First off, in the aftermath of Pres. Joe Biden’s “annual
address” yesterday, I want to say that both Sen. Tim Scott and Vice Pres.
Kamala Harris are wrong that this isn’t a “racist” country. As I said a couple
of posts ago, you only have to be racist against one group to be so, and just because
every other group shares the same prejudices against a certain group doesn’t
mean it’s “acceptable” and not “real” racism.
Carrying on, Biden talked about “winning the future for
America,” which sounds a bit more promising that Donald Trump’s “America First”
nativism and stoking the fire of white nationalism and grievance. Did Biden
inherit a nation in “crisis”? Certainly it faced—and still faces as long as
Trumpism controls the Republican Party—a crisis of the soul. But not to worry,
because Biden has a plan that “turns peril into possibility, crisis into
opportunity, and setback into strength.” This is now an America that “chooses
hope over fear, truth over lies, and light over darkness.” There is no “quit in
America.”
Damn, doesn’t that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? At last year’s State of the Union, there was no pandemic, no worst
economic downturn (albeit a temporary one) since the Great Depression, and no
violent attempt to overthrow the election. Trump never had to explain any of his failures and crimes in that regard, and even if he had to, it would have just
been him regurgitating absurd superlatives than mean nothing. Yesterday, the
“house was on fire”: today with the help of Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader
Schumer, Biden acted to put it out with the “American Rescue Plan” with the
“overwhelming support of even Republican voters, if not all of the Republicans
sitting in that chamber yesterday. People are getting vaccinated in droves, and
in time everything will be back to
“normal,” if people play by the rules.
So what is Biden planning on doing tomorrow? Well, we can
talk about it but it won’t be immigration reform, or Medicare eligibility reduced
to 50 years of age, or dental care covered by Medicare—the latter items which I
suspect most Americans would really appreciate. There is the American Jobs Plan
to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and create jobs that wishy-washy Sen.
Joe Manchin is afraid costs too much and Mitch McConnell is in a tizzy-fit
over. It should be pointed out to these people that the money spent on this is
recycled into the economy, which is something that Biden and his friends in
media should be making people understand; this is not trillions of dollars in
tax cuts for the rich that do not “trickle down” into the economy, but goes
right back in, and stays in, the pockets of the rich.
Then there is the American Families Plan, which proposes
to “guarantee” four additional years of free public education in order to give
American children a fighting chance with kids around the world who seek to
populate American universities. This plan also proposes expanded day care,
family medical leave and an increase in child tax credits. Do you remember ever
hear anything like that from Trump? Biden also mentioned that American Rescue
Plan also proposes to strengthen the Affordable Care Act, and make it “more
affordable” for those enrolled in the program.
For the benefit of folks like Manchin, Biden claimed that
none of this will increase the deficit if we just make the top 1 percent do the
“right thing” and pay their fair share of the taxes, meaning a top marginal
rate of 39.6 percent. People always misconstrue what that means; that is over a
certain income level the overage will be taxed at that rate. The top marginal
rate used to be 90 percent, which served as a disincentive for the very rich to
pay themselves more than they deserved and allowed the excess profits to
“trickle-down” to everyone else. Despite the fact that the corporate tax rate went down to 21 percent, 55 of the biggest corporations in the country paid
zero federal income taxes. Trump’s tax “reform” did not close loopholes or prevent
these companies from shifting profits overseas. If we “fix” those issues,
Biden’s “new deal” can pay for itself, we are informed.
Biden also went on to say that he intends on engaging
world leaders on climate change, unfair trade practices, counter aggression and
restart arms talks. Then he addressed social unrest, and praised the Senate for
passing a hate crimes act to protect Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders. Of
course Biden made a big show of support for women, and wants to reauthorize the
terribly flawed Violence Against Women Act, which basically gives women license
to commit violence themselves. The need for gun control seems to have
mentioned, as well passing a new voting rights act. Biden certainly had every
dot dotted.
Lest he forget what is really on the minds of Fox News
listeners, there was immigration and the need to “end the exhausting war
against immigrants.” To his credit, Biden addressed the reasons why people from
Central America are coming here—not to commit violent crime, rape or become wards
of the state, but because to escape “violence, corruption, gangs political
instability, hunger, hurricanes and earthquakes.” Instead of shutting down foreign
aid programs to address these problems like Trump did, Biden wants to “restart”
and strengthen them.
That was a tough act to follow, and I doubt a majority of
the nation after four years of Trumpism was in the mood to hear the usual the
sky is falling bullshit from Republicans. But that is basically what we got
from Scott, couched in “genteel,” nonthreatening terms. Trumpism controls the
Republican Party on the state level and in the House of Representatives; it was
a cynical ploy to put Scott (who some Republicans would call a "RINO") out there. In fact, it was so cynical that no
one—not Republican nor Democratic voters—fell for it. Or even if a few of them did, it was probably
because they were not reading between the lines close enough.
Scott had no choice but to admit that “Our president
seems like a good man. His speech was full of good words.” He at least realized
that being openly antagonistic was not going to win any converts back to the
side of Trump and his brand of nastiness. But then he accused Biden of offering
empty platitudes, without, of course, mentioning the passage of the American
Rescue Plan, which Scott nor any of his other so-called “moderate” colleagues
voted for purely partisan reasons (how often do voters in Maine have to be made
fools of Susan Collins?). Who’s pulling America apart? Not Biden, whose
policies have the support of many Republican voters; obviously their
representatives in Congress only “represent” themselves, because they are the
patricians who know better than the plebes.
Then Scott proceeded on a laundrey list of
empty talking points that he accused Biden of dishing out; but unlike Biden, Scott’s
points were entirely lacking in context or any kind of actual “plan”—so
indicative of Trump and his camp followers. Phony “opportunity zones,”
misrepresenting the Trump tax cuts, claiming we are all “one big happy family”
while justifying Republican efforts to undermine the black vote (most of his
votes come from white people, so what does he care?). Oh yeah, Republicans are
all for “infrastructure”—but where were they during the past four years when
Trump was boasting about his “infrastructure” plan? Scott claimed most of Biden’s
infrastructure plan is “government waste,” which of course is another way of
saying Republicans oppose green energy, electric vehicles, broadband in rural
or underserved areas, stuff like that.
Scott went on to say stupid things like,
you know, who wants to be “forced” to go to “free” college if they don’t want
to? Students can make-up their own minds. You think they are stupid? Well,
Republicans do. He made a great to-do about his struggles being black,
although, frankly if you are a black conservative, you’ve got a “leg-up” on the
competition. Scott’s take on racism was
absurd and hypocritical. Nonwhites have been “defined” by their color by whites
since forever, and Scott complained about pointing out systemic racism and
accusing white people as complicit as being “divisive.” It is not without irony
that Scott barely mentioned immigration or the border, because the racist fear
of a “great replacement” is the number one “threat” to the country to
Republicans, more than any international foe like Russia—which Scott didn’t mention
at all.
Certainly a greater portion of America does
not spend its time consumed with race, but there is an obviously a more than
convincing case to be made that the Republican Party since the 1960s is the
White People’s Party, and parading one lone black Republican in Congress to “speak”
for the party isn’t fooling anyone.
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