Over on Twitter, I’ve had some back and forth with a couple of conservatives this week. One of them is a member of the California Legislature, the other is a Republican who unsuccessfully ran for office and claims to be a former liberal.
In both instances, they criticized policies of Democrats. I asked them to provide solutions because criticism is easy and if you’re going to criticize you should have solutions in mind that counter what Democrats are doing. Particularly if you’re an elected official or somebody who has designs on elected office.
With respect to the legislator, he never responded to my request for his solutions. With respect to the other individual, she played a game of cat-and-mouse with me through a series of tweets. Promising me a response and then accusing me of not asking in good faith, even though I told her several times that I am eager to have a dialogue with people who want to offer solutions. Meanwhile, while not responding directly to me, she tweeted out her “solutions” without pinning me in the tweet so I would see them. Talk about not operating in good faith.
Her solutions all revolved around immigration. Nothing else. When I found her tweet, I replied and pointed this out and that polls show that California voters are more concerned with the cost of housing, homelessness, the economy, and mental health, and that her solutions would do nothing to address those issues. In addition, if she got what she wanted, which would be a closed border and deportation of illegal immigrants already here, it would damage our economy by increasing inflation. How? Because if illegal immigrants aren’t available to work in the fields, in hotels, in restaurants, and everywhere else us spoiled Americans won’t work, the costs for all of those things will increase to cover the increased salaries necessary to draw people to those jobs.
Yesterday, I saw something that explains to me why they aren’t willing to really put their solutions out there. The Republican Study Committee, which represents 80% of the House GOP, put out their proposed budget for the next fiscal year. Congressman Don Beyer, a Democrat, published his summary of the lowlights of this document. He does an excellent job of categorizing and briefly describing the elements of the plan which should be offensive to a majority of Americans. To be sure of the accuracy of his descriptions, I checked the budget document to be sure it actually says what he claims. It does.
So, let me give you a few highlights:
a nationwide ban on abortion without exception and a ban on abortion pills
giving 14th amendment protection to embryos
end ACA protections for people with pre-existing conditions
eliminate Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices
raise the SS retirement age
slash funding for federal nutrition programs and for affordable housing programs
make the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy permanent and make additional changes that would provide more tax cuts for the wealthy and eliminate funding that allowed for expanded IRS enforcement
I’m sure there is more buried in the document that Congressman Beyer did not include in his summary. But what is clear from the document is that the “solutions” the GOP has to offer are not solutions for the American people.
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If you’ve been reading this space lately, you’ll know that I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the rise of White Christian Nationalism, the danger it poses to our country, and that Trump is feeding right into it. Here are a couple of other perspectives that reinforce what I’ve been saying. Here. There.
Trump and the modern GOP isn’t even trying to hide what they’re doing anymore, while truly turning Trumpism into a religion of its own where the Orange Clown is their new Jesus. Just read those articles.
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And now that I may have you suitably depressed, I remain optimistic. I’ve become convinced that Trump doesn’t actually want to win. He isn’t trying to expand his base and is instead continuing to get more extreme and more outrageous, which will only continue to narrow whatever appeal he has. That said, I believe he thinks that even if he loses, that his supporters will carry to him victory through chaos and violence. That is the scary part, but even there I remain optimistic that such an effort will utterly fail and he will finally be driven from the political stage.
Here’s another optimistic look from somebody for more knowledgeable about these things than I.
Chin up everybody!!
There's a lot of that going on. It's Trump 101
....Promising me a response and then accusing me of not asking in good faith, even though I told her several times that I am eager to have a dialogue with people who want to offer solutions .
The narcissist strikes again. How they put it all on you as they do their little tap dance. I'd so like to slam her. She reminds me of that blonde whose name I can never remember. She made fun of one of widows who wrote a book about Sept. 11th. One of those...she needs to get laid, women. Forgive my crassness.
I'm just tired of what's going on in our country that pretty soon we won't even recognize.
I always appreciate when you write these. So do the Founders from the ether.