people might have done well that year, had a terrible 2020 and needed money and then won’t get the direct payment because of republicans. Yeah, a couple of democrats reduced the ceiling but all republicans reduced the ceiling far more and precious few supported giving any direct payments to anybody and those who did only did so because they know how bad it would look if only Democrats supported giving any direct payments and they plan to run for president. WI Russian Ron Johnson is a seditionist and likely knows he is done in 2022 unless it reverts to the past pattern (but in this era of republican extremism it may not apply) of midterms hurting the party which controls the White House. He voted against counting the electoral college votes from a free and fair election devoid of widespread voter fraud. Club for Growth (ie supply side tax cuts for the wealthy) Senator Toomey is retiring rather than lose to Lt Gov John Fetterman in PA. Hawley, Cruz, Cotton and Johnson are all trying to put themselves in position to win the republican primary for president. That’s why Hawley supported at least something in direct payments. However, the ten republican senators who did support at least something in direct payments capped them at 50K and 100 K , reduced them to $1000 at a maximum not $1400 and reduced them as you approached their lower ceiling. So, there were only 10 republicans who supported any direct payments, they were much smaller, they had a much, much lower ceiling and they decreased as you approached the lower ceiling. On the other hand, 50 not 10, all 50 Democrats in the US Senate voted for $1400 direct payments and they had a much greater and higher ceiling of $160,000.
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And this can’t be because republicans in Congress care about the deficit and opposed spending. If that were the case, they would NEVER have voted for the Trump $2 Trillion tax cuts for the wealthy .
As a matter of fact, the last republican president to reduce the deficit was BEFORE (ie Prior to) President Reagan. Ronald Reagan did not reduce the deficit. The last two presidents to reduce the deficit were both DEMOCRATS, President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama. Those are facts . So, the reason republicans voted against the American Rescue Plan is not because they suddenly care about the deficit. They voted against it for the same reason that they voted against the recovery act that Democrats passed under President Obama. They voted against it because they believed and believe that if they could obstruct and limit the accomplishments of the Democratic President and Democrats in Congress and slow down the economic recovery or stop it altogether, they would be able to defeat the Democrat in the White House in the next presidential election and make gains in Congress.
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You say, they can’t be that disloyal, so disloyal as to try to impede the growth of the American economy in a recession, can they ? What did Mitch McConnell, republican minority leader (now) , say his first priority was in 2010? Was it to get the American economy going again? No, Mitch said his first priority was to make sure Barack Obama was a one term president.
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Of course, given their silent complicity in the attempt to overturn the results of what they know to be a free and fair election devoid of widespread voter fraud, it can’t be surprising. Mitch called it a “lie”. So, he knew Trump was lying. 42 plus republicans in the US Senate voted against challenging the electoral college votes. They all know that there is no precedent of the kind of massive voter fraud required to have given 3 states to the losing candidate, each state having a margin of over 10,000 votes. They realized that all of the republican election officials and judges would not have countenanced the kind of widespread voter fraud alleged. They knew that there was no evidence for it. Even Rush Limbaugh said it was “not good “ that Trump had claimed massive evidence of voter fraud in public and produced zero evidence of it in court. If the Trump lawyers had massive evidence of voter fraud, then unless they too were in on the conspiracy, they would have produced it in court. But if they produced such evidence in court, unless 38 republican appointed and even Trump appointed judges and justices were in on the conspiracy, then the 38 judges and justices appointed by Trump or other republicans would have ruled in favor of Trump. A conspiracy involving that many republican and Trump appointed judges and justices is nonsense. Thus, the fact that the 38 judges and justices appointed by Trump and other republicans ruled against Trump means that Trump’s lawyers did not produce massive evidence of widespread voter fraud; in fact, Trump’s lawyers produced no evidence of voter fraud at all.
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Senate republicans knew this. They also knew that no modern American presidential election in which a presidential candidate won by 3 states each with a margin of over 10,000 votes has ever been overturned by recounts or lawsuits. They knew this fact. So, they knew Joe Biden was going to be the next president of the United States and that he won a fair and free election devoid of widespread voter fraud.
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Yet, these moral cowards were silent because they were afraid that Donald Trump would support a primary opponent against them. If they had all stood up together and told the truth to republican voters (ie that Joe Biden won a fair and free election devoid of widespread voter fraud) after the election was called for Joe Biden, then the insurrection would likely not have happened and not nearly so many republican voters would have been duped by THE BIG LIE, the conspiracy bullshit Trump pushed.
