The always-perceptive Catherine Rampell neatly punctures the image created by Republican plutocrats that they are the "party of the forgotten man" in her op-ed in today's Washington Post. She looks at the COVID relief package just passed and notes some differences between the parties:
"The GOP has lately tried to rebrand itself as the party of populists. It’s for the little guy, not the big bullying corporation; the working class, not Wall Street.
If that’s true, though, wow, do congressional Republicans have a weird way of showing it.
Consider two main sticking points that had prevented a deal for several months: Democrats wanted aid for state and local governments, which both red and blue jurisdictions have pleaded for. This would prevent more layoffs of teachers, firefighters, paramedics, police officers, hospital employees, sanitation workers and others. (Since February, 1.3 million public-sector jobs have been eliminated.) Meanwhile, Republicans demanded that businesses not face consequences if employees became ill with covid-19 due to unsafe working conditions.
Which of these policies seems more pro-Forgotten Man to you?" (our emphasis)
There's more, including the Republicans' demand that expanded tax deductions for business meals -- the notorious "three martini lunches" -- be included in the package, while Dems pushed for greater tax credits for low income families.
You have to give credit to the rotted out Republican Party; they are masters at deception and deflection, persuading millions of Americans to vote against their economic interests for decades, in exchange for the red meat of grievances. They even managed to foist a failed reality TV host and wealth inheritor on them as a "man of the people," simply because he satisfied their tribal thirst for racial and misogynistic demagoguery.
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