You wanted a hot take? This one will burn you, from the mind of Michael Tomasky at The New Republic
The Reconciliation Bill Is About Saving Democracy
Democrats have to prove that the government can deliver for people. If they don’t, authoritarianism wins.
Why do the Democrats behave this way? We’ve heard the standard answers. They’re not as disciplined as the Republicans, instinctively less inclined to obey orders (a good thing). They’re more ideologically diverse (also a good thing, up to a point). They actually care about policy outcomes, unlike Republicans, so they have genuine substantive disagreements (another good thing—again, up to a point).
But here’s another reason, and this one is not a good thing. They, or at least some of them, have no grasp of the historical moment in which they find themselves. And this moment is unlike anything any of them have lived through, anything the country has been through: The opposition party is trying to destroy democracy. Republicans all over the country are passing laws and making rules in broad daylight that will allow them to overturn the results (if adverse) of the next presidential election. They’re not hiding this. They’re advertising it. John Eastman’s memo is Exhibit A, but we also have exhibits B through double-Z. They couldn’t be making their intentions clearer.
So the Democrats have to be the party of democracy. That means they need to make some obvious moves, such as protecting voting rights, which seems tragically iffy at the moment; but it also means, as Joe Biden repeatedly and correctly says, that they need to show the country that democracy works and can produce positive outcomes. If they don’t manage to come to terms on this reconciliation bill, the negative impacts won’t be merely economic. This reconciliation bill is about democracy. If they don’t pass it and don’t show that democracy works, especially with the government in the hands of one party, the Republican Party will benefit—they’ll almost certainly take the House and the Senate in 2022, and they’ll be teed up to steal the 2024 election for Donald Trump, and American democracy will be on life support.
Really, there’s no need to go beyond the first three paragraphs. Heck, no reason to go beyond the sub-head. It says all you need to know. They have to pass a massive, Big Government bill which implements massive governmental controls on citizens and states, along with tons of taxes, which seems rather authoritarian, to avoid authoritarianism. It’s this kind of BS that let’s you know they are utterly insincere, that they’re trying to hoodwink people.
They seem pretty upset over laws which protect voting rights, that require people to prove who they are, that they’re actually eligible to vote. See, if we don’t let illegal aliens, felons, and people who vote elsewhere vote “democracy” is at stake. That if they don’t pass a wishlist of hard left insanity democracy is at stake. This is all insane. But, if you don’t give it to them, democracy is at stake. Can we just split the nation and let these lunatics do their thing on their own already?