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Speaker Pelosi sent over the Article of Impeachment while Trump was still in office. Mitch refused to bring back the Senate. By the time the Senate was back in session, Trump was out of office. After the impeachment trial, Mitch said Trump was guilty of inciting the insurrection. So why didn’t he vote guilty? Because he said it was too late. Before, he would not bring back the senate and he said it was too soon. By the time the Senate was back in session, Trump was out and so he said it was too late. Too early and too late. He knew Trump was GUILTY which he said in his speech but he refused to hold Trump accountable.
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When republicans won’t even hold Trump accountable over inciting an insurrection, the first attack on the Capitol since 1814, then it is obvious that republicans only care about re-election and their party.
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This is the same reason that they voted against the American Rescue Plan. Clearly, since they voted for Trump’s $2 Trillion tax cuts for the wealthy, then the objection isn’t because of spending a lot of money.
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The Republican Party does not care about the country or its people. They left 520,000 dead because they politicized a pandemic and opposed social distancing and even wearing a mask. They care about winning re-election and helping their party.
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That’s been evident for a very long time, but now it’s so blatant that it’s undeniable.
A quick note: Notice that we keep needing a recovery plan or a rescue plan. Every time that we have had a republican president since 2000, they have left the economy in ruins, in a recession. Democrats keep having to rescue the country and help the economy and ,more importantly, the people recover.
Another question for republicans to consider is whether or not they want the most recent presidential election to be a precedent and to become the new norm. In 2000, networks declared Al Gore won Florida and thus was the president-elect and then it was undecided and then George W Bush had a lead of 537 votes. Due to how narrow the margin was and because whoever won Florida would also win the electoral college, the mandatory recount would decide who would become the next president. Similar ballots with similar features were interpreted and counted differently. 7 of the 9 Supreme Court justices declared that this was a violation of Equal Protection. Five Supreme Court justices decided that the remedy was to stop the recount. Although Al Gore had won significant lawsuits in the election litigation, when the Supreme Court made that ruling, he stopped contesting the election. In every other modern presidential election, when a call for the election was made, the losing candidate conceded within 24 hours. 2000 was unique and very different than 2020 because it was decided by one state , the one state had a margin of only 537 votes and both candidates won important lawsuits and the interpretation of physical ballots determined who won the presidential election. 2004 was decided by one state. John Kerry called to concede to President Bush within 24 hours. He did not pursue litigation or recounts to alter the result. While Senator Barbara Boxer wrote an objection, she made it clear that she was not challenging the result but simply highlighting voter suppression which is a real issue. John Kerry did not support that challenge and the vote in the US Senate was 74 to 1. John McCain conceded shortly after the election was called in 2008. There were no written objections. In 2012, Mitt Romney conceded shortly after the election was called in 2012 and there were no written objections. In the next election, there were irregularities to say the least. Michael Cohen, the president’s fixer, paid porn stars to be silent about their affairs with presidential candidate Donald Trump three weeks prior to the election. Donald Trump repaid him which demonstrated that Donald Trump knew about the payment. The amount was for far more than the maximum allowed donation for a candidate, $2800 for the primary and $2800 for the general. This was clearly a campaign donation as the primary purpose was to help Donald Trump win the election. It was clearly a felony and Michael Cohen was put in prison as a result. Donald Trump jr met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya who was closely connected to Putin for a quid pro quo which included an in kind campaign contribution by her, a foreign national. That in kind campaign contribution was opposition research which campaigns regularly pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for or more. The meeting was with the candidate’s son and in the candidate’s own building on the third floor in June prior to the election. This was clearly a campaign finance violation. Hence, there was a strong basis in fact for Secretary Clinton to challenge the election in court and not concede. Yet, concede she did within 30 minutes of the election being called for Donald Trump. In fact, she even gave a speech promoting the peaceful transfer of power. No senators signed onto a written challenge.
