Catherine Rampell nails the treason party's latest attack angle on President Biden:
Republicans argue that Biden offered a bait-and-switch, that he ran on healing our divisions but now plans to . . . pass a bunch of social programs benefiting the poor and middle class. If you’re wondering how that latter agenda supposedly contradicts the former, you’re not alone. The connective tissue, according to Republican officials, is that programs redistributing money to help the poor and middle class are somehow inherently divisive (class warfare!), regardless of the polls suggesting their popularity; or, in the GOP telling, only the programs Republican lawmakers vote for should count as unifying.
In other words, Republicans have decided that the test of Biden’s desire to unify the country is whether Republicans themselves defect from the project — and they have made clear their decision to always do so. As Republicans learned during the Obama years, the easiest way to ensure a president fails at achieving promised cooperation is to refuse to cooperate.
So that’s what they’re doing, including on initiatives that they’d previously supported (under another president, of a different party), such as investments in child care, paid leave or infrastructure. Even when Republicans have announced a supposedly reasonable compromise or counteroffer, they were clearly not serious attempts to negotiate. See their recent infrastructure proposal, which was an insultingly lowball bid, disguised with accounting gimmicks.
Unity, under this thinking, means that Biden must grant Republicans a veto that they’ve pledged to consistently exercise. Some Republicans have indicated they’re practically obligated to obstruct his agenda, because the president had the gall to propose reversing part of the 2017 GOP tax cut to pay for new spending.
It's another manifestation of the insurrectionists' "party before country" priorities, of Democrats never being seen as a legitimate majority, of heads I win, tails you lose games playing, all to the detriment of our democracy and the general welfare.
To counter this cynical ploy, President Biden and Democrats need to continue to define "bipartisanship" not as getting insurrectionist votes in Congress for his agenda, but by getting popular support -- Democrats, Republicans, Independents -- across the country. Then pass your agenda, whether the treason party votes for any of it or not. We think they will, and the country will thank them for it.
