Paul Waldman makes a compelling argument that the Republicans’ tax bill will be bad politics if it passes. It’s the kind of bad policy that leaves a lot of victims who will know the cause of their distress and who will easily be able to assign responsibility for their plight.
I suspect Waldman may be a bit optimistic about those latter points, if for no other reason than that the Mighty Right-Wing Wurlitzer seems to still have a powerful ability to deflect blame and throw sand in people’s eyes. But the real question for Republicans is that they’re terrified of the alternative to passing this legislation. No matter how bad it looks, they keep asking themselves “compared to what?”
It’s a fair point. Doing nothing will be bad politics, too, and so the real question for the GOP is which lousy option is worse.
There’s definitely some benefit to being able to accomplish something, even if it’s terrible. They can say they did something to harm Obamacare. They can tell their donors that they delivered the truckloads of cash. They can get Trump off their backs and off their case, if only for a little while. For everyone else, there’s two sides to every story, and they can muddy the waters.
The way I see their dilemma, this is a live-to-fight-another-day strategy, and there are two ways it can be wrong. The first is if it is unnecessary and they can live to fight another day without it. The second is if it won’t make a damn bit of difference in the end and it’ll just add to their long-term woes.
The surprising victory of Donald Trump proved that the Republicans are capable of misjudging their short-term chances and thinking they’re in a much worse spot than they’re really in. So, maybe they’re panicking without enough justification.
On the other hand, perhaps they think this will keep them from drowning but it actually won’t buy them anything in terms of political victories next fall. In that case, it will almost definitely weaken them further.
I think the decisive thing is the donors. The typical large investor in the GOP wants a financial return on investment. If they don’t get it, they’re not going to make more large investments.
The GOP thinks, probably correctly, that they may get wiped out next fall largely due to their idiot president. But as long as the donors feel like they were made whole, they can always make a comeback.
And so their decision to impose really bad policy on the nation is most likely the sanest of two miserable choices.
And, yet, they’re so incompetent that they still might not be able to deliver.
But remember what the cynics tell us. Both parties are the same, right? Just equally bad sides of the same coin? Both are always hell-bent on destroying peoples’ lives in the pursuit of big donor money? Isn’t that the boilerplate we always hear?
Both sides are the same. That is what the electorate told us back last November. Has something happened to change that? I missed it.
In some ways, sure. There is certainly some overlap on a number of issues. But if you want to use the American electorate as the final arbiter of what is true, and determiner of what is right and just, you are headed down a very crooked and precarious path. I would question the sanity and rationality of anyone who clings to this false equivalency.
I’m sorry I upset you. But I was riffing off your notion of both parties being cynical.
As it happens I just finished reading “Autopsy: The Democratic Party in Crisis”, a lengthy report on what happened in the election. Seems the party did not really appeal to their base, cynical you could say. You might enjoy it.
One thing sort of stuck in my mind and that was the party lost participation and turn out from POC and whites. And it was rather significant. It also has some criticism for the latest ” Better Deal” the Dems floated recently.
No links, but I’ve read here and there that the donars are threatening to turn off the spigot if they don’t get a really good ROI. So I think that’s Numero Uno motivation for these SOBs. Really they are mainly the hired help of the monied class, and that’s who their constituents are. Certainly not you, me, or even the most rabid of Trump’s fanatical fan base.
But… Trump’s rabid fans DO hold some sway, and what I’m reading – when I dare to go to comment sections (of just about anything these days that’s not a lefty blog) – are hundreds of comments (some are probably bots but I doubt that all are) from rightwingers basically saying: “If this makes lefties SO MAD, then I don’t care if MY personal taxes are hiked 100% in order to give rich people even more money. As long as the darkies and leftists are pissed off, then I’m DOWN with it. Go GOP!”
Really, that’s pretty much what they’re saying.
So you gotta ask what’s the downside for the GOP?? Their donars are shrieking at them to “Just Do It.” Trump is, well, tweeting at them to “Get ‘er done.” And the base doesn’t care if they’re personally screwed forever as long as it pisses off the Libtards.
I think it’s pretty much a done deal, and that we’re going to need to start passing the lube STAT.
I’m not convinced the donors are going to sit on the sidelines if this tax thing doesn’t pass. I’ve already read that on GOP donor from NY said he’d stop fund-raising if they DO pass this thing.
Besides, what are donors going to do come 2018? Sit on the sidelines? No skin in the game? Yeah right.
They’ll hedge their bets by donating to both parties. It’s happened before.
