Taxation Without Representation

The Republicans just passed a budget resolution in the U.S. Senate that more or less gives its blessing to the fiscal 2018 budget supported by the House - which, by the way, makes domestic-spending cuts in just about . . . everything.  The House is now ready to pass its own resolution.

Oh, yeah, a Senate budget resolution is normally standard procedure, but this resolution now clears the way for Congress to consider tax reform - without any room for the Democrats to stop it.  See, not only do Republicans have a commanding majority in the House, but the Senate resolution enables the Senate Republican caucus to push tax reform through without the ability of the Democratic minority to slow or filibuster the effort.  In other words, Democratic lawmakers and their constituents will have absolutely no say in whether or not tax reform should happen now, and Democratic efforts to mitigate it will be voted down by the majority.  Taxation without representation.

Hold on.  It gets worse.  The passage of tax reform - which could occur as early as March - will motivate Republican voters to come out in droves for the next congressional midterm elections, like they always do, but the Democrats now have to go back to their voters and explain why they couldn't prevent the Republicans from freezing them out of the tax reform debate.  Oh yeah, and this will likely depress Democratic turnout in the midterms (and it's always despressed) while making it impossible for the party to cultivate more Democratic voters and reach out to independents.

So Democrats will likely lose the midterms in November 2018.  And so I once again recall historian David Jacobs' appraisal of the Whigs after they lost the 1852 presidential election to Franklin Pierce - they "were so bewildered and demoralized by his election that they disintegrated."  

You Haven't Resisted Nothin!'

I recently saw this wonderful video that contextualized Stevie Wonder's "You Haven't Done Nothin'" - originally written as an anti-Nixon song - as an attack on Donald Trump, interweaving the original record and Trump's own words about black Americans with several black people singing "Donald Trump, you haven't done nothin.'"

But if Wonder's song fits Trump perfectly, it also fits the Democratic elitists who claim to "resist" him.

A good deal of the so-called  resistance against Trump is a bunch of mostly disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters and establishment Democrats who helped Trump win in the first place by not nominating someone other than Hillary for President.  How many times do I have to remind you all that Hillary promoted Trump when she as a candidate in the Democratic presidential primaries because she knew she'd get the nomination and she had a feeling that she'd lose against John Kasich or Marco Rubio if the Republicans nominated either one of them?  How many times do I have to point out that her candidacy was based on family entitlement and gender identity politics and not on connecting with angry voters in the heartland who lost their jobs?  I recently saw Fareed Zakaria's CNN special on how Trump was elected, and Zakaria explained that the Democrats had become the party of white-collar professionals who lost touch with everyday people and ignored the warning signs that middle-class and working-class people were with both parties and how Trump cut through all that and exploited that anger.  The Democrats helped realize this nightmare by not fighting with fire with fire and not nominating someone who talked about jobs and the middle class and could take on Trump on those same issues.  They nominated Hillary instead. And these elitist Democrats are going to resist Trump?

They haven't resisted diddly-squat.  As PBS's Jeff Greenfield pointed out, they haven't stopped Trump from dismantling the Environmental Protection Agency, placing Neil Gorsuch and other young right-wingers on the federal bench for lifetime appointments, or pursuing racist law-enforcement policies.  All they did was get steamrolled.  What have they stopped?  What?  Repeal of Obamacare?  The Democrats didn't stop that; the Republicans did by trying to do it.  Which is why I'm sick and tired of hearing a bunch of white bourgeois Democratic elitists who think that hanging out with pop stars is the same as connecting with the common people say that they'll make right out of wrong.  

And by the way, the party's Clinton wing is already trying to figure out how to anoint one of their own (the identity of said Clintonite to be determined) as the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee in waiting.  Democrats, you're going the way of the Whigs, and you brought this nightmare on yourself.

Why must you go on saying you'll fight . . . to take what's wrong and make it right?  'Cause if you really want to hear my views . . . you haven't resisted nothin'!  

Sing along with me! Whigging out!  Oh, wo ho, Whigging out!  Oh, wo ho, Whigging out!  Oh, wo ho, Whigging out!  Oh, wo ho, Whigging out!  (Sing it loud and for the people!)  Say, Whigging out! Oh, wo ho, Whigging out! Oh, wo ho, Whigging out . . .