“Anything You Care About Depends Upon Democracy”

abuse of power, current events, democracy, economics, election, government, House of Representatives election, Political wrongdoing, protecting our elections, the economy, voting rights 3 Minutes

NOTE: If you click on the Deadline White House video below and the Katie Porter video farther down–and I hope you will–you’ll remain on Twitter (I’m not sure why.) On my computer, I can just click out of Twitter to return to this post, but on my iPhone, I had to leave and click on the post again. Sorry for this snafu. (You also may need to unmute the videos.)

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Apparently, a considerable number of voters are saying, “Yeah, we care about democracy, but we care about the economy more.”

Please watch the important brief video above of former Republican political strategist Matthew Dowd speaking on Nicolle Wallace’s Deadline White House program. (Sorry–volume is loud).

Wallace asks Dowd how the Democrats can break through voters’ tepid concerns about democracy as we approach this critical election. He points out that voters don’t know what the loss of democracy will mean in terms of our own lives.

This post’s title–“Anything You Care About Depends Upon Democracy”–is also a Matthew Dowd quote.

While democracy should be on the lips of every Democratic legislator, candidate, and strategist, here are a few tweets that I think also capture the importance to vote for Democrats and the reasons not to vote for Republicans.

The tweet immediately below is part of a thread with comments from individuals who are disabled and/or have disabled children–and are terrified what they’ll face if the Congressional Republicans follow through on their promise to reassess (meaning to cut, possibly destroy) the Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act safety nets–purportedly to help the economy that they burdened with a massive tax cut for the wealthiest Americans during Trump’s misadventures in the White House.

Here’s a recap of Biden’s significant accomplishments–gained almost entirely through Democrats voting for them with a thin House majority and 50-50 Senate (though Republicans are claiming credit for popular programs they voted against):

The title cut off the list below, compiled by Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), is “Republican Vote Tracker.” Note the percentages (at left, in red) of Republican House members who voted against each measure.

The most important item is the last one cited: 68% of the current House voted against upholding the 2020 election. And many of the 32% of Republicans who supported the American voting majority’s decision are retiring or were defeated in their primaries by Big Liars.

For voters who are blaming President Biden for rising prices (which are worldwide; the US is facing less severe inflation than other countries) this quick little economics lesson from Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA) sets the record straight:

The bottom line: More than half of the cost of inflation we Americans are paying today is the result of an astonishingly high (dare I say “unprecedented”?) increase in corporate profits (53%, compared to the usual 11%).

Finally, there’s this:

Truss just announced her resignation in disgrace after only 44 days because her program of tax cuts and trickle-down economics, which always fail in the US, threw the UK economy into chaos. The Bank of England temporarily bailed her out, but bit by bit, she and her program were rejected.

That’s how the Republicans are going to “help” our economy with their “Commitment to America.” Got it?

They also plan to hold the debt ceiling hostage–threatening governmental default (which has never happened before and would wreak havoc)–to force Biden and the Democrats to agree to roll back legislative accomplishments and cut Social Security and Medicare.

And as I write, the Republicans are preparing to introduce a clearly anti-LBTGQ+ bill. Good grief! One assault on individual freedom after another…

OK. Your friendly nagging blogger, sending you just another reminder of the high stakes in this election, is signing off for now.

Please vote early, for Democrats up and down the ballot, and make sure your vote has been counted. (Check vote.org or The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights voter hotline: 866OurVote.org for guidance.)

And remind your family, neighbors, and friends–anyone who’s non-MAGA–to vote as well in this critical election. Let’s all be Good Ambassadors for Democracy in these closing weeks!

Annie

Published by annieasksyou

I've been a nonfiction writer for many years, exploring diverse topics that pique my curiosity, as noted in my first blog posting (Greetings!). I'm seeking dialogue with others committed to joining me in this exploration, sharing my conviction that different views can be exchanged in a respectful, civil discourse where we can learn from one another and be agreeable, even when we disagree. These postings depend for their enrichment on your participation: your ideas, insights, knowledge, opinions, and personal stories.

