Damn You, Mask Wearers!

Retconning the Trump era as one of “bipartisanship” is a textbook example of gaslighting. And nobody did more to stretch out the pandemic than Trump, who resisted basic public health best practices at every turn. https://t.co/kMR4APu1w7

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 3, 2021

a) Nobody outside the Beltway really cares about "bipartisanship." What people care about, by and large, is that government functions, fixes the potholes, picks up the garbage, etc. 

Yes, I know those aren’t federal government concerns, but that’s how people see it, by and large:  keeping the elephants away.  CRT is an elephant.  The “border crisis” is an elephant.  Bipartisanship is an elephant.  But nobody outside the punditry of the Beltway gives a wet snap for that elephant.

b) It’s my understanding that nearly one-third of Americans have been vaccinated.  How many of that one-third can name Mitch McConnell or even recognize his picture?  Not a large percentage, I’ll warrant.  How many of even that percentage know what McConnell said today, or if they did, think it resonates with their experience?  McConnell is talking to the diminishing number of Trump supporters in the country.  They may believe Trump defeated the virus, or Biden is taking credit for Trump’s “success,” or even that the pandemic still isn’t that bad.

To put a number to it, at least 81 million of us know better.

c) What McConnell fears most is the ‘additional spending,” because it will buy the support of the people.  Think about it a moment:  from World War II until the ‘70s, the economy was prosperous and white people (at least; but unjustly, too, I’m not overlooking that) were happy.  Government spending didn’t fall off after the war, it increased.  Eisenhower didn’t cut spending, he started the interstate highway system, one of the largest public engineering projects in history.  LBJ spent money on people, and on space exploration.  Is it a coincidence that as spending on NASA fell off after 1969 (most of Apollo was paid for by then), and inflation took over (Voelker wrung it out under Reagan, not because of Reagan), the recession economy began?  Maybe; maybe not.

And recessions, boom and bust, have been a fact of life ever since.  Will Biden cure that?  People are clearly ready to let him try.  Biden can get his spending bills through the Senate with reconciliation, and McConnell knows it.  That’s what worries him.  Once people see what government can actually do for them, once they understand “government spending” doesn’t go in the pockets of the super-rich, never to be seen again, goes where the socks go in the dryer, out of the economy forever, they won’t keep buying the lies Reagan sold them 40 years ago.

And Mitch McConnell has no idea what to do in that future.  So I’m not afraid of McConnell’s lies; I’m enjoying his discomfort as he watches the GOP and the Reagan Era both come to a bad end.

And all because people want to wear masks?  How many people do you know who even know what “virtue-signaling” means?  I mean, really.  Stop being afraid and enjoy the show.