The Covid Relief Bill Will Be A Massive Political Game Changer
Republicans don't understand what is about to hit them. Tens of millions of families are about to receive hundreds of dollars a month to provide for their children. Not just once, but every month into the fall. Most taxpayers of course will receive $1400 each in the near future. And rescue is on the way for renters who fear loosing their homes. And many who can not afford medical insurance are about to receive a substantial break. And small businesses are about to receive a lifeline...
This relief is as concrete as anything that comes out of a cement mixer. It doesn't nibble at the edges, like a payroll tax "holiday" that then has to be repaid. It will make a huge and immediate positive difference in the lives of most Americans. There is one political party responsible for making this happen, and one political party that united to attempt to stop it. It simply doesn't get clearer than this. The distinction between the political parties, when it comes to the economic survival of millions, hasn't been clearer since LBJ's Great Society. That truth will be driven home in April, and again in May, and again in June, and again in July...
The benefit to Democrats will be clearly evident in the next two national elections. Resentment over a Dr. Suess book going out of print can't compete with the relief of being able to provide for your children, and the return to strong economic growth that we're now on the verge of. Democrats won't need to break through and reclaim the votes of all of the so-called Trump Democrats. If Republicans lose even a fifth of them (and they will easily lose that or more) they are screwed.
Eventually the Republican Party will be forced to embrace some version of economic populism in order to appease white blue collar workers whose votes they have increasingly become dependent on. I expect the rise of Right Wing economic demagogues who will not hesitate to massively rob from future generations in order to secure their power now. They will push their cultural war and racist agenda to the max while promoting themselves as "populists" who will temporarily shower hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of dollars onto the middle class while at the same time funneling billions to the super rich. They will then gladly leave America as a smouldering ruin behind them and flee our shores with their ill begotten gains, if they can get away with it. But here's the thing. Those future demagogues will have to arise from the mud anew. All current Republican members of Congress, along with any GOP Governors who backed them in attempting to block Biden's relief package, cast their lot against the people in what will soon be viewed as one of the most consequential votes in a generation. Henceforth they must wear that indelible scarlet letter.
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hopefully Dems will run on this and emphasize how repubs voted against it.
It's what she does.
at least on the lower end, which this bill is aimed at.
