More than four months on from the January 6th Capitol Insurrection the GOP is struggling to redefine itself during the Biden Administration. With President Biden successfully rolling out his Covid-19 vaccination and battle plan he is enjoying significant support from American voters.
PEW Research Center has 65% of Americans indicating that they are confident in President Biden’s handling of the pandemic, 62% approve of his response to the pandemic (Kaiser Family Foundation).
Let’s recall that not one Senate Republican voted for the bill.
Although that didn’t stop many Republican Senators and members of Congress from attempting to belatedly jump on the popular coattails of the Covid Relief bill.
In the award category for political hypocrisy, many Republicans attempted to reframe their NO votes on the Covid relief bill, quickly moving to praise aspects of the bill that they DID NOT SUPPORT and DID NOT VOTE TO SUPPORT.
Notably, Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker touted the $28.6 billion in targeted relief for small businesses. Madison Cawthorn freshman Republican from North Carolina was tweeting about the $2.5 million earmarked for Appallachian and Western North Carolina health centers. Just a few examples of the many Republican attempting to rewrite history and align themselves with the bills benefits to their constituents that they voted against.
President Biden is receiving high marks for the Covid-19 relief bill injecting $1.9 Trillion into the economy, legislation that is broadly popular.
His latest push for rebuilding, called the American Jobs Plan focuses on rebuilding infrastructure with a broad and wide-ranging plan to tackle upgrading our roads, bridges, airports, but also investing in schools, public housing, broad band and clean energy, all of which is also gaining traction among Americans boxing in the Republicans. The $2 Trillion proposal is quite popular with voters on both sides.
79% of Americans are on board with the substantial investment needed, 71% support broad band, 68% support replacement lead pipes, 66% are a-ok with tax credits for renewable energy.
Perhaps most critically 3 out of 5 or almost 60% of Americans support corporate tax increases to fund infrastructure improvements. Who doesn’t support taxing the wealthy.
President Biden is calling for an increase in the corporate tax rate to 28%, a move that received a boost from Amazon’s Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos who even supports the move.
To put this in context, that corporate tax rate is still lower than before the former guy slashed corporate tax rate with his billionaire donor tax cut in 2017.
So with momentum decidedly in President Biden’s favor what is the GOP doing to counteract that narrative?
Well it involves Dr. Suess, Mr. Potato Head and extortion.
(From the Cat in the Hat)
The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play.
So we sat in the house all that cold, wet day.
I sat there with Sally.
We sat there we two.
And I said, “How I wish we had something to do!”
Too wet to go out and too cold to play ball.
So we sat in the house, we did nothing at all.
So all we do was to
Sit! Sit! Sit! Sit!
And we did not like it, not one little bit.
And then something went BUMP!
How that bump made us jump!
We looked! And we saw him! The cat in the hat!
And he said to us, “why do you sit there like that?”
I know it is wet and the sun is not sunny.
But we can have lots of good fun that is funny!
I know some good games we could play.”
Said the cat
“I know some new tricks,” said the cat in the hat.
A lot of god tricks I will show them to you.”
Your mother will not mind at all if I do.”
That is the first few pages of Dr. Seuss’s children’s book The Cat in the Hat.
Innocuous and I bet some of you are wondering what’s with the GOPs obsession of a children’s story but somehow during mid March Dr Seuss took on an outsized role in our political discourse.
Perhaps Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez put it most eloquently when she tweeted on March 11th and I quote:
This week in Congress:
Dems: Passed $1.9T COVID package to deliver stimulus checks (w/ dependents!), cut child poverty in half, extend $300 UI, prevent cuts in state + local services, largest-ever investment in Native communities, etc
GOP: Took a week to read The Cat in the Hat.
Republicans were all up in arms about the publisher of the Dr. Seuss Enterprises who manages the popular series of children’s books decided to stop publishing six stories that had inappropriate portrayals of Black and Asian populations. Perhaps DAILY KOS, Laura Clawson’s article said it most succinctly in her headlines “No wedge issue too stupid or racist for Republicans, as Dr Seuss flap shows.”
The GOP seemed to prove Clawson’s point when the moved on to the critical electoral issue of … Mr. Potato Head. Hasbro made the announcement that the product formerly known as Mr Potato Head would forevermore be named Potato Head. This sent right wing voices into an absolute frenzy With Republicans ramping up their culture war politics, pushing on the issue of gender identity while Democrats crack on with vaccine distribution, managing the pandemic, rebuilding the economy and returning American back to good paying jobs. The contrast between the two parties can’t be starker. House Minority Leader (R) Kevin McCarthy and Ohio Republican Congressman Jim Jordan are out decrying this ‘Cancel Culture” in part because of the heavy criticism the GOP is taking for standing in opposition of the Covid Relief package that has proven so popular with the majority of American both Democrats and Republicans.
Now Republicans are upping the ante from calling out Cancel Culture to Extortion of their corporate donors.
As public outcry in the wake of Georgia Republicans passing their voter suppression legislation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came out and told corporations “to stay out of politics” going on to clarify McConnell claimed that “corporations will invite serious consequences if they become vehicles for far-left mobs” As we all know McConnell is most afraid when those mobs go to the ballot box and exercise their voting rights. So to be clear McConnell is happy to cash those corporate donor checks but don’t you dare come out and advocate for voter access and voting rights.
While it was not clear what specific actions would be taken, in the wake of criticisms levied by Delta Airlines against Georgia’s voter suppression legislation – GOP controlled house voted to remove a sales tax exemption on jet fuel that would have hit Delta. That bill came dead on arrival in Georgia’s Senate. Also in the wake of Major League Baseball pulling the 2021 All Star Game out of Atlanta ( a move that even Stacey Abrams did not support given the impact on local business) Senator Mike Lee from Utah suggested that MLB might face federal antitrust scrutiny.
I’d argue that Republicans are veering dangerously close to extortion. Meaning the GOP is happy to take continued donations from Corporate America as long as they don’t dare to publicly criticize these draconian anti-democratic, voter suppression efforts when they side with the majority of voters in advocating for voting rights laws.
‘My advice to the corporate CEOs of America is to stay out of politics. Don’t pick sides in these big fights.” McConnell advised. The problem is when one side is advocating for Democracy and voter participation and the other is legislating outright voter suppression isn’t that the precise right time for companies to engage in that political fight?