A recent Pew survey found that the American people want big changes to our systems.
% who say ___ system needs to be completely reformed/needs major changes:
Political: 85%
Economic: 66%
Healthcare: 76%
Even after covering issue week after week, the sheer overwhelming desire for wholesale change is quite shocking. People are apparently at the end of their ropes. There really is no better time imaginable to pass bold, transformative legislation.
Which makes it all the more pathetic and frustrating, that corrupt, corporate Democrats have been allowed to eviscerate the reconciliation infrastructure package, stripping it of nearly every popular provision that would have helped not just the American people, but the Democrat’s own political prospects.
12 weeks paid family leave – gone
Green energy investment – gone
Negotiating prescription drug prices - gone
Expansion of medicare – on the chopping block
Coming in currently with less than half the $3.5 trillion pushed by Biden earlier this summer, the reconciliation package is a shadow of its former self. And for all these cuts, it seems the corporate Democrats’ donors still aren’t satisfied! This process has never made it more obvious that America is run by and for the wealthy and corporations.
At this point, it’s looking like the progressive Democrats need to sink both bills. This is an extreme maneuver, but the donor class has made it clear that they aren’t interested in negotiating, or paying even one cent into our society during times of need. They think they know the game, progressives will grandstand, but ultimately cave in order to get at least a few crumbs for the people.
The American people don’t want crumbs. They can’t live off crumbs anymore! If the progressive Democrats don’t create a red line now, beyond which the negotiations cannot pass, we won’t even get the crumbs. I don’t envy Pramila Jayapal and her caucus, it will not be an easy road to walk, standing up against the powers that be, and scuttling both of these bills to demand better for the people. The backlash will be incredible. But there comes a time, when as Martin Luther King Jr. said one must ask not if a thing is politically expedient, but if it is right, and this whole process has Not been right!
While progressives will hopefully hold strong in the moment, to get real, positive change will take political and economic power from the people, not just the halls of Congress. It will take all of us, joining together each week in growing solidarity, until we wield a political cudgel which can bring Americans the wholesale political, and economic change they’ve been striving for!
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