Moments like this in history, remind us of why DSOT is so necessary.
Let’s review: We are still in the grips of a devastating pandemic with hundreds of thousands dead and more dying everyday, driven partly by the metastasizing culture war fed by right wing lunacy and hate. Unemployment benefits have been allowed to lapse for millions, despite recent data showing cuts to benefits actually slowed economic growth, compared to places which kept the federal help. Thousands of Haitian immigrants are being held in squalor under bridges, whipped by CBP agents before being illegally removed by the US back to a devastated Haiti. How large in scale are these mass illegal denials of asylum and refuge? Using “Title 42” Trump denied entry to over 400,000 people, Biden has used the same policies on over 600,000 people. Washington is running around with its head on fire over the debt ceiling. All this, when we are less than a year out from a failed coup by Trump and many Republicans still sitting in office to this day!
Keep in mind, all this is happening under Democratic control of both houses of Congress and the executive branch, and we’ve barely scratched the surface of the injustices perpetrated everyday in America.
In any society with responsible leadership, they would look at the dire straits we are in as a people, see the causes we care about like:
84% of voters want to expand Medicare to include dental, vision and hearing
73% want Medicare to negotiate drug prices
68% want increased taxes on the wealthy
70+% want action on the climate crisis
Along with dozens of other issues we constantly cover
And then take action to bring about change.
That is of course not how our system works. Instead, members of the “party of the people,” like Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin (and many others more cowardly in the shadows) shred these very provisions from their own party’s legislation, spitting in the face of the entire Democratic agenda, the millions of voters who came out for them, and the entire future of American democracy.
This moment perfectly encapsulates how our system of government work, and everything wrong with it:
Senators like Joe Manchin own businesses with personal conflicts of interest, that they make policy decisions on, throwing the people under the bus for their success in a crony marketplace. The corruption of Senators like Sinema is even more commonplace. She takes the checks from industry lobbyists, and then refuses to vote on the provisions they’ve bribed her on. Everyone knows it’s happening, and they are so confident and comfortable in their corruption, they barely hide their actions, and have no fear of consequences. All that matters is the money, money for the few, not the many.
We can see right now every corporate Democrat desperately trying to stop the reconciliation bill from passing, or barring that, stripping every good provision out of the legislation. Fears over inflation or unintended consequence rushing to help people are brought out as excuses for delays and inaction. Yet when funding for the Iron Dome to Israel or “defense” spending in general comes up, the bills are written and passed in mere days.
There are many possible outcomes to the days ahead, from the miraculous passage of both infrastructure bills, the collapse of the entire Biden agenda when both bills fail, or the capitulation and breaking of the progressive democrats if only the bipartisan bill sails through. Given the power of capital, the first option seems the least likely, let us hope the progressive representatives of the people remain strong in this moment and follow through on their promises, no matter how things shake out.
Critically though, this fight isn’t just about today. Today is peeling back of the curtain, to see just how corrupted our system is, and how slavishly most of our politicians serve capital, but to break that hold, will take more than skillful negotiation from good-hearted Congress people, it takes organized economic power! Power that can make capital take notice, power that can bring politicians to heel, and punish those who betray the people they serve. Individually, we cannot compete against the monied interests, but by joining together each week, we can grow a movement to challenge the elites, creating an economic cudgel to go hand in hand with a politics for the people. So join us each Tuesday, until we get a government that passes policies for the people, not just themselves!
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