Anyone paying attention knows the GOP doesn't care about the national debt. It balloons under virtually every GOP administration, and they only care when Democrats are in office trying to enact policies that benefit working Americans. The GOP only wants policies that benefit the obscenely wealthy and despises any policies that help average Americans.

"The administration says the GOP doesn’t actually care about the national debt, but rather wants to slash welfare."

White House: The GOP’s Current Agenda Would Add $3 Trillion to National Debt - Truthout https://truthout.org/articles/white-house-the-gops-current-agenda-would-add-3-trillion-to-national-debt/

#GOPInBedWithRich
#GOPIsTheToolOfTheRich
#GOPHatesAvgAmericans
#FascistsRTheToolOfTheRich

"The administration says the GOP doesn’t actually care about the national debt, but rather wants to slash welfare.

The White House is going after congressional Republicans for their current agenda, which the Biden administration says would add trillions of dollars to the national debt while making life materially worse for the American public.

In a fact sheet released on Wednesday, the White House highlighted four different recently proposed Republican policies that, if passed, would collectively add over $3 trillion to the national debt.

“Congressional Republican leaders insist that the national debt is among our nation’s greatest challenges, and reducing it is among their highest priorities. In fact, they claim that reducing the debt is so urgent it warrants endangering the entire U.S. economy through debt limit brinksmanship,” White House officials wrote. “But their legislative agenda to date points in a very different direction — with proposals that would increase the debt by over $3 trillion.”

President Joe Biden is expected to highlight the GOP proposals in a speech on the economy to Maryland union workers on Wednesday.

“If you add up all the proposals that my Republican friends in Congress have offered so far, they would add another $3 trillion to the debt over 10 years,” he is expected to say, per the Associated Press.

The messaging calls into question the sincerity of Republicans who often become deficit hawks under Democratic presidents, while completely disregarding the national debt under Republican leadership. In reality, as the White House points out, Republicans don’t care about the deficit — they care about slashing anti-poverty welfare programs and preventing the government from making the lives of working-class Americans materially easier.

Officials highlighted conservative advocates’ own words in making this argument.

“Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform, exposed the political logic of Congressional Republicans’ fiscal hypocrisy. He told Republicans their focus should be ‘not the deficit’ after all: it’s to shift public discussion to cutting spending, paving the way for more tax cuts for the wealthy,” the White House wrote.

“That trickle-down economic theory has never worked. President Trump and President [George W.] Bush’s tax cuts added trillions to the debt and failed to deliver their promised benefits for the economy or American workers,” the fact sheet goes on to say. “And taking revenues — and even savings from cutting corporate subsidies — off the table means Congressional Republicans consistently propose deep cuts to programs seniors and middle-class and working families count on...”

"House Republicans are trying to slash lifelines for middle-class families on behalf of rich special interests," White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement. "Who on earth thinks that welfare for Big Pharma is worth selling out over a million seniors in their home state?"

"It is vital that all Americans understand what is at risk if MAGA extremists succeed in passing their latest dangerous idea: millions of lost jobs, millions more without health insurance, and higher costs for lifesaving insulin, utilities, and more," Gaspard added."

White House says GOP bill would force "one of the biggest Medicare benefit cuts" in US history | Salon.com https://www.salon.com/2023/02/05/says-bill-would-force-one-of-the-biggest-medicare-benefit-cuts-in-us-history_partner/

#GOPInBedWithRich
#GOPHatesAvgAmericans

"The White House on Saturday condemned a newly introduced Republican bill that would repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, a law that includes a number of changes aimed at lowering costs for Medicare recipients.

Unveiled Thursday by freshman Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), the bill has 20 original co-sponsors and is endorsed by several right-wing groups, including the Koch-funded organization Americans for Prosperity.

The Biden White House argued that rolling back the Inflation Reduction Act, which also contains major climate investments, would represent "one of the biggest Medicare benefit cuts in American history" as well as a "handout to Big Pharma." According to Politico, which first reported the White House's response to the GOP bill, the administration is planning to release "state-by-state data indicating how this would affect constituents in different areas."