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35 thoughts on ““Anything You Care About Depends Upon Democracy””

  1. Great info, as always. As a small aside, what amazes me is that Liz Truss can step down and within a week — a week! — an election will be held. Can you imagine the savings and efficiencies we might experience if we Americans were not always, but always, in a long lasting political cycle? Fatigue is part of this. As critical as this time is (!), I’m hearing burnout.

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    2. Just to clarify, there isn’t going to be an election in the UK, any more than there was when Johnson resigned. In the UK, people don’t vote directly for the prime minister — the leader of whatever party has the largest number of seats in Parliament gets the job, and parties can change leaders without a new election being required. The membership of the ruling Conservative party (a tiny fraction of the total UK population) will vote on a new party leader, and that person will become prime minister. It’s not the same thing as a national election.

      Real national elections in most democracies do take a lot less time than in the US, but not as little as a week.

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      1. Thanks for the info. Simpler, I see, in the UK and interesting about democracies beyond our own. Our own seems endless, as I’ve said. Wearying making just when we need the energy!

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      2. It is rather simpler, in a way. Just to be clear, the UK does have a true national election every five years (or sometimes more often), and that’s when the change of power from one party to another can happen, depending on which one gets the most seats in Parliament. Imagine the US with no president or vice president and no Senate, only the House of Representatives, but the House majority leader has the powers of the president. That’s basically what the British system is like.

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      5. Infidel: your comment is, of course, true. My point in including this video is that it shows writ large what a failure these policies are and how out of touch many conservative economists are. More pointedly, what the Republican leadership has planned if they’re in charge is a danger—has failed before, will do worse in this economy.

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      6. it shows writ large what a failure these policies are and how out of touch many conservative economists are

        Truss’s brief administration is an excellent example of this failure. The centerpiece of her program was that old right-wing panacea, tax cuts for the rich — which even the financial sector utterly rejected, causing the economic implosion that led to her resignation. The US Republicans are far more extreme (UK Conservatives, for example, fully accept the country’s National Health Service, while US Republicans are still trying to destroy Obamacare, a partial step toward such a universal-coverage system). That is, the UK suffered an economic collapse and brought down its leader due to a relatively milder version of the insane program the Republicans are threatening to implement if they get power here.

        I’ve seen Truss’s fall touted as the death-knell of trickle-down economics. But I think it will take more than that for our Republicans to get the message.

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      7. I agree, Infidel. Trickle-down economics defined the Republican Party—even before it was overtaken by the MAGA fringe that’s now its core. But I don’t see the dark money donors changing their modus operandi. If McCarthy, et al, feel so comfortable playing chicken with the debt ceiling, I don’t know what messaging they’re getting from their billionaire puppeteers.

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    3. Speaking as a Brit- I belong to the section who phlegmatically has to say …Yes. Saw that coming. British politics is very ruthless, if the leader is not up the standard and public supporting is ebbing their own will turn on them. ‘Et Tu Brute’ is a common enough term used.
      Actually it’s a long catalogue of errors and calamities which has its roots in the day, the then Prime Minister David Cameron decided to try and stifle the opposition within his own party and call a referendum over UK member of the EU. A very British Political Instability has stalked the nation since.
      And folk are paying for it in hardship.

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    1. That’s why I included Matthew Dowd’s video, Neil. As we haven’t been so close to the edge in most of our lifetimes, democracy is an abstraction for many people. They don’t know what its loss can mean. I agree with him that both the media and the Democrats haven’t done enough to make the significance concrete. But we still have time to do that—each of us, with those we know.

