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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThey Choose Party Over Neighbors, Friends, And Country - Gene Lyons
Gene Lyons
November 29, 2017 2:39 am
Sometimes its hard to be cynical enough about the current course of American politics. Astonishing, yet not at all surprising. That was my immediate reaction to the newslargely ignored by national print and broadcast mediathat the Trump administration refused to ask Congress for one thin dime of disaster funding in the wake of Northern Californias devastating wildfires. The state had requested $7.4 billion, modest under the circumstances.
The drought- and wind-driven firesevery bit as much a natural cataclysm as a hurricane or a tornadokilled 43 Californians and destroyed almost 9000 homes and commercial buildings. Vast stretches of the beautiful city of Santa Rosa looked as if it they been carpet bombed. Many thousands of your fellow Americans were rendered homeless and destitute.
Yet that evidently didnt qualify as a disaster to Donald J. Trump, who couldnt even be bothered to show up on the west coast to throw paper towels aroundas hed done in Puerto Rico. And why?Mother Jones invaluable Kevin Drum thinks he knows: Californias governor, Jerry Brown, and its two U.S. Senators are Democrats, like 39 of its 53 congressmen.
And Democrats need not apply.
Occams Razor Drum writes suggests that the best guess is the most obvious one: California is a Democratic state that didnt vote for Donald Trump. You dont mess with the family.
Indeed, Californians voted against Trump almost two to one. Sonoma County, whose county seat is Santa Rosa, gave Trump a mere 22 percent of its vote. So let them live in tents and shovel their own ashes. Theyre dead to this White Houseapparently unworthy of help in Trumps America.
Texas, Florida and even wave-tossed Puerto Rico, whose politicians basically shamed Trump into a grudging, lukewarm response to its humanitarian crisis, will share what local leaders call an inadequate relief package in the wake of hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. (Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed a $146 billion aid bill for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, but absent GOP support its chances would appear slim and none.)
Either way, Californians are on their own.
Even more remarkable, Drum thinks, is that with a single exceptionRep. Ed Royce of Orange CountyCalifornias Republican delegation boycotted a request for disaster funding for their own state.
They havent simply chosen party over country, like GOP partisans determinedly ignoring the mountain of evidence documenting the Trump campaigns entanglement with Kremlin operatives during the 2016 election. They have chosen party over their own friends and neighbors.
Because like altogether too many Trump supporters, they dont consider fire victims as friends, neighbors or fellow Californians.
Instead, theyre Democrats, and as such avowed enemies.
Partisanship is nothing new in American politics, of course, but GOP hostility toward their Democratic rivals took a hard turn after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Lacking a foreign enemy to demonize, the partys evangelical right wing selected the Clintons as Public Enemies #1 and #2.
I once got a chance to ask the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, of Clinton Chronicles famea lurid video charging President Clinton with drug-smuggling and murderif the Biblical commandment against false witness was more or less important than the one forbidding adultery. Somewhat to his credit, he said they were equally significant, although he pretended not to know why I was asking.
And then came Fox News.
Silly me, I recall being flabbergasted when delegates to the 2004 Republican convention wore Band-Aids mocking Sen. John Kerrys Vietnam War wounds. Three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star for heroism in combat werent enough to persuade these zealots of the Democratic presidential candidates patriotism.
Surely, I imagined, such mockery would backfire.
It turned out that I had underestimated how far around the bend the Foxified GOP had gone. However, its one thing to turn partisan zeal against symbolic figures like presidential candidates, quite another to punish ones fellow citizens. Short term, Trump will seemingly pay no price. What remains to be seen, however, is what price blue state Republicans will pay.
Less melodramatic, but perhaps more politically consequential is the way the current GOP tax cut bill takes direct aim at taxpayers in anti-Trump states. Just two of its provisionssharply limiting the home mortgage interest deduction, and eliminating the federal deduction of state and local income and property taxeswould not only stick taxpayers in California and the urban northeast with sharply higher income taxes, but could destabilize real estate markets.
Up go your income taxes, down goes the value of your home. All this to shovel countless billions to corporations and tycoons like Donald J. Trump and his hardworking family of grifters, who, like really need the cash. Republican politicians in suburban swing districts will be left to fend for themselves.
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http://www.nationalmemo.com/choose-party-neighbors-friends-country
Full article posted with the permission of the author -- Don
Farmer-Rick
(10,175 posts)They do this all the while Putin is clapping and laughing at them.
We are going down the drain while the GOP and Putin pour shit on our heads.
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)btw,,,, Putin aint laughing at them,,,,,, he is laughing at us!!
CrispyQ
(36,470 posts)As for the rest of the GOP, especially the religious ones, I'm sick of the attitude that only they are true Americans, & that the rest of us are impostors & don't deserve to be here. They are working hard to change this nation to suit their agenda & it could get very ugly. His judicial appointments alone, will take decades to undo & will cause an immense amount of harm.
on edit: And here it is: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029899343
The Movement To Remake Religious Liberty Is Taking The Courts
BadgerMom
(2,771 posts)Thanks for posting this. The district next to me in Southern California is a swing district CA-25. Ill be working to flip that. Its the home of the Reagan Library, but this should be an issue to run with.