Dear America,
The problem I have with Republicans is not just that they can support an ignorant, crass, Ozymandian blowhard like Donald Trump. It is what I have taken to calling their didactic positivism. They actually believe that not only are they more moral than the rest of us, but that it is as certain as science that they are right. When you hear Trump speak, he really isn't saying much. He's going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it, but a president can't build a wall without money from congress, and two Mexican presidents have already said that their country will pay for Trump's wall when pigs fly. He wants to repeal Obamacare, but his plan to replace it is just a group of other people's ideas, most of them anathema to the Republican House of Representatives. In the end, the elements of his plan have the effect of ensuring that those who can't afford healthcare now, plus many others--mostly those on the margins of Medicaid eligibility already--will still be unable to afford it. He wants to give the states the power to set thresholds for Medicaid eligibility by funding the program with block grants to the states, but almost half the states have already demonstrated antipathy toward Medicaid and have refused to expand it as the Affordable Care Act permits. Give them more power, and they will take it away from even more poor people. The other elements of his plan--making medical fees more transparent and allowing insurers to sell their products across state lines, for example--are either beyond the pale as the law stands, even without Obamacare, or they have always been desirable but are also unachievable under extant law because of the free trade mentality that runs through American corporate law today. Add the ingenuity of corporate greed and what's left of Trump's plan is a big package of nothing. It's essentially back to the past, not back to the future.
And for the most part, that is because of the didactic positivism of the Republican Party. Conservative principles, which more and more become the Republican platform, effectively posit the notion that if you can't support yourself, it's your own fault. Never mind that college is unaffordable to you. Forget about the fact that if your skin is a certain color, society still works against you in some insidious and very subtle ways. And, how dare you not work because the only prospect you have is flipping burgers at some mega-corporation's retail outlets for minimum wage, which doesn't pay you much more than is necessary to pay for child care. You shouldn't have had those children if you couldn't pay for them. It's all such a neat package of sanctimony, and they seem endlessly able to contrive numerical rationalizations for their prejudices. Thus, in the end, the Republican Party spawned Trump's candidacy, and the Tea Party dominated Republican Party stood there clapping all the while. It seems to me that any rational person would one day wake up and realize that two plus two doesn't add up to five, much less to ten. You can't take things from people in the way of material sustenance and expect of them that they will then do better as a consequence. Even Bill Clinton didn't seem to understand that when he signed on to the Republican plan to diminish welfare by implementing a "reform." People came to be limited to a certain number of years of welfare benefits over a lifetime infused with obstacles like unemployment due to recessions inspired by corporate greed. Part of the safety net that LBJ called for in building the Great Society became anathema to those who were well off enough that they never had to worry about eating and sleeping under a roof...people who had putative virtue under the Calvinist Republican moral code, and there's the rub. The Republicans have presumed to create a moral code, with all of its self-serving imperatives, and they never consider the possibility that anyone could reasonably disagree with them.
Abortion makes it all very clear. The law is plain as to what the constitution allows states to do, but by going into other areas...essentially creating code violations that operate against most abortion clinics within a given state's jurisdiction...Republicans have found that they can sharply curtail access of women to the right recognized by our Supreme Court. It is circumvention of the intent of the law in order to effectively reverse it, and they claim a righteous purpose in doing so, so they can kid themselves into thinking that they are acting in the American way. I'm getting tired of it, and I hope that the Supreme Court will tire of it too, but who knows given the recalcitrance of the Republican controlled Senate. In Texas, at least, women could be deprived of their rights again, just as they were before Roe v. Wade in 1973. But there is a viable response to all this sanctimony.
What it comes down to is that moral positions are not based on numbers. They are opinions, and letting the Republicans continue the debate by claiming that lower taxes result in higher federal revenue, and that taking people off welfare makes them more able to support themselves, we liberals...or progressives if you prefer...have to stop playing their game with them. It is time we began posing the social questions in terms of what we think is right, which is an opinion, and pointing out that what they are expressing as fact is just opinion too. The election in November has to be about what kind of "Judeo-Christian" country we want to be. Do we want to worship Mammon or God. Do we care about people or things. Is an accident of birth justification for either obscene wealth or obscene poverty. Those are the questions we should be asking rather than letting the Republicans presume to give us all the answers. I don't know about you, but I don't need their opinions; I have opinions of my own, and they ain't Republican
Your friend,
Mike
Leave a comment