The Grand Illusion
What Democrats – and everyone else besides Republicans – fail to understand is that Republicans are opposed to any real improvement in government or the condition of anyone, including themselves. They don’t even like the status quo; it’s too “progressive” for them.
They’ve cheered every time that Trump rolled back environmental protections. They cheered when the Supreme Court declared that unlimited money could speak in elections, the way it did in the time of the Robber Barons of the 1890s. They initially even opposed the removal of lead from gasoline and warnings on the carcinogenic effects of tobacco. They opposed the clean-up of hazardous waste sites. They’ve consistently tried to minimize the voting rights of pretty much everyone but white males. They’ve opposed giving women equal rights to men under law. They’ve opposed affordable health care and worked to remove the prohibition on charging more or refusing health care coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions. Now, it even appears that Republicans even oppose fair elections, or at least any fair election that they don’t win.
The list of what Republicans oppose is almost endless. At present, I can’t think of a single positive measure that Republicans have seriously proposed in recent years.
What this means is that there likely won’t be any legislative compromises in the coming session of Congress. That’s because stopping any forward movement on almost anything is viewed as a victory by Republicans. The notable exception is tax cuts, because any tax cut limits federal spending and puts money in their pockets.
Unless the Democrats win both seats in the Georgia Senate run-off elections, Mitch McConnell will halt virtually all legislation that might benefit poor working Americans, and he and most Republicans will see that as a victory.
They aren’t looking forward to creating a better United States; they’re looking backward to an America that never was… and close to half of the United States agrees with them.
Republican legislators basically stumbled into being the Party Of No. Reagan famously said that the scariest thing to hear was, “I’m from the government, and I’m hear to help.”
This turned out to be a winning message with the electorate. Decades later, the Republicans have a reliable set of voters who like legislators that don’t do anything. And if they do something, the get replaced.
The “benefit”, I guess, is that anyone who would be limited by any check or balance is home free. The 1% is benefiting, with the goal of… becoming part of the .5%?
Where does the Constitution say that it is ok to set aside the explicit limitations on the scope of federal power to the enumerated powers, as made clear in the 9th and 10th Amendments, IF the reason or excuse exists that complexity grows, new problems arise, all needs aren’t being met, etc?
There’s no federal mask mandate because the federal government doesn’t have that authority. Even Biden would merely increase strong-arming of governors, and if they didn’t play along, would bypass them to lean on mayors. That shows that even the left knows that need and new problems do NOT of themselves grant authority; they merely pretend otherwise when they can, to increase their power.
Staying alive is an individual responsibility, and collectivism is always the camel’s nose of tyranny. Emergency programs of specifically limited duration are one thing, but open-ended saving of planet or meeting of needs are always prone to excess.
Acoording to Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States…”
The courts have established that measures which provide for the health of the people are indeed Constitutional. You may not like it, but that’s where the law stands.
The “Constitution” specifies federal and states powers so the assumption is that it was written with the power of union as its base and the “rights” of states as a safeguard. The imbalance led to the American Civil War. We are at war with ourselves yet again: the ego versus the id. The result will be either a more strongly balance federal and states union or a dissolution of one or the other.
If we the people get rid of the federal government then we also get rid of the union of the United States.
Initially we will look as the EU appears now. Then we will look like the Balkans or the Caucuses. California, New York, Texas will survive but what will Kansas, Wisconsin, Kentucky or Pennsylvania do with their “freedom” from federalism?
A one party nation is a form of federalism. A tyrannical form of federalism. A form of “freedom” I would not wish on my enemy.
“The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;…” so let it be with the United States?