THREAD.
1/ Our take on the meaning of Trump's 2021 budget:
Billions in Tax Cuts for the Wealthy, Billions in Health and Education Cuts for the Rest of Us, and Billions for His Stupid Border Wall.
It’s race-baiting in the service of plutocracy.
tinyurl.com/yxyfb9gp
1/ Our take on the meaning of Trump's 2021 budget:
Billions in Tax Cuts for the Wealthy, Billions in Health and Education Cuts for the Rest of Us, and Billions for His Stupid Border Wall.
It’s race-baiting in the service of plutocracy.
tinyurl.com/yxyfb9gp
2/ Trump’s budget embodies his presidency: demonize immigrants to give white grievance voters someone to blame so they will be distracted as he gives billions in tax cuts to the wealthy while slashing billions in healthcare, retirement security and education for the rest of us.
3/ Once called the ‘Southern strategy,’ it’s been a staple of the GOP’s playbook for the past 60 yrs. Some of the issues they've shamelessly exploited: crime, welfare, school prayer, affirmative action, gender equality, reproductive rights, marriage equality, trans equality ....
4/ and now immigration. As President Lyndon B. Johnson once said: ‘"If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you."
5/ Trump’s dehumanization of immigrants is particularly raw and cynical. He incites his followers with talks of dark-skinned criminals, murderers and rapists. Yes, cruelty is the point. And it has a purpose. It’s race-baiting in the service of plutocracy.
6/ With his budget, President Trump is asking American taxpayers to spend billions to prosecute his war on immigrants: build a stupid and ineffective border wall that he promised Mexico would pay for; separate families through cruel and chaotic deterrence measures....
7/ ....lock up immigrants in squalid conditions in record numbers; increase the size, authority and impunity of his deportation agents. Meanwhile, he slashes health care, retirement security, education, housing, clean air, safe drinking water, food security, aid to the disabled.
8/ This cynical strategy is at the heart of Trump’s ongoing effort to hang onto power by dividing us along racial and ethnic lines and distracting voters from radical policies that line the pockets of the super wealthy while picking the pockets of the average citizen. END
