When throwing bums out, consider what you are voting for
High inflation is a pain in the gas. The cost to fill up the tank takes a noticeable bite out of the wallet lately. Republicans are counting on irritation at rising costs to help them retake control of both houses of Congress in the November elections. Gas prices are the new shiny object for distracting voters from what an antidemocratic, un-American authoritarian cult their party has become.
Catherine Rampell reminds voters that backlash against inflation 40 years ago ushered in Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Meaning stagnant wages, the middle-class squeeze and deepening inequality. (Then again, some people prefer inequality.)
Rampell cautions voters to consider what their choices will mean once the satisfaction of throwing out some bums wears off. Because for one, there are few tools either major party has for lowering gas prices. Second, neither Democrats nor Republicans have any real plans for curbing inflation and lowering gas prices anyway.
So what else do the two majors offer?
Biden and fellow Democrats once promised a cradle-to-grave expansion of the safety net, plus measures intended to combat climate change. Love or hate this platform — I liked much, if not necessarily all, of it — it’s no longer terribly relevant to the choices voters face this November.
Not unless Democrats hold the House and add a few members to their caucus in the Senate.
And what do Republicans offer? They won’t say. Not explicitly. But beside “fighting with Mickey Mouse and drag queens,” we can deduce a few of their priorities from their actions and rhetoric, Rampell suggests.
Tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, of course. Repealing Obamacare. Slashing Medicaid. The usual.
What else?
They care about installing judges who will roll back reproductive rights.
They care about supporting a president who used the powers of the state to further his own political and financial interests, rather than those of the American public he was sworn to serve.
They care about supporting a presidency whose few purported diplomatic achievements, in retrospect, look largely like an excuse to meet potential investors who might fund Trump aides’ new private equity endeavors.
They care about defending, at all costs, a president who cheered on the mob seeking to hang his own vice president.
And they care about undermining the integrity of our election system and overturning the will of the voters, if and when vote tallies don’t go their way.
Republicans have rejected democracy for autocracy, if you haven’t noticed. Voting for them will help make your vote and your voice irrelevant going forward. The “voter fraud steals your vote” people are out to steal yours. Permanently.
Consider that the next time you’re grinding your teeth while filling the tank this summer. Don’t get distracted by the shiny, shiny.
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