It was hard to avoid “eviscerated”, “destroyed”, or “annihilated” in the heading of this diary, because Sen. Chris Murphy did all of those things to the Republicans’ fake arguments about the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. This is the kind of thing we need to see more when when Republicans argue in bad faith, which seems to be most of the time.
Here’s the short version. I highly recommend watching the video to see the full thing. I found it on Twitter, so apologies to those who can’t view that platform.
Argument 1: “It’s too expensive.” Republicans didn’t think it was too expensive when they spent the same amount on tax cuts for billionaires who didn’t need them at a time when there was no crisis of any kind or any need for an economic stimulus.
Argument #2: “It’s a partisan bill.” It’s only a partisan bill because Republicans in Congress have made it so. In fact, the overwhelming bipartisan majority of Americans support the bill. The bill is supported by 60% of Republican voters.
Argument #3: “It’s not COVID-related”. This bill contains the same kind of relief as the CARES Act, which Republicans overwhelmingly supported. The one major difference between that bill and this one is that, at the time the CARES Act was passed, Republicans controlled the White House and the Senate. Back then, all of those items were considered COVID-related, but now with Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House, they’re not.
Here’s the tweet containing the whole video. If you want to see a lesson in how it’s done, this is it.