Democratic U.S. Senator Bill Nelson urges Republicans to act on climate change.
With the 2018 mid-term elections less than 100 days away, the Democratic Party is showing off a big tent that encompasses a diverse range of people and ideas. The same cannot be said of the Republican Party, which has developed into a Donald Trump protection cult.
Philadelphia Eagles training camp, 2015 Military Appreciation Day
God, Guns and Gays. Illegal immigration. These are Culture War issues that Donald Trump and Republicans are pushing to stir up Republican voter interest as the 2018 midterm elections approach. The latest Culture War topic is Trump’s revocation of his White House invitation to the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles football team, after Trump heard that some Eagles team members were planning to skip the event over political disagreements with Trump. Moreover, Fox News falsely ran photos of Eagles players kneeling to pray (approved behavior by the GOP) with captions about kneeling in protest (such as in support of Black Lives Matter, a protest against police violence which is disapproved behavior by Republicans). Fox had to apologize hours later for its misleading photos and captions.
Thanksgiving dinner table: calm before the storm
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the official arm of the Democratic Party seeking to elect Democrats to the House of Representatives, has released its annual “Know Your Stuffing” Thanksgiving dinner table talking points. This year’s DCCC guide, sent by email to supporters and available in .pdf format, is billed as a “guide to surviving Thanksgiving with your Republican family.” The DCCC guide, which has a friendly graphical format, has been kept simple, covering just four topics, in the form of suggested Democratic responses to the following political statements expected by Republicans around the Thanksgiving dinner table this Thursday:
Donald Trump on the golf course, again
Donald Trump‘s approval numbers — as low as 32 percent — are the worst ever for a president at this point in his term. Likewise, Trump’s handling of the hurricanes this season dropped 20 points to just 44 percent after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico and, instead of focusing on helping the people there (who are Americans), Trump took to the golf course and then criticized them. What’s amazing, though, is that Trump’s approval among Republicans is quite high. Why the disconnect?
Puerto Rico devastation from Hurricane Maria
Back in February 2011, we published Messaging Maxim #1: Go On Offense. Perhaps some folks need a refresher course. In that post, we wrote, “If you’re fighting a political battle on the other side’s rhetorical turf, you’ve already lost.” At the time, such advice was referring to phony cultural issues like “Ground Zero Mosque” and “is President Obama a Muslim?” that Republicans had ginned up and repeated everywhere they could (see Messaging Maxim #2: Rinse and Repeat). With their herd mentality, the mainstream media then picked up these issues and focused their broadcasts, cablecasts and column space on them.
Fast forward to today. Donald Trump and the Republicans are doing the same thing again, and it’s working. Currently, the phony cultural issues are: “Kneeling NFL Players” and “Harvey Weinstein.” To those, you can add, “NBC and CNN Licenses.” By next week, expect different cultural issues.
Senate GOP Healthcare bill
In the current debate over Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, one of the saddest arguments to be heard is the one that goes, “why should I pay for someone else’s healthcare?” Such an argument gets many things wrong at once, both intellectually and morally.
First, the entire concept of insurance is a pooling of funds and risk, so that everyone is literally paying for someone else, and vice versa. For example, in South Florida, one is told that car insurance rates are high for all residents because there are many claims due to the large number of tourists getting into trouble with rental cars on unfamiliar roads. Many local residents would rightfully object to paying higher rates for others’ accidents, but that is how insurance works. The idea, however, is that costs are kept down by pooling the risk, for example, such that middle-aged drivers might pay more than they get back in claims, but when they are both very young and very old, they are much more likely to have more claims, so the system balances out. Similarly, the Affordable Care Act (based on a conservative idea from the Heritage Foundation and first implemented by Republican Governor Mitt Romney in Massachusetts) incorporates premiums paid by younger people, who generally have fewer claims, going more to older and sicker people, but such young people of course could get into a serious accident or become sick themselves any time, plus they are likely to have more claims as they age. Thus, the idea of “why am I paying for someone else?” may only be true for a brief moment.
Sen. John McCain and his favorite prop, the microphone
People are still celebrating Senator John McCain‘s “No” vote on the Republicans’ “Skinny Repeal” bill regarding the Affordable Care Act. Such celebrations may be premature.
Recall that, last Tuesday, during a procedural vote to move the GOP bill forward, McCain first criticized the process, then voted “Yes” to proceed to a full vote. Many Democrats attacked McCain as a heartless hypocrite for voting to move a bill forward that would deny healthcare to millions of people when McCain himself is receiving gold-plated healthcare for his brain cancer at taxpayer expense. Three days later, however, McCain cast one of three Republican votes against the bill, sending it to defeat. McCain’s dramatic “thumbs down” accompanying his “No” vote caused many observers to cast McCain as the “deciding vote,” although Republican Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were just as courageous in standing up to their party to vote “No.”
President Franklin Roosevelt, who called his agenda the “Fair Deal”
This week, Democratic Party leaders finally revealed their positive unifying agenda for America. On Sunday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the second highest-ranking elected Democrat, published an op-ed in the Washington Post. Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking elected Democrat, published his op-ed in the New York Times. The Democrats are calling their plan “A Better Deal.” According to Schumer’s op-ed:
Democrats will show the country that we’re the party on the side of working people — and that we stand for three simple things. First, we’re going to increase people’s pay. Second, we’re going to reduce their everyday expenses. And third, we’re going to provide workers with the tools they need for the 21st-century economy.
GOP Health Plan
On Monday night and Tuesday, the latest Republican Senate scheme to repeal the Affordable Care Act but not replace it for two years, went down in flames. Republican Senators including Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Shelley Moore Capito came out against moving the plan forward in the Senate, effectively killing this version for now.
Republicans are learning a powerful lesson: the obstructionism that worked for them when they did not control all three branches of government does not work when they do.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer flanked by fellow Democratic Senators
Congressional Democrats, led by U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, held a press conference Friday morning to highlight Donald Trump‘s first 100 days of failure and broken promises. The Democrats, who have held similar events during the past week on different subjects, focused on Friday on Trump’s preliminary federal budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2018, which his White House released in March, and for which negotiations are now heating up. Of particular note by the Democrats is Trump’s failure to deliver on his biggest campaign promises, including the border wall and repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
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