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Apart from 2000, then there was only one written challenge to counting the electoral college votes, it was not supported by the candidate, the candidate had already conceded, and the objector herself stated that she was not challenging the outcome, simply highlighting voter suppression. Nor was there a huge majority of either party backing a challenge to the electoral college vote count. In 2020, Joe Biden won by three states, each with a margin of over 10,000 votes. There was no evidence of voter fraud produced in court and the loser lost nearly 100 lawsuits and only won one insignificant remedy which did not alter the outcome in any state, much less alter who won the election. Yet, two thirds of republicans in the US House of Representatives backed objecting to the electoral college vote count, an act of sedition as the candidate, Donald Trump, had never conceded and since no evidence was produced in court which supported the claims of widespread voter fraud and the loser lost so many cases in court. They were joined in the written objection by eight US Senators. These objections took placed after the losing candidate, the then president of the United States, intentionally incited an insurrection, the first attack on the Capitol since 1814.
Republican voters and Republicans in Congress need to decide and think hard about whether or not they really want this to be the precedent and new norm going forward. Since the margin was over 10,000 votes in each of three states, then the claim that voter fraud altered who won was ludicrous, especially given the declarations of republican election officials and republican and even Trump appointed judges and justices. This would mean that there would be no concession by the losing candidate no matter how many states the candidate won by and no matter the margin of votes in each state since three states each won by over 10,000 votes is well outside the margin by which any recount has altered who won and no presidential election lawsuit has ever overturned who won in a presidential election won by three states.
Do we no longer want any concessions by the losing candidate ever ? The value of the concession is that the voters of the losing candidate hear directly from their candidate that their candidate lost and so they trust that result. No other person has the credibility with their voters that their candidate has. The value of the concession is that it promotes the peaceful transfer of power.
Do we really want nearly 100 frivolous lawsuits on behalf of the losing candidate to overturn the valid results of a free and fair election going forward ? The lawsuits themselves send the wrong message to the voters who voted for the losing candidate.
Do we want two thirds of the losing candidate’s party’s members in the US House of Representatives to vote to challenge the counting of the electoral college votes which were the valid results of the free and fair election devoid of widespread voter fraud ? Do we really want almost all of the losing candidate’s party’s members of the US Senate to be silent about the validity of the results of a free and fair election devoid of widespread voter fraud ?
Do we really want the losing candidate to promote over and over again with only a handful of objectors within the losing candidate’s party the big lie, a bullshit conspiracy theory that falsely claims that the losing candidate actually won enough states to win the electoral college but that widespread voter fraud altered who won those states ? Do we want about 75% of the losing candidate’s voters to believe a bullshit conspiracy theory that says that their candidate actually won enough states to win the electoral college vote, but was cheated out of the win ?
Do we really want the losing candidate to incite an insurrection just because as Mitch McConnell said, they are mad because they lost the election ?
Do they really want this to become the new norm ? Do they want the next Democratic Party candidate who loses to pull the same bullshit that their president tried to pull in this election ? If the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee and candidate loses by three or more states each with a margin of over 10,000 votes, do they want that losing candidate to refuse to concede, file 100 frivolous lawsuits, lie to their voters and promote a bullshit conspiracy theory, and incite an insurrection without Democratic Party leaders within Congress standing up to that lie ?
I can assure them that if the republicans say that they, mostly, find this acceptable that it won’t just be their presidential candidate who pulls this bullshit, but that our presidential candidates will do the same thing. There will not be asymmetrical warfare here. Is this really what the republican voters and republicans in Congress want ? Do they really want this to be the new norm, the new precedent for presidential elections going forward ? Even if the electoral college was won by three states each with a margin of over 10,000 votes ? Do these morons realize the consequences for finding their presidential candidate’s actions acceptable ?
This puts the union at risk. This puts our democracy at risk. This risks a civil war and it risks large scale violence. It ends our tradition of a peaceful transfer of power which marks our democracy. It erodes confidence in our election results and thus confidence in our democracy and our federal government.
They’ve got to stop listening to heavily partisan extremist media which heavily relies on conspiracy theories. The lack of integrity and character within their party’s leaders and members in Congress has led to this. Their decision to increase voter suppression instead of altering policies as a result of losses has led to this. Their choice to put their political ambition ahead of integrity, character, and truth led to this moment. Their party is being taken over by conspiracy theorists and white supremacists. It looks from my point of view like the party cannot be won back to conservative principles and beliefs which oppose conspiracy theories and white supremacy. I hope I am wrong because we need two healthy political parties. If there is only one healthy political party, then eventually that one healthy political party will begin to dominate. When it begins to dominate, then it will become corrupt. I suspect it is too late. They have already made choices which have inevitable consequences. I hope I am wrong.