Some on the left believe that they can’t say anything positive about the Biden administration without one or another qualification. An example is the reaction of some to Biden’s statement on twitter where he says that he supports the unionization of Amazon workers and workers generally. They welcome it, but then feel compelled to take Biden down a notch or two. It’s almost as if they think Marx will strike them dead if they allow his statement to stand alone.
That CPAC gathering should give comics a lot of material and the rest of us much cause for concern. So many imposters, all in one room, acting as if they are tribunes of the people and working class heroes. They mocked the Ivy Leagues schools, which they attended, paid homage to their grand leader, and paraded themselves as defenders of the constitution and liberty. Not a word was uttered about the storming of the capital, a storming that they incited and cheered on. The convention was capped off by the appearance and never ending speech of an ex-president, who announced his hit list, castigated the Biden administration, and repeated, despite advice from his aides, that he won the election. It was a toxic brew of unhinged white male, upper crust masculinity. It was at once laughable, frightening, and anti-American.
The House just passed a Covid relief bill and Senate Democrats are about to consider and act on the same legislation. Absent a minimum wage provision, the House bill will likely pass more or less pass in tact in the Senate with no Republican support.
Could the Senate ignore the Senate parliamentarian who declared that the provision wasn’t germane to the covid relief bill? They could, but the fact is that there are not enough votes on the Democratic side – forget about the other side – to get to 50, which would then give VP Kamala Brandon Harris, if disposed, the opportunity to break the tie.
So what to do? Pass the bill without the $15 provision and then low wage workers and their allies in and out of the labor movement can use the defeat of the minimum wage provision (and opposition to the 60 vote rule in the Senate) to take their campaign to a new level. Such a campaign, which should include mass mobilizations in DC as well across the country (forget about a general strike, which is easy to pontificate about, but a monster to do on a mass level) could give Biden and Congressional Democrats a chance to “make them do it,” not to mention favorably position themselves in next year’s elections.
If we learned anything from the Obama years, it is that observers of the legislative process are almost inevitably going to be disappointed by that process. But who’s fault is that? Biden? Pelosi? I don’t think so!
Watched “Dear Comrades” last night on Amazon Prime. Powerful movie! It’s a stark dramatization in black and white of a clash between Soviet workers and the Soviet state in a city in southern Russia in 1962, I believe. It’s told through the eyes of a local party official whose daughter becomes involved in the protest actions that turn bloody. Will likely provoke conversation and reflection.
Want to know what the Republican Party looks like today? Check out the CPAC convention in Florida. This is where the GOP is at. On the heels of the election that it lost and the Trump incited storming of the capital that shocked the country, it has decided to make no course corrections. If anything it is doubling down, which is really not that surprising. On Sunday the convention will welcome Trump who remains the nearly undisputed leader of the GOP. It will be his post election coming out party. It will likely have the feel of a Munich beer hall in pre-Hitler Germany. If this isn’t a reminder that the threat of authoritarian, fascist like rule hasn’t disappeared, I’m not sure what is. Trump and Trumpism took it on the chin last November, but neither has been thoroughly thrashed. Still much work to be done at the legislative level this year and next and at the ballot box in 2022 and 24.