"House Republicans are trying to slash lifelines for middle-class families on behalf of rich special interests," White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement. "Who on earth thinks that welfare for Big Pharma is worth selling out over a million seniors in their home state?"

The Inflation Reduction Act authorized a $35-per-month cap on insulin copayments for Medicare recipients, as well as an annual $2,000 total limit on out-of-pocket drug costs.

The bill will also, among other long-overdue changes, allow Medicare to begin negotiating the prices of a subset of the most expensive prescription drugs directly with pharmaceutical companies, which fiercely opposed the law and are working with Republicans to sabotage it. The newly negotiated prices are set to take effect in 2026.

Ogles, whose two-page bill would eliminate the above reforms, repeatedly attacked Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs and protections during his 2022 campaign for the U.S. House.

The White House's critique of Ogles' bill comes as Biden is facing pressure from advocates and physicians to cancel a Medicare privatization scheme that his administration inherited from its right-wing predecessor and rebranded.

It also comes as the White House is locked in a standoff with House Republicans over the debt ceiling. Republican lawmakers have pushed for deeply unpopular cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and other critical federal programs as a necessary condition for any deal to raise the country's borrowing limit and avert a catastrophic default.

"In less than a month, MAGA extremists have threatened to drive the economy into a recession by defaulting on our debt, promised to bring up a bill to impose a 30% national sales tax, and now have introduced legislation to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act," Patrick Gaspard, president and CEO of the Democratic Party-aligned Center for American Progress said in a statement. "This will cut taxes for corporations who earn billions in profit while empowering Big Pharma and Big Oil to continue ripping off the American people."

"It is vital that all Americans understand what is at risk if MAGA extremists succeed in passing their latest dangerous idea: millions of lost jobs, millions more without health insurance, and higher costs for lifesaving insulin, utilities, and more," Gaspard added."

The GOP, the Rich and corporations want power. They couldn't care less about democracy or American sovereignty. An oligarchy looks just fine to them. Putin would love to have them working

Russiagate: The Opposite of a Hoax
https://politicususa.substack.com/p/russiagate-the-opposite-of-a-hoax#details

#GOPHatesDemocracy
#GOPLovesPower
#IlliberalDemocracy
#TheRichRWannabeOligarchs
#GOPInBedWithPutin
#GOPInBedWithRich
#GreedKillsDemocracy

"Now Timothy Snyder*, a Yale professor...put the Russia story in badly needed context

*Full thread by Snyder:

In April 2016, I broke the story of Trump and Putin, using Russian open sources. Afterwards, I heard vague intimations that something was awry in the FBI in New York, specifically counter-intelligence and cyber. We now have a suggestion as to why.

The person who led the relevant section, Charles McGonigal, has just been charged with taking money from the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Follow this thread to see just how this connects to the victory of Trump, the Russian war in Ukraine, and U.S. national security.

The reason I was thinking about Trump & Putin in 2016 was a pattern. Russia had sought to control Ukraine, using social media, money, & a pliable head of state. Russia backed Trump the way that it had backed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, in the hopes of soft control 2/20

Trump & Yanukovych were similar figures: interested in money, & in power to make or shield money. And therefore vulnerable partners for Putin. They also shared a political advisor: Paul Manafort. He worked for Yanukovych from 2005-2015, taking over Trump's campaign in 2016.

You might remember Manafort's ties to Russia from 2016. He (and Jared Kushner, and Donald Trump, Jr.) met with Russians in June 2016 in Trump Tower as part of, as the broker of the meeting called it, "the Russian government's support for Trump"

Manafort had to resign as Trump's campaign manager in August 2016 when news broke that he had received $12.7 million in cash from Yanukovych. But these details are just minor elements of Manafort's dependence on Russia.