The republicans are neither great at, nor do they care about governing. They’re at their best in the opposition anyway, so losing the House is nowhere near as bad as losing the donors. Besides, they’re great at convincing tea party/Trumpists their sh*t don’t stink, and with Trump keeping ’em distracted and hopped up on hate, the blow back from passing the tax bill likely won’t be as bad as it could be.
Interestingly telling that the democrats aren’t much of a factor. They have a similar donor dynamic that limits their effectiveness in opposition, as long as the Clinton/DNC wing holds sway in the party. Were it not for that and somebody in the party strapping on some balls and going after the GOP on trickle down nonsense for the dumb con that it is, and what it will do to people, they GOP might have something to worry about.
And that’s the sad part. We may be doomed to deal with the oncoming, Brownback Kansas-like effects of a destroyed economy for a few years before people get fed up and vote these clowns out en masse. But even then will the dems be less beholden to the extent they ditch Wall Street so they can really fix the oncoming mess? Or do what they do best, and snatch defeat from the jaws of what should be victory?
Over time, I simply can’t remember any Dems really tackling what hogwash b.s. Trickle Down is. And here we are again, and I’m seeing next to nothing from the Big D party that states why Trickle Down doesn’t work.
I don’t agree that there’s no difference between the 2 parties, but equally I don’t agree that the Ds do enough to represent us rubes out here in rube-land. As stated, they, too, are beholden to their Wall St benefactors. And so… the beat down goes on.
Good grief, the Dems have been running against “trickle down” my entire adult life. Honored in the breach in Clinton’s second term but otherwise it’s been at the core of democratic messaging since the early ’80s.
How does anybody miss this?
The question now is are the democrats out there saying anything about trickle down now? If so I have not heard it. I have some doubt if they will since too many Dems are supportive of Wall Street and moneyed interests.
My fellow Democrats really piss me off sometimes.
Yes, but it has to be NOW. And a real democrat, not a person of color, or a woman.
And for it to be acceptable the wording has to be just so. Not too strident, but then, not too subtle. I’ll know it once I hear it.
.
They’re tools of the reptilian shapeshifters and nobody can tell me any different.
Well, at least the Goldman candidate lost.
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Until the words “trickle down” or “voodoo economics” comes out of every single democratic mouth, every single time there is a microphone in it – your argument is bullshit. Every single interview regardless of the topic needs to include one of these 2 phrases. Then we can say Democrats truly are getting the message out about this tax plan.
Because that is what the opposition does – they saturate the airwaves and they stay on message.
We have a good team – we need a great team to overcome these bastards.
I think we should just call it “greedy bullshit.” No need for fancy labels.
The Republicans are so good at messaging because they have a massive, integrated, billionaire-backed propaganda network across every form of media.
The average Republican politician couldn’t empty water from a boot with instructions on the heel. They’re no messaging geniuses themselves.
Every attempt the left has made to recreate the wingnut puke funnel has crashed and burned. Liberal voters by and large don’t accept and don’t consume that kind of media.
The Rs will always have a messaging advantage over the Ds as a result.
Dems don’t need to recreate the republican lie machine. They just need to learn how to tell the truth in plain and simple terms, have the courage to do so, and understand that it needs to be done repetitively ad nauseum, by every last dem from top to bottom, president to local dog catcher.
To wit:
These can be refined by a better wordsmith than me, but you get the point.
Just drop the wonky BS and tell it like it is!
I was thinking the same thing. Folks like Sanders, Warren, Harris, Booker, et. al, need to speak up. But therein lies the problem. The party has become captured by Wall Street and the corporations. And this was noted in the “Autopsy” of the party during the last election. They ignore their base.
did I mention Pelosi and Schumer? They put out the Better Deal and then walk away to Wall Street. Pelosi even reminds us she is a capitalist.
What the fuck do you think the Democrats are out there doing? They’re opposing the Republican tax bill in no uncertain terms. They’re calling it out as a massive transfer of wealth to large corporations and the rich. And they’re kicking the Republicans assess on it!
It is unreal to me how people here just completely ignore the real, actual policies the Democrats promote in favor of fantasy narritives about their secret wall-street serving motivations. What media do you follow that you don’t see the Democrats out there, making their case, and winning the argument? Obamacare repeal went down in flames and their tax plan is rapidly reaching the same level of public toxicity. This doesn’t happen without effective opposition.
Prolly don’t watch enough. Just now it seems flooded with Roy Moore and now Al Franken. Talk on CNN is on tax but two guys not Dems talking,
Racer X…let me add to that, please.
The Dems need to:
1-Do exactly what you say they should do.
But they also must:
2-Convince the voters of this country that this is not just another HRC-like “public/private” hustle. They need to produce a major change in the image held by too many voters that they are,…to put it mildly…full of shit and as deeply in the pocket of the corporate overlords as are the Republicans.
