On Friday evening, Donald Trump surrendered any pretense that he was actually interested in providing Americans with relief from the health threats and economic collapse triggered by his mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, he declared that he was “going another way.” That other way seems to be using this moment to undermine Social Security, and making sure that cities in desperate trouble because of the expense of dealing with the crisis while facing a collapsing economy are left with nowhere to turn.
Nowhere, that is, other than begging Trump. Because after two weeks of going through the motions of holding talks with Congress, the owner of Bedminster Country Club has made it clear that his “other way” is to treat executive orders as dictatorial power. Rather than go through all that effort at legislation, and compromise … Trump will simply determine who gets help, and who doesn’t, with a scrawl of his sharpie. Trump is going another way from democracy.
The charade that Republicans might actually agree to something that helped Americans ended with a ridiculous whimper delivered, appropriately enough, in a Friday night address from one of Donald Trump’s golf clubhouses. Trump, surrounded by a gathering of pasty, wealthy golf buddies, declared that he wouldn’t agree to even a third of what’s actually necessary. It was the absolutely appropriate ending to a process that was never more than a smokescreen from the outset. That Trump did this at a gathering of millionaires who refused to don masks, while declaring what was supposed to be a White House announcement “a political event” was only icing on the authoritarian cake.
Three months ago, Nancy Pelosi and Democrats the House passed the Heroes Act, a $3 trillion aid package that would send funds directly to families, extend expanded unemployment benefits, expand the Paycheck Protection program to keep small businesses afloat through the crisis, help businesses cover the expense of protecting workers and customers from COVID-19, and provide funds to state and local governments hit hard by the need to address the emergency and declining tax revenues following the collapse of the economy. The bill is a complete package that addresses real needs of both people and communities, from giving everyone a second $1,200 check to helping schools plan for delivering online classes.
Since May, Republicans have done literally nothing. Not only has Mitch McConnell failed to bring the Heroes Act to the floor of the Senate, it took until the last week of July before Republicans even assembled something of a “plan” of their own. That plan did … none of the above. Instead, their response to an ongoing pandemic that has already killed over 160,000 Americans was to provide a list that included F-35 fighter jets and a new FBI headquarters. Those items—and a lengthy list of other items completely unconnected from the crisis at hand—was the price to took to get a bare majority of Republicans to pretend to be interested.
That’s not to say that the Republican response didn’t address their own concerns about COVID-19. Included in that Republican response were guarantees that unemployment boosts would not be extended at current levels, along with protections for businesses who fail to protect worker safety. Those two planks: Forcing workers back on the job; and making sure that corporations can’t be sued, even if workers and their family members die, is the sum total of the Republican agenda. Trump has added another item of his own: Suspending the payroll tax, an action whose entire purpose is to blow a hole in Social Security and provide Republicans to tut over that inevitable failure of these “socialist programs.”
It’s little wonder that, as The Washington Post reports, little to no progress has been made in talks over the last two weeks. Democrats are interested in helping America, and Americans, weather this crisis of Trump’s creation. Republicans, and particularly Trump, are interested in using this moment to further the cause of corporations over people, authoritarian rule over everything, and leaving people utterly dependent on handouts from the wealthy. It’s hard to find a compromise between those positions.
So, rather than distribute money to every American and assisting the places that have been hit the hardest by the coronavirus, America will no proceed on a system of Trumpian largess. Trump has already demonstrated that he can spend, or refuse to spend, money as he pleases, cherry-picking funds from across the budget with the blessings of the Supreme Court. Trump has already given a preview of exactly how this will look with his offers to pick up 100% of the tab on National Guard deployments to Florida and Texas, while sending other states a bill.
Unlike the federal government, states and cities can’t print their own money. The economic collapse triggered by Donald Trump’s failed handling of the COVID-19 crisis leaves those many of those governments teetering at the point where they are unable to provide even basic services. In the middle of a healthcare crisis, governments are laying off healthcare workers and experts, because they simply lack the funds.
Democrats are negotiating to try and get Americans what they need. Trump knows that a failure to achieve agreement means he can keep people crawling over broken glass to beg for his favor. That’s not a formula likely to lead to a happy conclusion.
