Quick Updates 3 (5/27/2023) - “Negotiations? On What?!”
Wherein we go over three stories we've touched on previously, expand the context, then discuss what exactly's being "negotiated" over & what it'll take to help people. It ain't just the debt ceiling.
Hello, friends,
Last week, we talked about the ongoing and entirely optional Debt Ceiling crisis, and how President Biden’s best option was to stop trying to “negotiate” just how badly we’re going to slash governmental help to the needy by invoking the Fourteenth Amendment.
As evidenced by when this article is being published (as in, a day late), today we’re just going to do some quick updates on prior stories we’ve covered here at The Progressive Cafe.
So let’s start with last week’s article and touch on a few different stories.
On That Debt Ceiling “Crisis” And “The Worse Deal.”
The grand-scale opinion is that not too much has changed. The Guardian has a pretty good explainer article on the basics. They cite the paywalled Washington Post to claim that Democrats are willing to cut funding, which is a disaster in its own right for anyone who needs government services or funding. They specifically mentioned IRS funding, something we predicted that will prevent the government from getting revenue in the future, and thus paying off its bills.
I guess Matt Gaetz is right: Why should Republicans negotiate with their hostage? Not when Republicans can cut funding for everything they don’t like (But not the military! Never the precious military!) and - key point here - President Joe Biden is willing to just fucking let them starve people.
To repeat: All Biden has to do is basically pull “The Laptop Trick, as suggested by Beau Of The Fifth Column. Sit him down, show him the draft language you plan to use, and ask him if he’s had a change of heart or if his assistant should publish it at midnight.
Of course, that requires having the courage to go through with actually picking that fight, but, well, with the bureaucratic head of the Republican Party cheering on a default as a way to win in 2024, it’s shaping up to look like Biden doesn’t have the stomach for this fight.
I call this “The Worse Deal,” as opposed to “The New Deal.” And it will lose Democratic voters. Mainly because they’ll be too hungry and overworked to vote.
Student Debt And “Blue Dog” Democrats Who Are Just Republicans.
Not too long ago, we talked about why forgiving debt is an important chance to improve economic situations. We didn’t just tackle student debt, but pointed out that it is among the hardest types of debt to discharge.
Two House “Democrats” joined Republicans this week on a vote to not just block Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, but - and I am not making this up - to actually require retroactive repayment of any postponed debt.
These “Democrats,” Maine’s Jared Golden and Washington’s Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, I guess basically believe that once you accept a student loan, you should be enslaved until it’s paid off? That’s all I can really gather from their position. I mean, Golden represents 100,000 student debtors while Perez represents over 90,000, and those are people who should never, ever vote for them again.
Of course, The Debt Collective has posted information suggesting that Gluesenkamp got her PPP loan forgiven, so I guess she’s not against all debt being forgiven…As long as it's hers’.
Maybe I’m sensing a theme here. Maybe today is, “Things that will lose Democrats votes, and thus the 2024 election” day? That’s not to say Republicans are better, or will be getting most of those votes. Nah, it’s more to say that many of those people simply will not vote. That’s how Republicans win, right? Low-turnout votes? The lack of assistance in the face of exploitation leading to disengagement where a small minority can win an election? Yeah.
Next up is a much less-partisan dive into something really horrible, and another “Where the fuck has Biden been” moment?
Target Stores Targeted By Terrorists Over Pride Merchandise.
We’ve talked on this publication about how anti-Queer laws have serious blowback effects. Here are some more. Years and years ago, I noticed that Target was putting Pride merchandise on sale. I even bought some!
This year has been markedly different.
Things have been getting worse for a while. All it takes is a quick search to find a litany of attacks by Fascist lunatics against Target’s Pride displays. Twitter has been heavy with Fascists throwing around threats and stochastic terrorism.
Now, just the other day, bomb threats were called into multiple Target stores.
But a quick Googling for “Biden target terrorism” shows nothing. There’s no speech against this terrorism. No threats that the full weight of the U.S. Department of Justice will be brought down on them. There’s nothing. Not a word, other than some long-outdated gobbledygook about the FBI prioritizing White Supremacist terrorism that’s non-specific to this issue.
This has been going on for days, and Biden hasn’t gotten on stage and made a speech. Of course, Biden doesn’t appear to have made any kind of statement when Chaya Raichick’s disciples called bomb threats in to Boston Childrens’ Hospital over Trans healthcare, so that makes me wonder what Biden’s approach to actually protecting us Queer people is.
Oh, no, wait - Biden wants to “compromise” on Trans people in sports, I.E. Queer rights. He’d be against “blanket bans” but totally allow some in cases where they need “fairness in competition.” Which, of course, is what the entire debate is about, so at best his plan is incoherent.
So I guess in negotiations, we Queer people are absolutely expendable to Biden.
If It Sounds Like I Just Made A Case Against Democrats…
Pure op-ed here: I did. Here are three examples of Democrats (and two of Biden) choosing fully and willfully to fuck over people of lower status. Do you depend on SNAP or some other government program? You’re forsaken. Do you have student loans? You’re forsaken. Are you Queer? We’re forsaken.
We are tokens to be negotiated away.
And, yet, you should probably think about becoming a Democrat. Here’s why:
None of this is to say all Democrats are the same - and certainly not to suggest that we have to consider “Good Republicans.” There are many Democrats who are in favor of all of the people I just described. There are many who can and will fight the good fight. There are many who, unlike Biden, would happily invoke the Constitution (...I mean, it’s only the Constitution…) to prevent a default and to prevent people from being harmed. There are many Democrats who would happily get up into the Bully Pulpit and demand law and order from the Fascists, and bring the force of law against those who are conspiring to kill us.
But that might mean YOUR Democrat is no good. It means there’s a reason there is a primary process. You don’t necessarily have to be the primary contender, yourself. Many of us aren’t comfortable with or interested in being politicians, but we can find people who are and uplift them.
This is why I am so frustrated that the Democratic party has basically refused to hold a Primary against Biden. Thus-far, nobody credibly capable of winning and running the country has stepped up to challenge Biden, and as a result Biden is “the best we can do.” Certainly, when thinking about a vote for the Executive Branch, at least, there’s really no chance for a third-party candidate to win, so any vote not for Biden is essentially a vote for a Nazi (I don’t have to specify “Trump” or “DeSantis” here, do I?).
But for many of us, that’s not good enough. We aren’t looking to elections to save us. For many of us, we’re just trying to get documents in order to be able to escape the country - and/or picking up guns and learning how to use them in case the next Pride becomes a literal hunt against us.
After all, we’ve already got the bomb threats and the random attacks against stores down.
But for those of us who can stick around and keep fighting the fight, this is why primaries are so important. Instead of a “negotiation” about policies, there’s a vote. We vote on who the candidate is gonna be, and their policies get taken up.
And, good news! Our positions tend to be popular: 67% of Americans favor SNAP. 60% of those polled favor forgiving some or all student debt. Over 70% of Americans support “Gay marriage,” an old but gold barometer. To take another issue we’ve talked about before, Medicare For All, well, 69% of Americans support that.
There are clearly paths forward for people willing to fight. So if someone like that runs in a primary? Support them and get them to the general election.
Thank you for reading The Progressive Cafe. If this article has helped you, please consider signing up for our mailing list. This article is by Jesse Pohlman, a sci-fi/fantasy author from Long Island, New York, whose website you can check out here.