Manafort worked for Deripaska, the same Russian oligarch to whom McGonigal is linked, between 2006 and 2009. Manafort's assignment was to soften up the U.S for Russian influence. He promised "a model that can greatly benefit the Putin government."

While Manafort worked for Trump in 2016, though, Manafort's dependence on Russia was deeper. He owed Deripaska money, not a position one would want to be in. Manafort offered Deripaska "private briefings" on the campaign. He was hoping "to get whole."

Reconsider how the FBI treated the Trump-Putin connection in 2016. Trump and other Republicans screamed that the FBI had overreached. In retrospect, it seems the exact opposite took place. The issue of Russian influence was framed in a way convenient for Russia and Trump.
...
It is entirely inconceivable that McGonigal was unaware of Russia's 2016 cyber influence campaign on behalf of Trump. Even I was aware of it, and I had no expertise. It became one of the subjects of my book
...
I had no personal connection to this, but will just repeat what informed people said at the time: this sort of thing was supposed to go through the FBI counter-intelligence section in New York, where tips went to die. That is where McGonigal was in charge.

The cyber element is what McGonigal should have been making everyone aware of in 2016. In 2016, McGonigal was chief of the FBI's Cyber-Counterintelligence Coordination Section. That October, he was put in charge of the Counterintelligence Division of the FBI's NY office.

We need to understand why the FBI failed in 2016 to address the essence of an ongoing Russian influence operation. The character of that operation suggests that it would have been the responsibility of an FBI section whose head is now accused of taking Russian money.

Right after the McGonigal story broke, Kevin McCarthy ejected Adam Schiff from the House intelligence committee. Schiff is expert on Russian influence operations. It exhibits carelessness about national security to exclude him. It is downright suspicious to exclude him now. 16/20

Back in June 2016, Kevin McCarthy expressed his suspicion that Donald Trump was under Putin's influence. He and other Republican members concluded that the risk of an embarrassment to their party was more important than American security.

The Russian influence operation to get Trump elected was real. It serves no one to pretend otherwise. We are still learning about it. Denying that it happened makes the United States vulnerable to ongoing Russian operations.
...
The McGonigal question goes even beyond these issues. He had authority in the most sensitive possible investigations within U.S. intelligence. Sorting this out will require a concern for the United States that goes beyond party loyalty."

The GOP, the obscenely wealthy and large corporations want power. They couldn't care less about democracy or American sovereignty. An oligarchy looks just fine to them. Putin would love to have them working with him to erode liberal democracies in the world so there is no one to stand up to his corruption and tyranny. They see what Putin has and they start drooling.

Russiagate: The Opposite of a Hoax
Don’t be gaslit anymore. Russia is a danger to western democracy. They’ve been working hard to undermine the U.S..
https://politicususa.substack.com/p/russiagate-the-opposite-of-a-hoax#details

#GOPHatesDemocracy
#GOPLovesPower
#IlliberalDemocracy
#TheRichRWannabeOligarchs
#GOPInBedWithPutin
#GOPInBedWithRich

“That rather astonishing discovery of the former FBI chief who seemingly betrayed his country to Russia didn’t happen in a vacuum, though. Globally, this story is quite frankly disconcerting. In the past week, there was a shocking accusation by a whistleblower that MI5 refused to investigate a Russian spy's “infiltration” of the conservative Tory party in Britain, news that "a vast cache of hacked emails shows that, under the leadership of Rishi Sunak, the UK Treasury issued special licenses in 2021 to let the oligarch override sanctions and launch an aggressive legal campaign against a journalist in the London courts." “The UK government helped the boss of Russia’s murderous mercenary army to circumvent its own sanctions and launch a targeted legal attack on a British journalist, openDemocracy can reveal.” Rishi Sunak has been the conservative Prime Minister since October, 2022 when the head of lettuce lasted longer than Liz Truss. He previously held two cabinet positions under conservative Boris Johnson.  Also, the European Court of Human Rights is demanding a response from the British government over a legal claim by opponents accusing it of failing to investigate alleged Russian interference in elections and referendums like Brexit. The thread between all of these stories is Russians-to-conservatives. Now Timothy Snyder*, a Yale professor whose course on Ukraine I am watching on YouTube and highly recommend, put the Russia story in badly needed context (full thread in next toot).

