Just when it looked like the Biden administration's plans to rebuild and strengthen the social safety net were about to bear fruit with a robust Build Back Better bill, the doomsayers have come out in full force to deny or at least dilute the provisions of the bill which will have a direct impact on future generations.
With all Republican senators on team Doom and able to control and kill Biden's signature legislation without elimination or emasculation of the filibuster rule, Democrats like Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema have outsize power in the Democratic caucus. Neither of these worthies are driven by a hint of a social conscience. Manchin is in thrall to fossil fuel interests and no one seems to know what drives Sinema. There are probably other Democrats who would step forward with spurious objections to this landmark legislation if the other two were to convert to social democracy.
I would probably agree with my nephew that the whole system is rotten and must be torn down and rebuilt except if the present imperfect forms of democracy are destroyed, the result would most probably be an ethno-nationalist white supremacy state which would be the end of the American experiment for at least a generation. So, reluctantly, I still embrace the incremental form of democracy we are still stuck with.
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