"They voted for this. Let them suffer the consequences of their vote."
The U.S. government is in shutdown mode because Democrats are holding out on funding the U.S. budget until Republicans restore the subsidies that make affordable health insurance bought through the Affordable Care Act exchanges. The working poor -- especially ones in red states and congressional districts -- are the primary beneficiaries of those subsidies. Subsidies keep the insurance risk pool financially viable. A 50 to 100 percent increase of the premium will cause people to drop insurance bought through the exchanges. Then most of the people who would pay the cost of insurance would be people already sick. It wouldn't be insurance, with uncertain risks; it would be insurance companies paying the bills of people who know they are sick. Insurance companies would immediately drop out of the program, ending the exchange program.
Republicans are attempting to brand the shutdown as "the Democratic shutdown." They succeed among people who get their news from Fox and conservative social media. When the issue is an abstract, future problem, then Republicans can characterize this as their valiant attempt to keep the bad guys -- "illegals" and lazy trust-fund liberal layabouts -- from getting benefits, but not good people like you, the patriotic MAGA voters.
The way for Democrats to move the political needle is to get out of Trump's way. Tens of thousands of people in every congressional district will discover that the Big Beautiful Bill just gave them a health insurance bill larger than their mortgage, and that it funded a tax cut for billionaires. Republicans want to do unpopular things. Let them. It won't last long.
My prior two posts have been about the morality of cruelty. I recognize that the hike in health insurance costs will have a cruel effect on household finances. But the cruelty creates its own solution. The trickle-up effect will send signals through the political system. Auto loan delinquencies will rise. Banks will report distress. The stock market will absorb news of defaults and foreclosures. Hospitals will close. Populist anger will erupt and people will know whom to blame.
Democrats say they are fighting for "democracy." This is democracy. People will experience the consequences of their votes. The people who go bankrupt and the people who die will not have suffered in vain. They are messengers.
In the fall of 1932 and winter of 1933, after Franklin Roosevelt was elected but before he was inaugurated, President Herbert Hoover urged FDR to make a joint announcement calling for a bank holiday to address the growing problem of failing banks. FDR refused. Hoover was president. Let him made the decision, get the credit or blame for the outcome. FDR didn't want to muddle the story of who was responsible for what.
The result was that things deteriorated until the inauguration. People saw Hoover's failure, and FDR had the public's support for what became the New Deal.
Democrats need to let Trump be Trump. Let Americans experience the cruelty and venality and corruption they voted for. Trump being Trump establishes the foundation for reform, for a new approach to health care, to income distribution, to immigration, and to the other vexing problems that have created populist demand for change from both the right and the left. Trump represents right populism. Trump's policy failures set the groundwork for left populism.
A democracy will not address populist frustrations with press conferences and white papers. Populism requires hands-on, first-person messages. People need to experience the pain and see whom to blame.
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ReplyDeleteI respect your approach that this isn’t about being punitive to the voters who are hurt by their choice. Rather, democracy is about choices and consequences.
I’m not as confident as you that his vocal faithful will “see the light” when things turn worse for them. He’s a proven gaslighting blame-shifter and people seem to go along. Human pride is a mighty force that keeps people from admitting they were duped. Easier to find another villain.
Yes to this post’s point. The only thing that really changes criminal’s thinking is consequences, ie jail time, something very tangible. I’m thinking the same is true for red states and MAGA voters. Let Latino Trump voters watch good illegal Latinos be deported, close rural hospitals for all those rural Trump voters, watch Trump’s ineptitude affect their pocketbooks. All those poor, low educated, low information voters need to get their information the hard way, through consequences.
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ReplyDeleteThe Senate voted to end the shutdown, so all of this is moot.
ReplyDeleteI think this means that Democrats did exactly what I hoped. 1. allowed the shut down long enough for people who are paying some attention know that it is about Democrats wanting health care and Republicans want to damage it in some way. And then Democrats give Republicns the rope they sought. I am happy. It means the anger begins for that groiup of people who don't haae private health insurance or Mediccare or Veterans benefits or some other deal. The workihng poor will feel the pain. Watch the news as people go publiv on how expensive this will be.
DeleteIt will be interesting to see how the house responds to this. Assuming it reconvenes, they'll have one more representative demanding release of the Epstein files. What's Johnson going to do?
DeleteThe Rs haven’t been able to overturn the ACA, so they want to starve it to death. “Cruelty creates its own solution” There are casualties in every war. Jefferson said “the tree of liberty must be replenished from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Here’s another idea for cruel consequences: don’t send in your federal taxes this spring, and let the red states bleed.
ReplyDeleteLet the good times roll.