...Don’t be gaslit anymore.

Russia is a danger to western democracy. They’ve been working hard to undermine the United States of America, and Republicans, from leadership on down, have been willing to help them. Those who might be doing so unwittingly certainly have had every opportunity to know better. Those who have simply remained silent are also now complicit.

In 2019, a Senate investigation determined: “The congressional probe into the National Rifle Association’s relationship with Russia shows a U.S. tax-exempt organization working as a conduit to provide Russian officials access to Republicans with the quid pro quo of ‘lucrative personal business opportunities.’”

I pointed out then, “Looking for that quid pro quo Republicans claim doesn’t exist? Here it is, but with the Russians and elected officials of the NRA variety.”

Since then, Russia has spent millions spreading anti-vax conspiracies just to harm small d democracy, including paying influencers to lie and fear-monger about the vaccines.

Republicans and conservative activists mock journalists who bring up Russia because they want to shut down the discussion. But this discussion needs to be had. We all need a government that actually puts “America first” –- but the Republican Party is not currently on board with that most basic and primitive premise of patriotism."

More excellent info from EPI Study

Abortion is just one more way these red states seek to control and impoverish their working class citizens to make them easier to manipulate and control by corporate and wealthy interests. Talk about working hard to get their serfs back!! They don't want fellow citizens, they want assets they can control, profit off of and manipulate. Not people, just cogs!

"Abortion bans, low wages, and public underinvestment are interconnected economic policy tools to disempower and control workers"

EPI

#TheyWantTheirSerfsBack
#GreedKills
#GOPHatesAvgAmericans
#GOPInBedWithRich
#GOPHatesDemocracy

“Introduction Abortion has long been framed as a cultural, religious, or personal issue rather than a material “bread and butter” economic concern. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, more economic policymakers have been emphasizing the issue as a pressing economic concern. In perhaps the first public comment on the issue by a major political figure, Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen noted: “eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades” (Guida 2022). This direct connection between abortion and reproductive access and economic rights is critical (Banerjee 2022). This report argues that abortion access is fundamentally intertwined with economic progress and mobility. Specifically, in states where abortion has been banned or restricted, abortion restrictions constitute an additional piece in a sustained project of economic subjugation and disempowerment.1 The states banning abortion rights have, over decades, intentionally constructed an economic policy architecture defined by weak labor standards, underfunded and purposefully dysfunctional public services, and high levels of incarceration. Through a cross-sectional quantitative analysis of state level abortion access status and five indicators of economic security—the minimum wage, unionization, unemployment insurance, Medicaid expansion, and incarceration—we find that, generally, the states enacting abortion bans are the same ones that are economically disempowering workers through other channels. The results of the analysis underscore that abortion restrictions and bans do have economic effects, given the strong correlation between abortion status and various economic wellbeing metrics. Further, the consistent pattern of state abortion bans and negative economic outcomes shows how abortion fits into an economics and politics of control. Abortion restrictions are planks in a policy regime of disempowerment and control over workers’ autonomy and livelihoods, just like deliberately low wage standards, underfunded social services, or restricted collective bargaining power. Economic policymakers must prioritize this issue as widespread abortion bans will contribute to a loss in economic security and independence for millions in the current and future generations.”

Via https://www.epi.org/publication/economics-of-abortion-bans/

Conclusions of this EPI Study:

Abortion is just one more way these red states seek to control and impoverish their working class citizens to make them easier to manipulate and control by corporate and wealthy interests. Talk about working hard to get their serfs back!! They don't want fellow citizens, they want assets they can control, profit off of and manipulate. Not people, just cogs!

