Despicable Them

Paul Krugman's column in the NYT this morning basically calls the GOP the party of evil.  The republican congressional majorities' pathetic attempts to eviscerate Obamacare is cartoonishly over the top.   To seek to deny millions of people health care so the .01% can have a little extra pocket change is mind boggling unless you accept one or the other theories of what has become of a major political party.  As Krugman posits, most of these people are just evil.  They have spent a lifetime practicing for these moments and by the flying spaghetti monster they are going to enjoy this frisson of pure malevolence.  My theory is that a minority of bigoted, racist, misogynist people have self selected themselves as members of a party which has enabled their worst instincts.   These are the people Reagan harangued with stories of "welfare queens" and subsequent leaders derided as "those people".  As the democratic party has steadily become the hope of people of color, women, gays and others left out of the republican fantasy, the divergence of view between the two parties has become a vast gulf of misunderstanding.   The future is not looking good for the GOP as demographics overtake it, but in the meantime it can do a lot of damage to the American experiment.

The coarsening of civil discourse

Maybe it was eight years of civility under the Obama administration that spoiled me.  The contrast with Shrub's crude simplicity was bracing at first, but then we got used to a higher level of discourse regarding out politics, economy and the ties that bind us together.  Despite a stumble here and there, the population could be confident Obama was telling us the truth to the best of his ability.  From the moment he stepped onto the down escalator at Trump Tower, the present inhabitant of the White House took Obama's policy and stood it on its head.  It has been estimated Trump lies at least several times every day about virtually anything to anybody.   The corrosive effect on the political commonwealth proceeds apace.   No democracy can survive for long when a majority of the population loses trust in its leaders' veracity.  About all we can count on is that the tRump administration will lie and it will be up to us and the media to catalogue the prevarications and call the president and his enablers in Congress to account as soon as possible.

Momentary repreive

Obamacare remains on life support, thanks to Mitch McConnell's decision to postpone a vote on the supposed replacement of Obama's signature legislative achievement.  Also, thanks to Cheeto Jesus' heavy handed attacks on one moderate republican senator due to his opposition to the bill.  McConnell called the attacks by a Trump super PAC "beyond stupid".  If anything, they galvanized the anti-repeal movement and pushed several squishy GOP moderates into opposition of the republican plan to turn back the clock on health care in the name of tax cuts for the wealthy.  In over 6 months, the republican majority congress and the president have been unable to pass any major legislation.  Of course the biggest obstacle is what to do about Obamacare.  The ACA gets more popular as people find out it is what it actually does.  It turns out the republicans are the act's best advocates, since their effort to repeal and not replace key provisions are finally shining a light on the benefits accruing to the lower and middle classes in the country.  Also, local, rural hospitals which would be hurt by the GOP "healthcare" bill are mobilizing their supporters to contact their congress critters.  I'm sure our local representative, Elise Stefanik has heard from hospitals in the 23rd congressional district regarding the hardships the bill she voted  for would impose.   Public pressure seems to be working.

Cruel, but usual

In 2017 America, it is a crime to be one or more of the following; poor, pigmented, gay, elderly or a woman.  Combining any of these characteristics increases the severity of the punishment being meted out by the legislative branch of government.  A case in point is the latest iteration of "repeal and replace" now being considered in the Senate.   Slashing Medicaid, Planned Parenthood and subsidies to help the lower middle class afford insurance are all part of the plan.  The scoring of the bill by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates up to 22 million will lose health care by 2026, all in the name of cutting taxes on the 1%.  Instead of trying to defend the actual provisions of the bill, the sponsors have decided to simply lie about it and count on the media to represent their position as legitimate.  Cutting benefits to poor people has always been the modus of the modern republican party, but in the past it was dressed in the sheep's clothing of trickle down economics.  No more.   They are doing it because they can and are daring the average voter to try and stop them.  Elections have consequences.

Stormy weather

With a 50% or more chance of rain nearly every day this week, it looks like the garden and associated work will be on hiatus this week.  I scrambled most of the weekend to catch up on seeding, weeding, transplanting and harvesting  and was able to make some progress in that regard.  Unfortunately, a week of off and on again showers will set the entire enterprise back.  The warmer weather and an inch of moisture on Friday boosted the warm weather crops, but it has cooled off and more rain will put the brakes on tomatoes, peppers, basil and other heat lovers.  The galinsoga weeds are in all stages from sprouts to mature plants ready to drop another generation of seeds.  It' s enough to start thinking about politics again and that way lies madness.   Instead, I'll  just hope the weather gods decide to smile on us mortals as we head into July.

cognitive dissonance

I wanted to title a post "cognitive dissonance" because it sounds as if I am going to provide a somewhat more erudite rant than usual.  However, I think it aptly describes how I felt this morning as the earnest, nice, polite republicans on NPR interviewed a selection of democrats and asked them if they could work with republicans to pass the execrable AHCA, or whatever McConnell and his henchmen are calling this travesty today.  For the most part, the dems who answered the call remained polite as they were hectored about their attitude toward a bill which will make health care more expensive for most people and unavailable for  many more.  I wonder if Rachel Martin would be so demure if her health insurance was being taken away or made vastly more expensive.  Instead of allowing the GOP to define this plan or forcing democrats to defend Obamacare, if the media merely described the AHCA and what it does, they would be asking vastly different questions of the protagonists' views.  As Cheeto Jesus told the media after the House version of the bill was explained to him, it was "mean".   If anything, the Senate version is meaner, and it sounds like the democrats have finally found their mojo by being the anti meanness party.   Kevin Drum, in describing his conservative mother's decision to become a democrat in the 1950s after going to college at USC, she said it was not so much the policy stands.  Republicans were just mean.  By associating "MEAN" with the republicans' repulsive version of a health care bill, democrats may have found the silver bullet to kill this particular zombie.

same as the old racism

Had the special elections in Georgia and S. Carolina happened in 1936 instead of 2017, the results would have been the same, namely, the party of racism and exclusivity won.  The only difference is the party's name has changed.  Thanks originally to the civil rights movement and Nixon's "southern strategy", racist whites in the south overwhelmingly crossed the aisle and became republicans, thus turning the solid south from a democratic monolith to a republican stronghold.  As the GOP ideology becomes further and further disconnected from reality, their voters fall back on the gut issues which brought them to the party originally.  For most of them, it all goes back to the racism, and fear of the other which republicans stoke.  Let's face it, the democratic party, for better or for worse has become the party of the non-white future of America and the backlash against it continues to build in white America.  Anyone who denies this is not looking in the mirror.