Left pocket, right pocket…not a great deal of difference.
There is only one way for them to do this. They need to produce a new, more trustworty…or less guilty, depending on your position…crop of nationally recognizable spokespeople. This is not going to happen if the old guard…the Schumers, the Pelosis, the Clintons and their already proven allies like Cuomo, Booker and the like…maintain predominant public positions in the media. They will be perceived as just another set of lying liars, in hock up to their assholes to corporate money.
Bernie Sanders understands this quite well, but he is somewhat hamstrung by lack of corporate money. It’s a fierce conundrum, this corporate money thing. The way the media is set up you basically cannot win without major corporate support, but neither can you make a convincing anti-corporate run when it is plain to see that you are being supported by the very corporations that are the enemies of a well-balanced economy…an economy that would once again produce an upwardly mobile (or at the very least, stable) working and middle class.
Yet another Scylla and Charybdis problem for the Dems. As I said, Bernie Sanders has had the most effective anti-corporate results so far, but we all now see how the DNC handled that little problem. At least I hope we do.
I am not very optimistic about the kind of sea-change that would need to happen to truly revitalize the Democratic Party. It will probably just be more of the same WWE tactic…the good guys morph into the bad guys and the bad guys into the good guys while meanwhile behind the scenes the controllers really run the show.
‘Hit’s the Omertican way!!!
AG
Actually since FDR’s administration.
Obama did, more than once. I specifically remember him in one of the debates (against McCain, I think) talking about how we’ve been told that taxing the rich less would improve everyone’s prospects and “it hasn’t worked.”
But, of course, you portray this as if the Republicans have a single mind with which to decide. In fact, there are many minds in different situations.
It’s not politics. It’s the GOP governing. They have taken everything hostage. The plan seems to be to force the Dems to choose which of the hostages will die and call that bypartisanism.
At this point, what do Republicans lose by going all-in?
They have created what has to be the least popular tax cut in history, and that’s a pretty hard thing to do. America loves their tax cuts. My thinking is that they know that this blatant giveaway to corporations and the billionaires that own them probably isn’t going to pass, so what they are doing right now is just padding their ask for the next go-around. “Look Mr. Koch, we almost got it through… just give as another million or so and we can guaranty it next time”
Of course, the danger with that is that they do some miscalculations and not enough of the Republicans in congress turn their backs on their funders and the bill ends up passing. And if this bill does pass, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did kill the Republican party. Of course, they might be dead men walking regardless, in which case be assured that they will try to line their pockets as best as they can before they get booted from office, which also might be another reason it passes.
The mandate is probably the most hated part of Obamacare. It will probably be more difficult to muster public opinion compared to defending Medicaid. So this is probably their best Obamacare repeal option in terms of the politics.
As improbably as it seems I don’t believe they will be able to deliver this.
I’d analyze it this way:
3A. neither Collins nor Murkowski need the party at all; and
3B. they now have a little DGAF caucus of folks who will never be running again (Flake, Corker, McCain) and so are free to vote their beliefs.
Personally, my best guess is that the Senate and House each pass individual bills, but then when they come to conference, they are unreconcilable thanks to the narrowness (numerical or functional) of their majorities.
To be specific, the House bill will probably lose around 15 GOP Reps, and therefore pass by 7 members (14 votes); the Senate bill will pass by a single vote, or on a tie. That means that any change in conference than alienates 1-2 Senators or a handful of Reps goes down. That is going to be a difficult needle eye for them to thread.
It is really bad politics only if this is the moment that the the Mighty GOP Wurlitzer and Wurlitzer media manipulation lose credibility with the voters. That could affect the Democratic Brock-Wurlitzer as well.
And Schumer better have a lock on every single one of the Democrats in the Senate.
. . . Brock-Wurlitzer”?!?!?!
You’re demonstrably not dumb enough to fall for that both-siderist, whataboutist bullshit.
Aren’t you?
A challenge I’ve thrown down before: document even one single instance of Media Matters (presuming that’s behind the Brock reference) asserting as fact something that wasn’t (and, in the event this has ever happened; when challenged, failed to correct it).
So far no takers. You?
(MMfA is completely transparent about their mission:
Do you see that mission as problematic, as opposed to a desperately needed public service?
Or maybe you refer to the Brock-led initiative to refute false accusations against Clinton during the 2016 campaign online? This was simply assumed by Clinton-haters to be nefarious but, similarly, I’ve yet to see any documentation of any wrongdoing in the process. I have seen the assertion that workers in that initiative were required to identify themselves as acting as part of it in their online communications. Do you have evidence that they did not do so? Then let’s see it.