"Abortion bans, low wages, and public underinvestment are interconnected economic policy tools to disempower and control workers"

EPI

#TheyWantTheirSerfsBack
#GreedKills
#GOPHatesAvgAmericans
#GOPInBedWithRich
#GOPHatesDemocracy

“Across the five measures of economic security, states with abortion bans of varying degrees generally follow similar association patterns. That is, states with abortion bans largely had lower minimum wages, unionization, and access to unemployment insurance and Medicaid expansion, and higher incarceration rates. Abortion bans as an economic policy have not appeared in a vacuum, or even as a narrowly tailored religious concern, since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1972. Rather, denial of abortion access is one additional policy that states have engineered over decades in a sustained project of economic subjugation, control, and worker disempowerment. States that have banned and restricted abortion have largely also kept minimum wages low, underfunded and complicated their unemployment insurance systems, declined to expand Medicaid, suppressed unionization, and preferred to over-incarcerate. These policies, in conjunction, keep working people economically disempowered.”

Via https://www.epi.org/publication/economics-of-abortion-bans/

Abortion is just one more way these red states seek to control and impoverish their working class citizens to make them easier to manipulate and control by corporate and wealthy interests. Talk about working hard to get their serfs back!! They don't want fellow citizens, they want assets they can control, profit off of and manipulate. Not people, just cogs!

Abortion bans, low wages, and public underinvestment are interconnected economic policy tools to disempower and control workers

EPI

#TheyWantTheirSerfsBack
#GreedKills
#GOPHatesAvgAmericans
#GOPInBedWithRich
#GOPHatesDemocracy

"...the consistent pattern of state abortion bans and negative economic outcomes shows how abortion fits into an economics and politics of control. Abortion restrictions are planks in a policy regime of disempowerment and control over workers’ autonomy and livelihoods, just like deliberately low wage standards, underfunded social services, or restricted collective bargaining power. Economic policymakers must prioritize this issue as widespread abortion bans will contribute to a loss in economic security and independence for millions in the current and future generations.

“Key findings from the analysis
States with abortion restrictions or total bans have on average:

lower minimum wages ($8.17 compared with $11.92 in the abortion-protected states)

unionization levels half as high as those in the abortion-protected states

only three in 10 unemployed people receiving unemployment insurance (compared with 42% in other states)

lower rates of Medicaid expansion

an incarceration rate 1.5 times that of the abortion-protected states”

Via https://www.epi.org/publication/economics-of-abortion-bans/

The GOP only cares about the deficit when democrats are in charge. They are more than happy to run it up using tax breaks for the wealthy, as they have done numerous times. They don't have real policy ideas to help Americans, they just want to benefit the wealthy. They are more than happy to blow up the economy and destroy social security and medicare as they think creating chaos will help them take control of the senate and white house. They don't care about Americans, they are only interested in power and pandering to the wealthy.

“Who’s going to pay to run this government? The Republicans are real clear on that: not the rich folks,” she said."

Warren: Debt Ceiling Crisis Wouldn’t Even Exist Without Trump Tax Overhaul - Truthout https://truthout.org/articles/warren-debt-ceiling-crisis-wouldnt-even-exist-without-trump-tax-overhaul/

#GOPLovesPower
#GOPHatesAvgAmericans
#GOPInBedWithRich
#GOPHatesDemocracy

"Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) dug into Republicans for their willingness to “wreck the economy” over the debt ceiling, pointing out that the GOP is only interested in protecting their rich allies and creating an economic crisis that would reflect poorly on President Joe Biden.

In an appearance on MSNBC, Warren said that the conservative regressive tax policies that the GOP has pushed for decades has led to the current crisis with the debt ceiling.

“If the Republicans had not pushed just two things, the Republican tax cuts that went mostly to those at the very top and the biggest corporations and hollowing out the IRS [Internal Revenue Service] specifically so they could not hold wealthy tax cheats accountable, wouldn’t be able to audit them,” she said. “If those two things had not happened, then we wouldn’t even hit the debt ceiling at any time during the first Biden administration.”

