... The Democrats!

Are you super rich? Then sorry, there's no political will to improve your life.

I always joke with younger centrists that the wheel of time ensures they have two roads before them if they want to continue caring about politics on a local, state or federal level.

Either, like me, they will turn into The Joker after the Democrats continue to do nothing with their power and thus guarantee the Republicans’ return to power in a never-ending cycle that only benefits the wealthy.

Or they will become inured to the pain of losing and go on to become a soulless careerist who only feels alive when they’re attacking people to the left of them for “not living in the real world.”

“Vote Blue no matter who!” They told us. And like the sad sack of shit that I am, I voted for Joe Biden with no expectations of him ushering in a better world. “Hey,” I thought. “At least I’ll get a $2,000 check.” Wrong. He only paid $1,4000 of the $2,000 he said he would, and yes, I’m still bitter.

But, you know, we were going to Build Back Better, and it’d be nice to be able to go days at a time without thinking about the entity known as Donald Trump. I had zero expectations for his presidency, and I gotta say he’s lived up to them.

Eleanor Mueller @eleanor_mueller

🚨 Senate Democrats have decided to drop paid family and medical leave, a key cornerstone of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, from their mammoth social spending package Wednesday after attempts to drastically pare it down were deemed insufficient, three sources tell me.

Take this infrastructure bill. We could have spent some serious cheddar and invested in our country and its people in a way unseen since the New Deal as a way to economically recover from a pandemic that has killed 740,000(!) Americans. Instead we allowed centrist hobgoblins like Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema gut things like free community college and guaranteed paid leave and the tax mechanisms that will all but tank anything good to actually come out of the bill.

At least Manchin and Sinema have the guts to tell us lowly pigs that we’re not worthy of nice things. But they’re not the only ones standing in the way of sensible policy like taxing billionaires. They’re just the ones willing to put their names to the deed.

Do you think guys like Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell would let two bums stand in the way of their agenda, which is primarily cutting taxes for the donor class? Hell no. They would have thrown Sinema or Manchin into a volcano and washed their hands of them before they even got a chance to mount a serious defense.

I try to avoid becoming a doomer about this stuff, and I’ll always vote because as a white male America makes that party very easy for me. But it’s not hard to understand why people who did vote in record numbers in 2020 are now asking themselves what’s the point if the corporate class can simply turn to their key stooges in the government to dilute any meaningful reform that the people wanted in the first place.

The 2022 midterms are going to be a bloodbath like the kind usually only seen in serial killer movies. What will the Democrats campaign on, other than not being Republicans? Tax credits, maybe? And who gives a fuck about tax credits in this day and age?

THOSE WMDs. Many (Republican) School Board candidates receiving large amounts of dark money… Democrats’ betrayals are jeopardizing American democracy… The 25 most haunted places to visit in Ohio… Facebook isn’t about the dopamine… Looted Benin Bronze statue returned to Nigeria in “institutional first.”