What’s Really At Stake In November
"Everything Americans value is at stake", Chuck Schumer reportedly warned, during a Democratic Caucus call on Saturday afternoon, as the nation mourned the loss of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The minority leader went on to say that if Mitch McConnell moves ahead with a plan to rush a new justice onto the bench, "nothing is off the table for next year".
It was a threat. And it wasn't veiled. If McConnell's gambit succeeds, but Democrats win back the Senate and take the Oval Office, the effort to hasti
“be seen as exceptionally uncouth under these circumstances and therefore something to be avoided if at all possible”? Are we still talking about President Trump?
Prof. H, very well written.
Every revolution/revolt in history has started when the threshold of unbearable inequality was crossed. We are starting to feel the radiant heat of that threshold. We ignore it at our peril.
That comment also applies to other than just social issues… In Financial and Geopolitical terms there is often the “crossing of the Rubicon ” apparent especially in hindsight….
Racial inequality, gay rights, and reproductive rights are incredibly important but they are also divisive social issues that the 1% use to distract attention from their agenda goals. They want no unions, no taxes on the rich, limited access to the judicial system, limited democracy, reduction in the powers of legislatures, minimizing governmental benefits to the citizenry (like Social Security ) and so on. This is what The Federalist Society and their minions on the Supreme Court are all about.
If the Democrats turn the election into a referendum on abortion and other social issues, we will end up with the kind of divisiveness that Trump promotes. This plays into his hand.
Better to focus on bread-and-butter issues like making medical care available for all. Fair taxation for the wealthy. Right to vote and maintaining a democracy. These are issues that a significant majority of the American people support. And it’s exactly what the Trump team does not want this election to turn on.
2016 – An Executive/Legislative split. An election year where the incumbent cannot run for re-election. None of these are true now.
Why wait? Obama didn’t
Very well written. Yeah, the stakes. So very true.
Part of me holds out some hope that what we are witnessing is the death throes of the 1980s conservative turn and the extremes (Trumpism, Republican Party identity crisis, etc.) fail to reach escape velocity and come crashing back to Earth. The cost of anything other than a historic turn from the current trajectory is horrifying. The nation can’t continue on as is and any acceleration towards Trumpism (i.e., a dictatorship) would likely do so much damage over the next four, or maybe more years, that America as we all hope for it at its best, would likely be gone forever.
A “Handmaid’s Tale” ?
“… the vast majority suffer in one way or another, regardless of whether they support the government.
That is something many Americans are on the brink of learning the hard way. As for minorities and other historically marginalized groups, their suffering will likely only get more acute.”
The lowest unemployment rate in 50 years was 3.8% in February 2020. Getting the economy back to that level of prosperity is what this election and government should be focused on. What is being overlooked is the effort by the HOUSE to remove the president from office through a failed impeachment trial in January while the SENATE Health Committee began PRIVATE meetings to address the impact of COVID-19. What the heck were they doing? We need to move forward together and make the trillions of appropriations committed increase opportunity for everyone. I disagree with your point on “suffering”. It has been poorly addressed by the self-interest in Washington.
If you actually believe that a 3.8% unemployment rate led to widespread prosperity for historically marginalized groups in the US, then you might want to check with some low-income African American communities or perhaps with some Native Americans and see how things were working out for them in January. And for you to put “suffering” in scare quotes pretty clearly suggests you aren’t suffering. That’s great — for you. But just make sure you have some context. The US is the most unequal advanced economy on the planet on all manner of metrics. Capitalism in this country has failed. If you think working at Walmart or making $15/hour at [fill in the blank] counts as “employed”, then you are out of touch.
Coal country (Oxy-land) is white and suffering. The Senate refuses to fiscally support the bottom of the economic pyramid with another virus bill, but they will rush to vote in a judge, a few weeks before an election.
Well actually our Gini Coefficient isn’t the worst in the world but that’s nothing to boast about. Personal comments disregarded by a former minimum wage earner at McDonalds, it’s just that I am just not ready to throw in the towel on Neoliberal Capitalism quite yet. Socialism can wait. This country we can do more both here and abroad before we declare it a failure. Just my opinion. Thanks for your reply.
Read Piketty.
Keep in mind that the unemployment rate, as the Fed recently acknowledged, is not a very accurate measure of employment. It’s more of a politic tool now that habitually undercounts desired participation and fails to include critical job quality metrics.
Great graphic this one, that is literally how it feels right now, we are in free fall as a nation, one can almost smell the despair in the air.
H-Man, maybe we should all read or reread the “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. Jim had some interesting comments about life.