“This is a manufactured crisis. The real issue at stake here is, who’s going to pay to run this government?” the Massachusetts senator said. “The Republicans are real clear on that: not the rich folks.”

Indeed, as Warren pointed out in her op-ed published in the Boston Globe this week, the 2017 tax cuts have cost the government nearly $2 trillion, while Republicans have steadily eroded the IRS’s funding for decades, costing the government potentially trillions owed from wealthy tax cheats.

Congress has raised the debt ceiling twice under Biden, by about $3 trillion. Republicans voted three times to raise the debt ceiling under President Donald Trump, who added nearly $8 trillion to the national debt.
...
“If this were really about the national debt, then there are plenty of places we could go to stitch up loopholes — like no more of these tax havens abroad — that we could get that under control. But that is not where the Republicans want to go,” Warren said.

Even though the huge deficits in government funding have been caused in large part by Republican policies, the party is using its control of the House to threaten a debt default, which would spell disaster for the economy, unless their demands are met; some Republicans are planning to use the debt ceiling to force through cuts to crucial programs like Social Security, for instance.

Meanwhile, Republicans made it clear in their first few weeks with House control that their top priority is to protect corporations and the wealthy. The first bill they passed was to revoke billions of dollars pegged for the IRS to go after wealthy tax cheats, which analyses say would more than pay for itself.
...
Warren said that Republicans don’t care about the ramifications of their political gamesmanship. Rather, they want to cause chaos and destruction in order to win political points, she said.

“If there are cuts to Social Security that they can turn around then and blame on the Democrats, if the economy goes over a cliff, if the worldwide economy blows up,” said Warren. “There are Republicans, particularly in the House, who think, ‘Hey, that’s going to make it easier to get our guy back in the White House.’”

“And so long as that’s their mindset, that’s not a position of negotiating to try to make things better, safer in this country, to make this country work better for hardworking families,” she continued."

The GOP uses their "base" to get elected, while the right-wing establishment feeds the "base" lies to keep them scared, hating, misinformed and voting against their own interests. The GOP's real base is their benefactors, the obscenely wealthy who want to keep Americans poorly educated, misinformed, poor and too desperate to foment revolt or changes. In other words, they want their serfs back! They don't care that the average republican doesn't want them destroying the economy with the debt ceiling or killing social security and medicare. The GOP only cares that their wealthy benefactors want them to kill social security and medicare because they hate working class people and love being cruel.

"63 percent of all voters think that House Republicans should allow the debt limit to be raised to avoid economic disaster, without executing their cynical plan to tie the legislation to cuts to the crucial social programs. This includes 78 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of independents and even 50 percent of Republicans....a mere 15 percent (of republicans) saying they would support a plan to attach the cuts to debt ceiling legislation."

GOP Plan to Cut Social Security and Medicare Is Disliked Among Republican Voters - Truthout https://truthout.org/articles/gop-plan-to-cut-social-security-and-medicare-is-disliked-among-republican-voters/

#GOPHatesAvgAmericans
#GOPInBedWithRich
#GOPDestroyDemocracyViaChaos
GOPsRealBaseIsTheRich

"New polling finds that the GOP’s plan to force cuts to Social Security and Medicare through debt ceiling legislation is vastly unpopular — even among a majority of the Republican voter base.

According to a new survey by Data for Progress, 63 percent of all voters think that House Republicans should allow the debt limit to be raised to avoid economic disaster, without executing their cynical plan to tie the legislation to cuts to the crucial social programs. This includes 78 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of independents and even 50 percent of Republicans.

This was by far the most popular response to the question of whether the GOP should force through the cuts among the Republican voters, with a mere 15 percent saying they would support a plan to attach the cuts to debt ceiling legislation. Only 24 percent of Republican respondents said that Republicans should refuse to raise the debt ceiling whatsoever — an extremist option that would drop a bomb onto the already fragile economy.

