Robert Reich: The hell with bipartisanship.

[kpete]

Bipartisanship is not a goal. Goals are raising the minimum wage, securing voting rights, ending police brutality, getting universal health care, and saving the planet. If these can’t be done in a bipartisanship way, the hell with bipartisanship.

Link to tweet

?s=20

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

[SheltieLover]

2. Yup!

K&R!

[MiHale]

3. KnR...nt

[OldBaldy1701E]

4. Reality vs Fantasy

the fantasy is that once the other side see's how correct we are about things, they will come around. The reality is the other side does not care about doing anything but helping themselves and to hell with the rest of us, except when we won't work in their businesses to make them richer. I am with Mr. Reich on this one all the way. We need to issue a warning to the rethugs out there... join or get the hell out of the way. This train is rolling and if they get run over because they won't get off of the tracks, then so be it. All they have to do is move.

[OnDoutside]

5. Bob doesn't get politics. Biden has played this perfectly, give the opposition the opportunity to

work in a bipartisan manner, and if they don't move on without them. It doesn't have to be for very long. But you don't start with "Fuck you" as your default position.

[2Gingersnaps]

8. They have spent 40 years moving the middle

just to the left of batshit insane. Uncle Joe can move us to actual middle, and he doesn't have to be in "in your face fuck you." But I am wildly OK with subtle "we have things to accomplish" fuck you. Because people are to the point where they have to see actual improvement, bang for their tax dollar or we will be as dead in the water as the Rethugs are right now.

[OnDoutside]

20. Absolutely agree.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

22. Agree! Plus, as the Biden admin has pointed out,

bipartisanship already exists when a bill is supported by a great number of Americans of both/all parties.

It does not require the support of insurrection-suppoting, obstruntionist GOP politicians to be a bipartisan piece of legislation.

[Bettie]

35. I agree with that

and thanks for pointing out that the "middle" has been shoved to the right. What people call far left these days is pretty standard center in most places.

[yaesu]

26. How about a three strikes & their out rule, say, put 3 bills in front of them, something that

would have garnered repug support in the past, something good good for the country as a whole then if we can't get enough votes to pass any of them their out, nuke the filibuster.

[OnDoutside]

30. If Democrats had the time, sure, but that's one thing they don't have. They simply have to get the

VRA through.

[DENVERPOPS]

43. The RepubliCONs

will use any and every attempt by the Dems to be bi-partisan as an adventure to waste time we don't have, or to launch another obstruction................

[Hotler]

6. I didn't vote to play nice. nt

[JohnnyRingo]

7. Reich is my role model.

Has been since he was Labor Sec.

[MyOwnPeace]

9. Excellent choice!

I was hoping he'd have a position someplace in the Biden administration.

[2Gingersnaps]

10. Incredibley smart man.

My go to for policy. I read William Greider for economics, LOL, Thank you Rolling Stone, education is where you find it!

[JohnnyRingo]

14. I'm a subscriber as well.

I like economists who are able to speak workingman's English.

[KS Toronado]

19. He does that very well with his blackboard.........

Using ideas & words everyone can understand.

[Roc2020]

11. sounds about right

[llashram]

12. this

[sarchasm]

13. Kick

I don’t like it, but they started this s***.

[tecelote]

15. We have an agenda.

That's all that should count.

It doesn't matter if they disagree. Our agenda is our agenda.

[Tommymac]

16. Truth is not 'bipartisan'. It is simply TRUTH.

We Dems need to continue to be the fact based, Truth based Party.

That is all.

[SayItLoud]

17. tRUMP and his tRUMPists will be marginalized

like the TeaParty. Possibly in the 2022 elections or maybe before. Until they are gone F ... bipartisanship. BUT play it as they would

"Oh , we (Dems) really want this to be a bipartisan vote, law, bla bla bla". But KNOW that it will never be, and only use their rejections to hammer them over the head during the next election(s).

[jaxexpat]

18. As usual, he's 100% right. The goal is to do the right things despite and in the face of opposition.

It's not required or even a good thing that the entrenched and intransigent minority (representing an ever-shrinking host) be empowered to block the common will of the vast majority. That was in some of the lies I recall hearing in high school civics; that the will of the minority should be respected and protected because something about a "melting pot" embracing all cultures along with other creative historical narratives straight out of the war-time propaganda machine. That machine's lies are what today's "conservatives" think they remember as the "greatness" of America. We came out on top in WWII but it had more to do with the dead men and women of forgotten villages in Russia and China than any innate national greatness of the American character.

