Bad Takes: Both political parties are too beholden to wealthy donors to enact real reforms

Bad Takes is a column of opinion and analysis.

I find myself filling out a lot of online surveys these days to supplement my nanoscopic income. When I’m asked whether I, (a) strongly approve, (b) somewhat approve, (c) somewhat disapprove or (d) strongly disapprove of the way Biden is handling his job as president, I always click (d).

That may perplex those familiar with this column, who may have plunked me into the “Democrat socialist” box and already turned the page. But this month, the United Nations’ Special Committee on Israeli Practices Affecting the Occupied Territories, first convened in 1968, made public a report concluding that Israel’s assault on Gaza and the West Bank is “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.”

That’s the first time an official UN body has gotten around to using the g-word without preceding it by the qualifier “plausible.” And, as of Nov. 21, Prime Minister Benjamin Netayanhu finds himself a wanted man, as the International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for his arrest on the charge of crimes against humanity.

Any administration supplying arms to an apartheid regime actively engaged in genocide deserves nothing less than strong disapproval and opposition. An Independent from Vermont, Sen. Bernie Sanders, did his best two weeks ago to block military aid to Israel. The Senate, still under Democratic control for now, overwhelmingly rejected his entreaties.

Not a single GOP senator stood with Sanders. Yet plenty of Republican politicians feigned support for peacenik sentiments on the campaign trail, often arguing, “Why do we spend so much money on endless conflicts overseas instead of the people in distress here at home?” At that point, cue fake sympathy for the homeless, the working class or even the environment.

This classic ploy is called the False Choice, as if the richest country in history can’t afford to both increase domestic spending and offer much-needed support, for instance, to Ukraine’s brave resistance against Russian imperialism. And the double-talk of Republican lawmakers ought to be self-evident when they continue to wage war on the most milquetoast of policy proposals to improve the lives of everyday Americans.

Take two easy examples: replacing carcinogenic lead pipes and raising wages for Head Start teachers.

You may reside in one of the 300,000 homes to which San Antonio Water System officials this month sent a notification warning about possible lead contamination. The element Pb is no joke. It’s a neurotoxin that can irreversibly lower your intelligence quotient and cause miscarriages, asthma, heart disease, impotence and organ failure. There’s no safe level of exposure.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 7% of water lines in Texas are lead-laden, making it among the worst five states in the nation. And in early October, the EPA finalized a rule as “part of the President’s commitment to replace every lead pipe in the country within a decade, making sure that all communities can turn on the tap and drink clean water.”

So, who could possibly be against that? Well, Republicans, it turns out.

Upon adoption, 15 Republican state attorneys general protested the new rule in a public letter, accusing the EPA of violating the hallowed Commerce Clause. In their view, the harm reduction isn’t worth the expense. In response, Roya Alkafaji, manager for Environmental Defense Fund’s Healthy Communities program, minced no words in comments to a policy wonk monthly called Governing Magazine.

“That’s the whole thing about lead pipes: They unexpectedly release lead into drinking water,” Alkafaji said. “I don’t think kicking the can down the road is the solution.”

Donald Trump is expected to do just that by rescinding the rule quickly after returning to the Oval Office.

In an article headlined “The Biden Reforms That Will Be First To Go,” reader-supported investigative news outlet The Lever catalogued more than 100 regulatory protections likely to meet the chopping block next year.

“To help address labor shortages in the child care industry, the Department of Health and Human Services released a rule boosting salaries and health benefits for teachers and staff in its Head Start program, which provides support and education for more than 800,000 young children in low-income families,” the article cited as one example.

Again, who could be against that? I think you know who.

“Last January, Republican lawmakers sent a letter to the agency calling the proposal ‘misguided’ and ‘inappropriate’ for mandating salaries higher than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour,” The Lever reported.

Why are clean water and engaged preschoolers not above the fray of political debate? What makes these controversial partisan ideas? Is it simply automatic negation of whatever the other team wants? Is it just stubbornness? What explains the unremitting stinginess?

Because Trump’s party also is expected to dramatically increase the near-trillion dollars the military-industrial complex giddily receives every year, despite the Pentagon recently failing its seventh consecutive audit. If we’re lucky, a handful of Democrats might complain before folding like cheap suits.

But why does the price tag of mass deportations or executing innocent inmates on death row never seem to trigger the same sticker shock as healthcare subsidies or food assistance? If anything the government might do to actually help people runs afoul of your governing philosophy, you’re not really a conservative, you’re an anarcho-capitalist.

“The unwillingness of either party to threaten an economic status quo in which all decisions are based on the singular concern of economic profit has left American politics focused on culture wars that are simultaneously polarizing and irrelevant to the economic interests of most people,” University of Texas at San Antonio political scientist Walter Wilson wrote in the Express-News following the election.

Wilson lamented that “elite Democrats” seem just as beholden to their “donor classes” and “the same neoliberal market ideology long espoused by Republicans.”

Sad to say I share a country where millions of voters believe a billionaire who shits in a golden toilet is going to take on the ruling class, as he summarily staffs his cabinet with pro-corporate shills. We’ll clearly need stronger mettle than the wealthy elites who run this place if we’re to survive the next four years.

In the meantime, you have this columnist’s express written permission to pester your Trump-loving family members about lead pipes and early childhood education around the Thanksgiving dinner table.

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This article appears in Nov 13-26, 2024.