Joe Biden is a Trans-Republican, and Yielding on the Debt Ceiling is Disgraceful
Biden, in the guise of compromising, capitulated to congressional fascists who said that the January 6 rioters were “like ordinary tourists.”
By
David Gottfried
Winston Churchill would not negotiate with Hitler. I realize that the Congressional Republicans are not as bad as Hitler (they only support Hitlerite politics; January 6 was, without a doubt. a fascist putsch), but Biden should not negotiate with the GOP about raising the debt ceiling. He can keep spending and the 14th Amendment may be his buttress and shield. Why does he want to forsake the protection of that bounteous, beautiful Civil War amendment, that amendment that enshrines equal protection of the Law (Footnote 1). Let us listen to what Biden has to say.
President Biden, drowsing off into his dotage, generally does not have much to say. His taciturnity is not merely a consequence of possible cerebral decay or vacuity; he is a man with little to say because he really does not care about too many things one way or another. His political “shtick” is that he cares for blue collar people and is as blue collar as Jackie Gleason in “The Honeymooners,” a sit com about a fat bus driver in Brooklyn, New York, but Biden’s act is as genuine as Ronald Reagan’s 1981 PR to the effect that he absolutely, positively loved jellybeans. (It was designed to show that he wasn’t stuck up like some fancy rich liberal and had the common touch) Of course, Biden says he feels for people who are in pain, but my Grandmother also felt for people who are in pain, and she would have been the first to tell you that she did not think she was a presidential prospect. And, when we vote for people because they have suffered and say they feel our pain, our political process is so hideously degraded and drained of intelligence that venal, thieving politicians may win by mouthing soporific sweet nothings about good will ala a Hallmark Greeting Card.
Think about it: Biden came of age when the Vietnam war was raging. He was neither with the Hawks nor the doves. He deftly skirted anything that divided the left from the right, and with his folksy, faux small-town charm, corralled both liberals and conservatives into his camp. He was with the looking-out-for-number-one crowd and busied himself with the thoroughly banal, and often exceedingly lucrative, work of Delaware state politics.
Biden’s Rationale for His Concessions, a Rationale that has been his Rationale for Everything: We Need more Compromise.
Of course, Biden has to say something in front of the cameras, and so he rationalized his horrible agreement, on the debt ceiling, by saying that it is important to be “bipartisan” and to reach across the aisle.
Indeed, Biden’s tepid claim to fame is that he is an ardent champion of bipartisanship and that we need more conciliation between divergent political groups.
How American Politics Suffers from too Much Compromise and the Evasion of Critical Conflicts
Actually, Biden’s got it all mixed up.
Up until about 7 years ago, our political discourse suffered from a dearth of divergent opinions as the major parties indulged in minor squabbles, exaggerated to create the illusion of dynamic debate, to conceal that they were in accord, and offered no new proposals, on any major problems.
Of course, to quell political discord and a healthy exchange of views, the “media” and “moderate” experts routinely tell us that America suffers from too much division and not enough compromise and conciliation. However, as we sleep-walked through the decades of Bush, Clinton and Obama, all of whom screamed about immaterial things so we would not realize that they all offered the same shit on a shingle on the major issues -- Capitalism is next to Godliness, Globalism is good and unemployment in the rust belt is fine and dandy – individuality and gumption seemed to atrophy like the muscles on a patient with muscular dystrophy. For example, in the 2004 campaign, people who attended Bush rallies were compelled to sign cards pledging loyalty to Bush. People put up with it. Most of the press were silent about this. Yeah, Trump is a nightmare. But things were pretty damn miserable before Donald came along.
Both Republicans and Democrats largely believed in the same things and were oh so certain that black complaints of police brutality were largely fanciful and gross exaggerations of reality. For two hundred years, until the widespread dissemination of video recorders, the nation, the courts, “respectable” opinion, and the goddamn phony liberal media said that white policemen did not kill innocent black men on the streets. After all, the poor and emotionally labile blacks didn’t quite know what they were saying.
And now we have reached that unenviable and fearsome political moment when Biden, in the guise of compromising, has capitulated to a gang of congressional fascists who said that the January 6 rioters were “like ordinary tourists.”
How and Why Too Much Compromise Cripples Effective Action
Too much compromise and conciliation can make one function less effectively. Consider the following four ways in which an emphasis on compromise and conciliation have made foreign policy, economic policy, education and medical treatment suffer.
1) We lost the Vietnam War because of LBJ’s attempts to implement a compromise between what Hawks wanted and what Doves wanted.
A) The Right Wanted to intervene in a strong, big way. They counseled that we should hit the Communists hard at the very beginning so we could knock them down, and win the war, before they knew what had hit them.
B) The left did not want to intervene, or wanted to intervene in a middling, less than robust fashion.
C) Therefore LBJ, that master parliamentarian, did what might be good to win votes but is terrible in War: He compromised. He launched a very bloody war, but he did it gradually. Over a period of three years, he steadily increased our troop levels from about 25,000 to 500,000. Our gradual increase in troop levels gave the Viet Cong and the NVA time to adjust to and meet our escalations. The war was prolonged, more people on both sides were killed, and many people throughout the world, and at home, were demoralized about America.
