Please continue to call your senators about healthcare. That needs to be at the forefront. The Russia scandal is important, but there's not much we can do about it right now. Don't let that be a distraction from keeping the pressure on the Senate about the AHCA. Democratic senators need to do everything they can to stop the bill from passing. Republican senators need to be constantly reminded that passing this bill is wrong for the people and it's wrong for the legislative process, so call them out if they are supporting it.
Most importantly, there are 10 key states with Republican senators that might join the 48 Democrats that are voting No. These states must be targeted, so if you live in any of the states below, PLEASE get on the phone or get yourself to your senator's local office. If your state isn't listed among the Trumpcare Ten, please forward this Yopp! to anyone you know who lives in one.
The 10 key states are: Alaska (Murkowski, Sullivan), West Virginia (Capito), Maine (Collins), Nevada (Heller), Arizona (Flake), Colorado (Gardner), Ohio (Portman), Pennsylvania (Toomey), Louisiana (Cassidy), and Arkansas (Cotton).
This is really important. Senator Chuck Schumer believes that there are two GOP senators who are probably voting NO, so all we need is one to get the 51/49 majority. Over the past week, he's been on several talk shows begging citizens to step up and start making a fuss.
Fight Fight Fight!!
UPDATE: Breaking news just in. Four GOP senators who are not listed above have announced they do not support the current bill. The senators are Rand Paul (Kentucky), Ron Johnson (Wisconsin), Ted Cruz (Texas), and Mike Lee (Utah). They issued a joint statement that essentially says that they can't support the bill because it does not repeal Obamacare nor lower health care costs. Sounds good, but I'm withholding judgment for now since I've never trusted any of them.
That said, what I'm thinking about lately is the real story of what's going on, and it's not pretty or even vaguely hopeful.
As we spin our wheels with water cooler talk about the latest Russia-gate story on Rachel Maddow or send faxes via ResistBot about the AHCA or yell at our MoCs Whac-A-Mole style about the relentless myriad of Calls to Action, most of us are missing the real story and it's obvious.
This is a power/money grab by the wealthy elite that has nothing to do with national boundaries. They want to see this world turned upside down and returned to feudal times. But instead of kings and lords, we're looking at CEOs and boards of directors. This alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence is only collusion if you assume that Trump and Putin have loyalty to America and Russia respectively. They don't care about their countries of origin. They are loyal only to themselves, global corporatization, and to other plutocrats. Destroying Obamacare has EVERYTHING to do with tax cuts for the wealthy. Gutting the EPA is all about helping billionaires make more money. Everything that Trump and Putin and Tillerson and Ryan and McConnell and [insert name of plutocrat] are doing is to further the imbalance of wealth and power in the world and to further enrich themselves.
Other folks have been thinking about this too, and it goes back further than Trump. Here's a few articles:
The Daily Beast: Joy-Ann Reid opinion piece "Soak the Poor"
The Washington Post: Brace Yourself, Taxpayers. Trump's Plutocracy Doesn't Come Cheap
2011 Newsweek article: Donald Trump and the Rise of the Plutocracy
The Daily Dot: What is a Plutocracy
2015 Salon Article: 5 Signs America is Devolving into a Plutocracy
Mic: Jimmy Carter Tells Oprah that America Is No Longer a Democracy. Is Now an Oligarchy.
2010 Robert Reich: The Perfect Storm
Ralph Nader: How Plutocratic Forces Have Crippled Democracy, And Why It's Up to Us to Fight Back
So yeah...I guess today's second Yopp! is to step back from the Whac-A-Mole game and see the big picture. Honestly, I don't know what we can do about it. I'm quite disturbed and not a little scared for the future. But if We the People (and I don't just mean American people) are to fight against what's going on, we need to wake up first.
We need to focus on how to help people not vote against themselves...to understand that we are not the enemy. The facts speak for themselves, but presentation is everything, how do we say what is true in a way that is believed by djt supporters? This message needs to drown out the smoke and mirrors they are being blinded by. Ideas???
ReplyDeleteI've read some articles about this very issue. One of the key takeaways for me is that (very generally speaking) red voters and blue voters are operating from different value systems. That's not to say that they are wrong and we are right, though it can often feel that way, but that the things that motivate us are different. For example, blue voters tend to value fairness and equality, red voters identify more with independence and self-sufficiency. In a nutshell, so long as we frame our arguments in terms that are aligned with our core values and without regard to the core values of those we are striving to convince, we aren't going to get anywhere.
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent topic for a Yopp! Give me some time and I'll pull together some articles and other such thoughts.