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  4. A vibrant post filled with details Annie.
    This guy Kudlow….compare his out of touch commentary with the quiet statement of PRESIDENT Biden who said it was ‘ A Mistake’…..
    The Markets agreed with him.
    Mr Kudlow, I suggest you stay out of UK politics, leave it to the grown-ups (who are trying to repair the damage wrought by lesser folk)

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      1. Here is a strikingly odd parallel Annie.
        Johnson was cast out, discredited with many senior MPs refusing to work with him, he is still under investigation for effectively misleading parliament on his own actions, thus could face suspension; technically he is a liability. And divisive within his own party
        Swing leftwards, three years back.
        Jeremy Corbyn, divisive, rigid, unable to supply the flexibility of presentation and willingness to try and reach out to an uncertain public led Labour to its greatest defeat. And had to resign, leaving a divided party.
        And yet both men have a group of followers who feel their return is the answer.
        Never underestimate the power of denial.

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      3. There is always massive denial.
        History is filled with examples of it; this is why the same tragedies keep on happening.
        There is a such a fine line between Denial and Determination. Normally the group with privilege or self-appointed superiority believe in the former, although thanks to the internet and the Conspiracy Theory crews that is not always the case these days.

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    2. I have some flash memories but the first real memory is my third birthday entering a backdoor to a landing with a corral of puppies at the bottom, 1955. The grownups have been running things for a long time. I became one with a mission to do better. Life is complicated. It is 2:55AM and the demons come at 3. I don’t think I have left enough time to complete my mission. I hope the grownups come soon. Thank God I have a Dog!

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  5. Annie, when you strip this Trickle down economics question to its basest form the humor is evident. There is a reason five studies have shown Trickle down economics has failed. That is not counting it almost bankrupting the state of Kansas until they ditched a few years ago. This is why British markets reacted so poorly.

    Here is the basic level conversation.
    Reporter: Sir, what is your plan to stimulate the economy?
    Conservative Leader: I plan to give more money to rich people and watch it trickle down
    Reporter: Sir, do you expect us to believe that BS?
    Conservative Leader: Why, yes?
    Reporter: Because a rich person does not need any more, so they will just put it in their bank. It won’t get spent and it won’t trickle down.
    Conservative Leader: What do you mean they won’t spend it.

    PS. Here in the states, with the 2018 tax cut set forth by Republicans, the economy got only a temporary boost for a short time much to the surprise of the White House. Why? Instead of investing and spending the tax cut, companies bought back shares of outstanding stock to make their EPS ratios look better.

    Keith

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    1. I like this imagined exchange, Keith. I keep hoping, and writing, that reporters who hear voters say “I’m voting for Republicans because of the economy” would ask, “Why? When has the economy been better under the Republicans?”

      I wrote about those gluttonous buybacks a while ago. They should be outlawed.

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    2. When you give nothing a name it become something. God ,cold ,money begin at a point which appears to go only in one direction. Say a loaf of bread cost $1, then a dollar is a loaf of bread? It is not nor is it a car! It is as blood in a body. 2% of a human’s body mass uses 20% of the blood. 40% will not improve it but will erode all the rest. The accumulation is the problem and circulation is the solution. The fact that a magnificent accumulator thinks that Twitter is worth 44 billion dollars should have illustrated the problem.

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  7. Two thoughts…..trickle down economics doesn’t work when corporations have gotten so greedy. It used to be a nice profit was good enough, not companies feel they must reach higher and higher profits to satisfy the shareholders. And second, I don’t get the thing about cutting Medicare/Medicaid/social security….I don’t know much about your system but doesn’t everyone eventually get old and need those basic services?

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    1. That’s what’s so appalling, Joni. This is a life and death issue—and we pay for these programs through our working lives. Republicans’ plans are to start coverage at 75 and end it at 90! I’m sure most voters don’t know this: it should sink these cruel people!

      Correction: turns out the 75 yrs/ 90 yrs was a phony knockoff of the “Commitment to America” logo. But they are talking about cutting these programs, as they have for years.

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    2. Being old in America has never been an asset. I’m comfortable but I still pick up every lawnmower and vacuum cleaner I find left for dead at the curb every Tuesday night. 80% come to life with a cursory cleaning. I love my country like I love my dog but in the USA weakness is a sin. They will throw throw you away for being dirty.

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