2) The Stimulus Plan suggested at the outset of Obama’s presidency.
a) Progressives cogently argued for a big stimulus.
b) Conservatives wanted little or no stimulus.
We compromised with a middling stimulus which was enough to increase the deficit without adequately stimulating the economy. Obama’s failure to adequately revive the economy, especially in the rust belt, led directly to Fuhrer Trump’s ascension into the White House.
3) Analytically Oriented Psychotherapy
In traditional psychoanalysis, the patient had a session with the therapist four or even five days a week. Psychoanalysis was a lot more than aimless talk and the spewing of psychobabble. It was designed to illuminate the infantile amnesia which animated neurotic symptomology. In a nutshell: Certain memories are hidden because they are too painful to remember, but they manifest themselves in our aberrant behavior. The prime goal of classical analysis is remembering. What most people think they remember is only a gloss pasted over the truth because the truth is too upsetting. After all, if you knew what was really going on deep down below, you should be able to overcome it.
Most people didn’t have the time or money to see a psychoanalyst four or five times a week. So, they availed themselves of a compromise called “analytically oriented psychotherapy.”
The patient went to therapy once or twice a week. Since there is no time for serious dream interpretations or free associative work to illuminate the blinding truths, the therapist often just pushes the patient toward understanding what the Therapist presumptuously thinks is the problem.
I have known countless people who have all been told that they have the same problem: The Mother was domineering, the Father was passive and the patient was seriously at risk of being a faggot. Of course, this can make one a screaming queen: If the therapist says that your Mother was domineering, but you know she wasn’t domineering, you may infer that your less than fully macho inclinations mean you are genetically queer. The therapists, however, were deaf, dumb and blind to so many other environmental inducements of homosexuality.
For example, most therapists don’t realize that very often it is not the domineering Mother but rather the seductive Mother who increases the odds of a homosexual orientation. Why do you think so many women think so many homosexual men are so good looking. Because many gay men are good looking, and their good looks make them queer. When they were children, hordes of old ladies couldn’t get enough of them. These guys overdose on pussy before they are seven. When I was a little boy, I sort of looked like Robert Redford with a little Sal Mineo spice added in for good measure. Ten thousand trillion wrinkled old bags marveled over my blond locks – they were enchanted because, as they put it, “he looks like a goy,” a non-Jew -- before I learned to read.
4) Getting a Hebrew Education.
Most American Jews deem learning about their faith too taxing, time-consuming and too much of a diversion from the primary goal of education – becoming a rich doctor or lawyer – to give their children much of a Jewish education. But they want their children to have some Jewish education. So, they avail themselves of a compromise in the typical American Hebrew School.
I went to Hebrew school three days a week, and I went to synagogue services on Saturday and youth night on Tuesday. I learned how to read Hebrew, how to speak some Hebrew, the history of the Jews, how to pray, and our tedious but fascinating customs and ceremonies.
Somehow there wasn’t any time to talk about the sorts of things most people think about when they think of religion: Neither heaven nor hell nor what shall happen after death was discussed. What the purpose of life was, I had little idea. I had no idea how to understand our faith which seemed to cling to two antipodal positions: A) On the one hand we were the chosen people and B) on the other hand we seem to rebel against injustice and inequality no matter who it was directed against.
There was no common thread, no theme to weave the disparate factoids of Judaism together into a cohesive whole. .
Maybe this is why so many Jews flee Judaism after their Bar Mitzvah.
Maybe Biden has been a Lifelong Closet Republican – His background seems to prove it.
I know that facts bore people. Shrewd pols speak about dreams and visions, and they don’t care if their discourse is as fluffy as diabetes-inducing cotton candy. Besides, in this era of “entertainment politics,” a pol is supposed to emulate Jack Nicholsen (Trump, Ann Coulter), or Jane Fonda (Elizabeth Warren) or Joan Rivers (Marjorie Taylor Greene)
Footnote 2
The facts matter. And the facts demonstrate the Biden’s liberal identity is a carefully constructed illusion.
1) Don’t believe that Biden’s progressive politics is a lie because I said it. Believe it because level-headed, eminently successful politicians at the helm of the Democratic Party, such as Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, said it.
Harry Reid advised Obama to never again let Joe Biden represent Democrats in negotiating with Mitch Mc Connel and other Republicans.
It was 2012. The Bush tax cuts were set to expire. However, Mitch Mc Connel wanted the tax cuts to continue. Most Democrats opposed the extension of the tax cuts.
It appeared, at first, that Democrats would successfully stop an extension of the cuts. Enter Joe Biden, savior of tight-fisted, miserly Republicanism. At first, he feebly argued with Mc Connel to create the impression of being a real Democrat. After a few pro forma arguments designed to perpetuate the myth that he was somewhat progressive, Biden became a TRANS REPUBLICAN and yielded to Mitch Mc Connel.
