On Thursday, President Biden signed what will undoubtedly be the signature and most critical legislation of his presidency, namely the $1.9 trillion Cares Act of 2021. In fact, it is so comprehensive that economists are hailing it for doing as much to alleviate poverty as to combat Covid.
Here in part is how CNN reported this historic signing:
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This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country and giving people in this nation, working people, middle class folks, people who built the country, a fighting chance,’ Biden said in the Oval Office before signing the legislation. ‘That’s what the essence of it is.’
Key features of the plan include up to $1,400-per-person stimulus payments that will send money to about 90% of households, a $300 federal boost to weekly jobless benefits, an expansion of the child tax credit of up to $3,600 per child and $350 billion in state and local aid, as well as billions of dollars for K-12 schools to help students return to the classroom, to assist small businesses hard-hit by the pandemic and for vaccine research, development and distribution.
More than 529,400 Americans have died from Covid-19 as of Thursday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University.
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Much is being made of the fact that not a single Republican voted for this bill. After all, it is the first one in generations that has so clearly provided for the general welfare.
But their partisan refusal becomes damnable when you consider that every Republican voted for the signature and most defining legislation of former President Trump’s presidency, namely the $1.8 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts of 2017. After all, 90 percent of that bill delivered tax windfalls to only 10 percent of the American people, while the remaining 10 percent of it delivered scant jobs to 90 percent of them. In other words, a typically Orwellian distribution of wealth and benefits in Trump’s dystopian America.
More to the point, though, you’d think that alone would have been enough to incite the poor, especially white folks, to mount a French-style revolution. Yet these are the same poor fools who – so blinded by a confluence of political tribalism and rabid racism – voted for Republicans who pledged to repeal Obamacare. That, of course, is the Affordable Care Act of 2010, the signature legislation of former President Obama’s presidency, which provided access to life-saving healthcare to tens of millions of them.
But this blog is replete with commentaries decrying the willingness not just of poor whites to vote against their interests but of Republicans to exploit their ignorance and pander to their racism in this respect.
The point is that Democrats voted for Covid relief last year despite Trump because they care about the welfare of the American people. Republicans voted against Covid relief this year to spite Biden because they have shown time and again they really don’t.
You have to wonder how much longer poor whites will continue voting for Republicans who show them such contempt. Truth be told, though, they give me no hope that they will ever come to their senses.
You need only look at how they are supporting Republican efforts to normalize even the insurrection of January 6. Evidently, if Democrats win elections, far too many poor whites have no qualms about seeing a government of the people, by the people, for the people overthrown. And if that means supporting politicians who do nothing but peddle restive rhetoric about guns and kooky conspiracies – so be it.
Indeed, apropos of tribalism and racism that would cause Republicans to sacrifice their own lives to rationalize anything Republicans do, consider this:
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said in an interview this week he did not feel unsafe during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot but might have if Black Lives Matter protesters and far-left ‘antifa’ activists had demonstrated there.
‘Even though those thousands of people were marching on the Capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break the law, so I wasn’t concerned,’ he continued.
‘So had the tables been turned, Joe, this could mean trouble. Had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.’
(The Hill, March 13, 2021)
Is there any wonder some Blacks have a chip on their shoulder…? That’s a friggin’ US senator who would rather deflect blame or risk death than acknowledge that white supremacists led the infamous insurrection on January 6.
That said, it took Biden just 50 days to sign his legacy-sealing bill to combat Covid and alleviate poverty; Trump 336 days to sign his legacy-sealing bill to give tax cuts to the rich; and Obama 427 days to sign his legacy-sealing bill to provide access to healthcare for the poor.
But I feel obliged to end by restating that I’m a pragmatic liberal who criticizes Democrats as readily as I do Republicans, and praise the latter as readily as I do the former. In fact, if you return for tomorrow’s podcast, you could listen to me prove this in stark relief.
I share that to give credence to this lament: The Republican Party of Donald Trump has strayed so far from that of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, both of which had some redeeming value, I don’t see how anyone with any common sense, or any sense of decency, can still support it.
Related commentaries:
Obamacare… repeal Obamacare… tribalism…
insurrection… Republican Party… Republican base…
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