A Right Wing Cannot Flap Alone, or, Donald Trump Screwed the Putsch

[A Black Falcon]

Joe Biden gave a speech tonight about the threat to American democracy that the authoritarian, fascist MAGA movement is a serious danger to democracy... and that the Republican Party is now mostly beholden to them.  It is the simple truth and an incredibly important that we must emphasize until the enemies of democracy are stopped. And the mainstream media seems to have reacted by.. saying he is being too divisive.  Be nice to Republicans, even those trying to destroy our democracy!  It's absolutely disgusting.  It's like, the speech didn't really say anything new, it was just summing up the current situation.  It's very sad that anything like it is necessary.  But it is necessary.
 

I have no idea what that comic is trying to say...  Literally I can't parse it.

Most of it is pretty straightforward -- the idea is a meeting where Biden, Manchin, Sinema, and that Democratic guy in the House always talking about SALT repeal are having a meeting about how to get his agenda passed.  Sinema says what you'd expect from her, an uncaring 'give up'; the House guy says 'clean SALT repeal', which I find pretty amusing (as if that'd help, heh); and Manchin says... just lie to them.  Because that's pretty clearly what he did. 

I described the rest of it in my last post, but the timing of Manchin's moves, from his initial statement that the discussions on neo-BBB were dead to announcing his return to supporting the renamed IRA bill immediately after the Senate Republicans allowed the very important CHIPS bill, which they had been blocking in order to try to keep BBB from passing, through... that timing is just so perfect that it's hard to NOT look at it and see what whoever made that cartoon did, that it was likely Manchin lying to everyone in order to get both BBB (IRA) AND CHIPS passed, something which otherwise may not have happened. 

And so, Senator of the Month. :)

And no, Manchin's motives are absolutely utter lies.  It's outright naïve at this point to assume ANY of his objections are genuine, and as dangerous as assuming anything Hannibal Lector tells you is honest.  Seriously, the man owns coal mines.  If there is a clear conflict of interest, it is our responsibility to ALWAYS assume the worst.  There's a reason that when someone is sworn in as president, they're required to divest their control in their companies.  There is a reason the emoluments clause exists.

Indeed, he has dirty hands with his family's close connections to the coal industry.  And yet, he supported and passed the largest climate bill the world has ever seen, a $300 billion effort to reduce this nation's greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 40%.  It's quite an irony but I'll take it!

Manchin is, at his core, a traditional Democratic politician.  Is he trustworthy, I think he's proven no.  But he is in our party and in the end supported most of Biden's agenda.

Anyway, Biden finally did the most important thing he could possibly do to assure votes.  He affected everyone in a concrete way right at their kitchen table.  THIS right here is how you win elections ABF.  Fox News and other right wing commentators are calling it "communism" and "bribing the voter".  Are we so far removed from how politics USED to function in this country that a politician actually doing something for the common citizen is seen as "bribery" and not, like, what politicians are SUPPOSED to do?  You can't feed your family on "grit and sacrifice".  I could (and will) point out that this is far less than what Biden COULD do.  He could easily have stricken off ALL the student debt.  He could do that just as easily as he did this.  He could also push for a bill to make higher education free for everyone in this country, at least announce that he'll be pushing for that in the future.  That said, actually keeping one of his campaign promises, small as it may be compared to what's in his power to do, is STILL going to make a big difference in a lot of people's lives.  I love the outrage over it.  They're mad for three reasons.  One, "If the left did it, it must be bad".  Not an actual view they have, but a general party policy they must stick to.  Two, they don't want an educated public.  That hurts republican chances of victory.  Three, they don't want citizens to get used to actually getting help (or "handouts" as the put it) from government, or we might actually start to expect it.  You know, expect government to actually serve the people's interests.

It is probably because my parents paid for my college, but personally this 'forgive college loans' thing has never been something I care all that much about myself.  It's a good thing to do, but of Biden's accomplishments this year I'd put it way behind the IRA bill passing, and more.  It's probably last on the list. Now, college obviously needs to be more affordable, there is no question at all about that -- college costs more than ever, but the gains after that as far as jobs go are less than ever.  That's a really bad dichotomy.  What needs to be done is legislation to somehow reduce college costs in this country.  However, it looks like right now such a bill can't pass, so this band-aid debt forgiveness bill is, unfortunately, probably the best thing that can be done.  So sure, it's nice he did it, and it is very important that he did it with an upper income limit -- the wealthy don't need the help, so targeting the assistance to those who need it is important and that is exactly what Biden did.  But I don't care about this issue nearly as much as you, clearly.

You are right about keeping campaign promises though.  And he promised to cancel at least $10,000 of debt, so it is good and important the he is trying to keep that promise.  (I say "trying" because Republicans are probably going to sue to try to block this executive order.  I hope they fail, since people need help in this country right now.)  The IRA bill is another of the long list of recent examples of Biden keeping campaign promises.  It's great to see after such a frustrating year.

And the wins might not be over, either!  This week, Democrats won the special election for the US House seat in Alaska, defeating Sarah Palin.  We'll see in November if we hold the seat for three months or two years, but either way it sure was great to see.  And apparently the Electoral Count act, perhaps the last absolutely critical legislation that must be passed this year, is moving forward and seems to have enough Senate support to get past the filibuster.  I hope that happens soon.