Of course, in his 2020 campaign, Biden sold himself to the American people by saying he was a great negotiator, that he got along with guys on the other side of the aisle, that he adhered to Sam Raburn’s notion that a good legislator knows he must “get along and go along” with his fellow legislators. Of course, Biden does know how to go along and get along. He gets along by giving away the store. A good politician should be able to “bend” at times. But Biden flops around like impotent, imbecilic silly putty. Does Biden let Republicans get their way because he really agrees with Republicans ?
2) In 2009, the left could have taken the steering wheel of American government. At that time, the economy was collapsing, not only because of the depredations of Wall Street and Republican rule by and for the rich but also because of spineless Democrats, like Bill Clinton, who decided that derivatives of stocks would not be regulated. Of course, Bill Clinton left office in January 2001, but his decision not to regulate derivatives was instrumental in starting the Great Recession which began in 2007.
In January 2009, polls showed that a huge majority of Americans, having been jolted to the left by free market savagery, were in favor of the public option or Medicare for all. However, Biden convinced Obama to drop the public option.
3) When Mitch Mc Connel threatened to shut down the government, Biden proposed cutting the budget by 4 trillion dollars
4) Progressives supported a program known as “card check,” which would have made it easier for workers to unionize. Biden tried to defeat card check, campaigning for Senators who opposed card check and appointing John Podesta’s sister, who worked with corporate lobbyists to defeat card check, to a position in the Obama White House. But, of course, the media does not tell you any of this. Instead, they will tell us that Biden came from Scranton, the embodiment of everything blue collar and working class in the Biden mythology, had a father who had once been briefly out of work, and is therefore pro union.
5) Biden’s conservative biases have been consistently expressed since he entered the Senate in January 1973:
i) He was one of only 19 Senators to oppose Hubert Humphrey’s full employment bill.
ii) In opposition to Civil Rights Groups, he advanced, and obtained the enactment of, his Biden-Eagleton amendment, which decreed that HEW (That acronym stood for the now defunct department of Health, Education of Welfare) was prohibited from spending any money to facilitate school bussing.
iii) Biden once boasted that he had been ranked the sixth most fiscally conservative member of the Senate by the National Taxpayers Union
iv) Also, half the time he opens his mouth, he sounds like a racist hick from “Andy of Mayberry.” Here are some of his priceless declarations that seem to have leapt out of the mouth of Jefferson Davis:
a) “You cannot go into a Dunkin’ Donuts or 7-Eleven unless you have a slight Indian accent.”
b) In praising Obama, he noted that Obama was an African American who was “articulate and bright and clean,”
c) To make the case that he could appeal to Southern voters, he boasted that Delaware was a slave state.
d) He said that Delaware had fought for the Union only “because we couldn’t figure out how to get to the South,”
Republicans have forfeited the right to complain about the national debt, and the Debt ceiling must be raised.
The Republicans planned this debt crisis. First, they made the debt sky high because Trump gave the super-rich enormous tax cuts. Second, they like the debt because it is their argument for dismantling social programs. They like to smash social programs because when people are desperate, because they have lost the aid of social programs, they are willing to work for nothing. And when one man is willing to work for nothing, ten more men are willing to work for less and soon all wages go down.
Congress always raised the debt ceiling in the past. If the debt ceiling were not raised, and we defaulted, the United States would have to pay higher interest rates on its debt. Very simply, as one’s credit-worthiness declines one is compelled to pay higher rates. Soon, there will be a pervasive rise in interest rates. Higher rates mean fewer homes will be built, fewer cars will be sold, and the economy will contract and sink into a recession or a depression.
Also, and I said this in my last article (footnote 3): If we default, the recessionary effects of the default will be amplified and exacerbated because a) economic aid and stimuli for covid is being terminated (e.g., food stamps have just been cut back) and b) interest rates are being raised to fight inflation. The triple whammy of a federal default, which will raise interest rates, elevated rates because of our effort to combat inflation and the termination of covid-related spending may have dire consequences. The Republicans know this. They want failure. Failure and Disaster is Trump’s ticket to victory in 2024.
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Footnote 1: Although the 14th amendment was enacted, in large measure, to protect the newly freed slaves, for years it was chiefly used by Corporations to defeat legislation designed to protect workers. For example, In Lochner v New York, decided in around 1906, the Supreme Court held that maximum hours legislation for bakers was unconstitutional because it violated the “due process” rights of employers who employed bakers.
Footnote 2: I actually loved Joan Rivers and hated Greene but they both glory in saying wholly fanciful psychotic stuff, e.g., Joan Rivers came up with the idea that Michelle is transgendered, and Marjorie Taylor Greene said that Jews caused fires, in the Southwest, by using lasers operated from outer space.
Footnote 3: https://davidgottfried.substack.com/p/three-immediate-economic-problems
I'm all in with Robert Kennedy Jr. and would like to see the Democratic party embrace democracy and have Biden debate with the challenger. They won't currently have any debate, and I do think the reason is that nothing about Biden or the democratic process within the party of that name can stand scrutiny. With respect I didn't read much of the post as I think you give too much weight to what and who is acting as a ventriloquist dummy. His sayings are not deserving of scrutiny. The motives behind are.