Democrats getting things done while Republicans do each other in
Right now, there is a massive split between what is going on in the Democratic Party versus the Republican Party.
The Democrats, led by President Joe Biden, have had a tremendous 100 days. First and foremost, Biden has succeeded in getting over 200 million COVID vaccinations into Americans’ arms (double his original stated goal), and taking steps to beat the pandemic using real science and competence. Next, Biden pushed through and signed the American Rescue Plan, including stimulus checks for millions of Americans, all while rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change and undoing many of Trump’s damaging executive orders. Biden is now being compared to progressive activist President Franklin Roosevelt, who also had a very successful first 100 days (as well as being re-elected president three more times).
Meanwhile, as if to quash another Republican myth, the U.S. stock market has had the best performance during a president’s first 100 days since the beginning of John F. Kennedy‘s presidency in 1961. Biden’s popularity is substantially high (and way higher than Trump’s), especially given our polarized politics today. Biden and Congressional Democrats have also continued on offense with a positive policy agenda that includes rebuilding America’s infrastructure, creating jobs, battling climate change, support for American families, and more. While they may not get all of it passed in its current proposed form (after all, Washington is about compromise and the art of the possible), they are poised to pass a great deal more.
The Republicans, in contrast, are accomplishing nothing. Instead, they are fighting intra-party battles all over the place. Most of these battles seem to center on whether Republicans still support Donald Trump and his Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was somehow stolen by Joe Biden and the Democrats. Thus far, only a few elected Republicans have stood up against Trump’s Big Lie, and they, including U.S. Senator Willard Mitt Romney and U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, have been castigated by the GOP for doing so. Romney, who was also the lone Republican to vote to remove Trump from office in both of Trump’s impeachment trials, was booed and heckled when he tried to address the recent Utah Republican State Convention. Cheney is being treated even worse, with House Republicans, especially Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, ready to strip her of her House Republican Conference Chair top leadership post. Even Meghan McCain, a loudmouth unelected Republican product of nepotism with a platform on the television show The View (and whose mom Cindy was censured by Arizona Republicans for opposing Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election), went off on McCarthy and House Republican leaders, saying:
"Let's cut the crap." Meghan McCain accused House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of "intentionally" trashing Rep. Liz Cheney on a hot mic.
"They're shivving her for her … saying that the election wasn't stolen and for refusing to debase herself to Cheeto Jesus." pic.twitter.com/ys8nObzEuh
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) May 5, 2021
As if this wasn’t bad enough, Republicans including Donald Trump, Rudolph Giuliani, Congressman Matt Gaetz and others, face serious legal consequences for their personal and political behavior, with charges ranging from collusion with Russia in the presidential election to aiding the January 6, 2021 terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol to rape and sex trafficking of minors. The Republicans are being propped up only by their voter suppression efforts and their fund-raising off of shiny object distractions such as anti-trans bills. They are so desperate to distract from their unpopularity that they even try to make issues out of the Bidens’ dogs and dandelion-picking. Republicans dream of running Donald Trump for president again, but by 2024, Trump likely will be too sick, too tired, and too firmly planted in his golf cart to run for office effectively. Instead, the Republican Party in its current form is a dead man walking.
Photo by Senate Democrats, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/Im8LjD
