Why, at this time of desperate need, does the Republican leadership refuse to put its fingerprints on legislation that relieves the American people’s suffering? Not one Republican in the entire US Congress voted for the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
If you scrolled through right-wing social media last weekend, you’d see the top news was not the increased pace of vaccination or the arrival of $1,400 stimmies. It was Joe Biden’s triple-stumble on the staircase to Air Force One. A particularly creative meme tweeted out by Donald Trump, Jr. interspersed video of the former president hitting golf balls, which then appeared to hit Biden in the head and knock him down.
United behind obstructionism so extreme it overwhelmed the need to pass legislation when the GOP controlled both chambers of the Congress, Biden tripping and falling now counts as a Republican win. In fact, over the four years of the Trump administration, exactly one major piece of legislation was passed, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, a big unwrapped present to corporations, but not to the American people. Instead, congressional Republicans have unified behind the bizarre theory that Congress must deliver cultural criticism and mean jokes about their colleagues. Continue reading.