These results demonstrate that, if Republicans continue to pursue the cuts to Social Security and Medicare, they will be standing in opposition not only to what most Americans want, but also to what their own base wants.

The polling further found that a plurality of the Republican base believes that the party should make bipartisanship a priority for the debt ceiling, with 45 percent of Republicans in agreement and 42 percent saying that Republicans should prioritize “opposing Democrats..."

Part 2
Yet another reminder that what is going on in Washington is not business as usual. The GOP, as the hand-puppet of the obscenely wealthy, is hellbent on destroying democracy and instituting autocracy and fascism. They are in bed with Mike Flynn and Putin and are using deluded Christian nationalists, and a partisan-captured Supreme Court to destroy our country and democracy. The election deniers/insurrectionists/fascists are now in control of the house of representatives. They aren't going to stop destroying our democracy until we stop them!!

"The point of everything Republicans do is to undermine democracy, with a huge helping of self-interest on top."

American Fascism, Billionaires, And You - by Sarah Jones https://politicususa.substack.com/p/american-fascism-billionaires-and

#GOPFacism
#GOPInBedWithRich
#GOPHatesDemocracy
#TheRichHateDemocracy
#GOPLies
#IlliberalIsFascism

"Stanley also explained the role of undermining truth in fascism: “The heart of fascist politics is the destruction of truth. Fascist politics is based on a friend/enemy distinction where your enemy's not a legitimate opponent. Your enemy is hiding terrible crimes, and you can't treat them as any kind of normal opponent. And this is the purpose of conspiracy theories like QAnon.”

All of this works in concert with the Republican efforts to undermine the working classes first with Trump’s tax cuts that largely were meant to benefit the wealthy and corporations, and now that Republicans lead the House, they want to use the debt ceiling to steal Social Security from working people and they’re also floating a 30% sales tax on people.

As I discussed yesterday in our podcast about the inspiring strikes in France and Britain, working people (which is all of us who are not the 1%) need to be united in order to fight encroaching fascism, and unions are one good antidote to oligarchical fascism, which is behind the propaganda funding for a lot of the global right-wing push for fascism.

“The contemporary American fascist movement is led by oligarchical interests for whom the public good is an impediment, such as those in the hydrocarbon business, as well as a social, political, and religious movement with roots in the Confederacy. As in all fascist movements, these forces have found a popular leader unconstrained by the rules of democracy, this time in the figure of Donald Trump,” Jason Stanley wrote in The Guardian in December of 2021, noting how the United States’ racism makes it fertile ground for fascists.

The conservative and racist Breitbart empire is funded by billionaires Robert and Rebekah Mercer and Daily Wire, for example, received several million dollars in funding from the billionaire fracking and petroleum interests. The Daily Wire is now a $100 million dollar a year enterprise, according to them.

All of this division, the anti-vax lies, the election lies — it’s all being funded by billionaires.

This is what The People are up against, all around the globe. Here in the United States, no one is funding media for The People. The only people doing it are people who have put the interests of their country and her citizens above their own self-interests because it does not pay, and actually, under Trump, it started to cost money due to a variety of forces, and many outlets went under.

The already embattled and barely made-it Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy also has a horrific track record on democracy:

Signed Texas amicus brief

Objected to certification of electoral college votes in one or more states

Made false and/or irresponsible public statements against democratic system

Voted against impeachment or conviction of Donald Trump for inciting an insurrection

Voted against creating an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack

Voted against holding Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress

The power grab is the point. All of the chaos we are witnessing, including Kevin McCarthy’s willing embrace of Representative George Santos, a man with many names and aliases and stories and cons, it all tells the same story.

If we look at the pieces, it is infuriating and frustrating. But if we look at the whole, it becomes the clearest call to unite with other democracy-minded people in order to battle fascism."