Have you ever watched a re-run of a movie and told yourself from minute one: I remember how it ends. Americans are starting to wonder whether President Biden has what it takes to pass his legislative agenda even though he controls both Houses and the White House. So far, in his first 40 days in office, it looks like the GOP is running Joe Biden in circles. Nominations are stuck in limbo and the first important legislation the majority of Americans support is cannibalized to give it any chance of passing. Washington is experiencing a bit of a malaise and a sense that the President is bringing his decency to a gun fight. Just like Barack Obama did.
The White House is almost abandoning the fight for $15 an hour, and every Republican Senator is just basking and gloating in this easy win. Unless Biden administers brute force to execute his legislative agenda, it just looks like we are all watching the Obama re-run.
The worst part? This is a re-run of a movie we can’t turn off.
Our nation cannot afford to have leaders who are running in circles like headless chickens. This is as wimpy as wimpy gets, to quote from a Forrest Gump similar anagram.
In America, cash is king. It’s also the oil that keeps the engine of dirty politics moving.
PUT UP A FIGHT MAN
I have said it before, and I shall say it again. Republicans and Democrats are two pockets in the same pant. Both parties cater to the affluent and the influential business communities before they look after the welfare of their people. The lack of determination to fight for $15 an hour wage hike came down to the Democrats building bridges with businesses.
In an article by Jonathan Allen for NBC News, he wrote:
In America, cash is king. It’s also the oil that keeps the engine of dirty politics moving.
The Republican Party realized, with one little battle Biden refused to wage because of his commitment to corporate America first, how easy it is to run this President in circles.
SO DISAPPOINTING
When asked about the Senate Parliamentarian removing the $15 wage hike from the COVID Relief Bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was “disappointed”. And so was President Biden according to Jen Psaki. I say this is as disappointing as disappointing gets, if you can detect the tears flowing down their cheeks.
The Republican Party realized, with one little battle Biden refused to wage because of his commitment to corporate America first, how easy it is to run this President in circles.
Forty days into the Biden presidency and it already looks like eternity given how broken Washington is even when under the control of one political party. Between archaic rules and filibuster threats, the supposedly stakeholder democracy we seem to cherish so much is but a complicated road system that takes us nowhere. Any wonder the anger in America?
Joe Biden is old school. For him, ActBlue is a slogan and not a cash machine. He still relies on his ageless instincts of calling corporate America to help him with his political goals. This explains ignoring the younger generation of Representatives, so savvy in their capacity to build grassroots efforts, to re calibrate his first instincts.
Will Ron Klain succeed in making him transition to a more modern and populist ways of connecting with the voters? Or will he remain the Dinosaur that still gloriously bend for corporate America the first chance he gets?
It looks like the latter after 40 days in office.