Get busy. Get loud.
by Tom Sullivan
Link here.
The country awaits the new scoring from the Congressional Budget Office of Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Obamacare repeal bill. Expect the report to show millions will lose the protections of health insurance coverage. With opposition mounting to the repeal bill released last Thursday, President Trump cannot understand why Democrats do not join with Republicans and “wrap their arms around it so that everybody is happy with it.” He complained Sunday to Fox News, “Well, their theme is resist. I’ve never heard of anything like this, resist.”
Except that time he “moved on” that married woman down in Palm Beach and failed.
Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana urged Congress to designate a National Day of Civility on July 12. Johnson, a Republican, was responding to the shooting of his colleague Rep. Steve Scalise on a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia. No doubt he is more sincere than the president.
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Will Bunch is suspicious, if not of Johnson, of others urging civility. He recalls the 2010 Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity as a good-natured but misguided diversion. Elsewhere, T-partiers were “working their proverbial butts off” to elect a slate of retrograde politicians that would give Republicans control over redistricting in state house across the country. The GOP sweep in 2010 would introduce the country to a slew of voter suppression measures and more:
The truth is that a lot of the people pleading for a return to civility in American politics are actually hoping for something different: Passivity, or inaction. It’s not something completely new — using protests and occasional lapses into violence as an excuse to crack down on dissent and take away the civil liberties that are supposed to be guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights is an old trick.
REPUBLICANS: [want to pass a law that will kill people]
PEOPLE: people will die
REPUBLICANS: how dare you
MEDIA: we are a divided nation— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) June 23, 2017
The shootings in Alexandria by James Hodgkinson, an unstable man with a history of domestic violence, while inexcusable, are sadly inevitable in a population of 320 million, Bunch writes.
But while no one should incite violence, there’s also a real danger in too much “civility” and calm at a moment like this, when it’s unfortunately not an exaggeration to say the fate of America as a democracy is hanging by a thread. If you’re not angry about what’s taking place in Washington at this very moment, you’re not paying attention. Which is what they’re going for.
It’s easy for people who lie with verve to cow civilized opponents with charges of incivility. Most of the time, they fall for it too. Calls for civility come whenever those in power strive to hang onto it in a system that is “unfair and unequal.” Don’t fall for it this time, not with “the fate of America as a democracy … hanging by a thread,” Bunch insists. One gathers he has more on his mind than Obamacare repeal.
The people are going to have to do what the politicians won’t do. Fight — with reckless abandon but under control. Violence never solves anything, but meaningful social changes has never come without large-scale resistance and with righteous anger, from Selma to Stonewall and beyond. Reasonableness has its place, but it’s important to understand that there’s a class of folks out there who talk about “civility” when what they really mean is don’t call your senator, don’t circle the Capitol at 5 p.m. Wednesday night to show your outrage, and by all means do not say anything that will interfere with this orderly transfer of $800 billion from the struggling middle class to the already wealthy. Yes, there’s a problem with the level of anger in American politics right now. It’s not high enough.
There’s still time to have your voices heard on the Republicans’ Better Care Reconciliation Act (Obamacare repeal). Don’t worry if your senators are Democrats and already with you. Don’t assume they know what you think. They need ammunition. That’s you. If your senators are or Republicans, get loud 24/7.
See who will be most affected by the Senate health-care bill’s subsidy cuts https://t.co/740spVcuVx— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 26, 2017