[Ford_Prefect]

21. I wonder just how much bi-partisan sentiment we'll hear once the warrants start being served?

And after the arrests begin?

And after the judge rules?

And as they have a dwindling number of GOP members in either chamber?

And after certain members prominent in the vote to overturn the EC results are gone?

Will those remaining feel the need to co-exist and cooperate?

Will those appointed to replace the miscreants feel obliged to improve the atmosphere at the Capitol?

[usaf-vet]

23. EXACTLY! It's a buzzword the Repugs use to keep their ignorant follower stirred up.

The Democrats

1.need to keep delivering programs and policies that benefit the majority of the American people.
2 .need to ELIMINATE every single voter suppression scams that the repugs try to employ. Let the people VOTE without restrictions.
3. balance the legal system back to a fair system for every American.
4. SUPPORT THE CONSTITUTION.

[DanieRains]

24. Just Like Appeasing Hitler

History's best example.

[jimmyzvoice]

25. Republicans CAN vote for any of the policies that benefit all Americans...

That's enough bipartisanship for me!

[BobTheSubgenius]

27. I find Robert Reich to be so intelligent and incisive that he is hard to ignore, or disagree with.

Add to that that his sensibilities and heart are always in the right place, I almost automatically agree with his opinions, as well as his statements of fact. He should be somewhere in government, if he wants to be.

[aggiesal]

28. Amen! n/t

[Cha]

29. Yeah, No Negotiations with Terrorists.

[Ferrets are Cool]

31. K and R

[Oldem]

32. Which is to say,

"to hell with repugnants." Well played, Mr. Reich.

[flying_wahini]

33. We tried bipartisanship with Obama and look where that got us.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Obama. But you can’t negotiate with these people.

[marieo1]

34. Right On

I agree 100%!!!

[Mary Mac]

36. I say it's broccoli and I say the hell with it.

[czarjak]

37. Kicking and screaming like they were gonna bring us?

[lpbk2713]

38. Screw them.

They have proven over and over they can't be trusted.

[PrinceHakeem]

39. Yes. K&r

[Warpy]

40. I said this 30 years ago, that the Republicans needed to be steamrolled

and simply squashed flat whenever we got the Presidency and Congress. Just run right over them, they will never do the right things for this country, they are too wedded to fallacies like top down thinking and unattainable ends justifying unacceptable means.

Sadly, neither Clinton nor Obama listened to me during the first 2 years of their first terms and both clung to that bipartisan fiction, not realizing the GOP had become a tribal cult whose sole purpose was destroying any Democratic legacy before it ever got started. Obama got the ACA passed, but he had to give up a lot to Republicans and then not a single one voted for the plan.

In normal times, bipartisanship has worked. The unreasonable people were in the Democratic Party before LBJ got the Civil Rights Acts passed. Republicans were often reasonable, just wrong, but open to bargaining. The rise of Gingrich is what killed that illusion stone dead and the GOP has just gotten loonier and more intransigent since then.

Biden was in the Senate and saw the whole thing happen. I have to hope he's talking bipartisanship but readying the steamroller. It's overdue. Now they have demonstrated they're against democracy, itself, even the watered down version we have. You can't negotiate with terrorists and you can't bargain in good faith with men who have none.

[Blue Owl]

41. K&R

[Aussie105]

42. Bipartisanship? Sure, why not!

Sure, give them a chance to have some input.

But if they go NO too loud and too often, just to be obnoxious, treat them like the recalcitrant fools they are, and cut them out of any important decision making.

Their power has waned, both in politics and with the general population.
They are slow to realize that.
Slow to understand the implications of that.

They need to be shown at every opportunity.

[cstanleytech]

44. I wish people like him and other Democrats would commit to a better way to raise the minimum wage

which is taking it out of the hands of Congress and basing it on the a formula that utilizes the federal poverty level.
By that I mean it adjusts as the federal poverty level adjusts using a that roughly goes like the following.

Single person poverty level for 2020.
$12,760 + 200% = 38280 divided by 52 weeks = 736.15 a week divided by 40 hours = 18.40 an hour and that is what the minimum wage then becomes.
Yes, there will be some increase in prices as businesses adjust but in the end it would make the financial situation as whole better for millions of Americans.