1. Yes, Republican strategists can encourage people to show up at PTA meetings and do outrageous, morally reprehensible things. However, life is not a consequence-free zone. People, including your neighbors, and businesses will come to conclusions about your community based on what they see.
2. Yes, Republican legislators can pass draconian laws that restrict women’s reproductive rights, but, again, life is not a consequence-free zone. People and businesses that aren’t based in your state will make decisions about your state based on what they see, and people inside your state, including a majority who don’t really support those draconian laws, may actually have their own opinions about those draconian laws and organize with others who feel the same way.
And, finally, yes, religious zealots, including some on the U.S. Supreme Court can attempt to impact politics and impose minority views on the majority of the people, but politics is not a consequence-free zone. If you and your religious confreres want to impose your beliefs on everyone else, the outcomes may not look like what you expected.
3. As someone who has had a long enough blogging life that I was writing hopeful and inspiring diaries in 2004 and 2005 and 2006, and then a whole bunch more in 2007 and 2008, I am also realistic enough to know that 2016 was absolutely devastating to us, and many of the results of 2020 were devastating, as well. I choose to move forward and take action based on hope and optimism, but I also recognize that we can’t ignore reality. W. followed Clinton when we, and our planet, really needed Gore. Trump followed Obama, when we, and our planet, really needed Hillary. The consequences of these elections are not limited to the drastically increased likelihood of catastrophic climate change, but they start there.
I am truly sorry if you were expecting me to provide a ray of sunshine in the storm. Intellectual honesty requires me to be forthright with you.
4. As an adult American I have seen a powerful dynamic for every decade of my existence in the USA. The greatest “zero consequence” political zone in our country does not feature anyone in those “2016 rural diner stories” or any of the aforementioned PTA zealots that the media focus on. Instead, the true consequence free zone in American politics can be found on golf courses, at sports bars, and over countless business meals where someone pipes up about how they can’t stand “taxes.” There’s pretty much zero consequence in American politics for saying you think taxes are too high and that you, poor little you, are being treated unfairly by the wasteful government.
Of course, that’s a total joke.
Almost uniformly the person complaining about “taxes” has reaped huge personal benefits from all the great things the big, bad, horrible, government has done, from public schools and universities, to policies that have protected and enriched our wonderful wild and agricultural lands, to investments in research and infrastructure that benefit every American business, which, of course, in turn, pays outsized salaries and enriches countless investment and pension accounts. I would add this business climate fostered by our collective national investments even benefits those “renegade” small businesses who’ve made a solid profit with hard work and toil.
As Americans, we do better when we all do better.
And, yeah, the rationale that Democrats appear to be following in gutting some of the best parts of a great proposal is because these exact “tax complainers”...who basically get their way on every little thing in the USA...don’t like to spend money if they don’t think it’s going to help them.
Of course, the FULL BILL, as written would actually help everyone and, in my estimate, be a solid piece of business for the American economy. Educating the next generation, making our national grid run on clean energy, and supporting children and seniors against greedy special interests. What’s not to love?
And in opposition those same tax complainers are throwing in their lot with the bigots and zealots above.
It’s funny, I’m old enough to remember that the Republican coalition was supposed to be “conservative”...implying some perverse form of respectability politics, one that never really existed when we get right down to it. But there’s nothing conservative about the GOP in 2021. It’s radical zealots making their bed with selfish, anti-tax folks who want to pull the ladder of American opportunity up behind them.
It completely enrages me that as the excuses for shrinking this great bill roll in, it appears that this consequence-free mindset about taxes appears to, once again, be holding sway over Democrats seeking their own version of “respectability politics” which is a sacrifice at the altar of “false moderation.”
But that’s where we’re at in the USA today.
We saw this coming.
As Democrats, we should all be angry and not a little bit ashamed.
