It’s damn near criminal that millions are hurting, billionaires are getting richer, sick people are dying, poverty is expanding & the Senate can’t do the right thing. A so-called "centrist" compromise is $2.2 trillion less than the Heroes Act & some say it’s a "good deal."
When will we have politicians who love the people & refuse to play games with people’s lives? Corporations have gotten everything they asked for & more. 1 in 8 Americans reported going hungry last week!
These Senators could have refused to vote for a Supreme Court nominee until a stimulus bill was passed. Please do not call this a "centrist" position. It’s a cynical position that reveals again & again why Trump alone is not the problem.
$300/week is only $7.50/hour. Barely minimum wage. Senators have never cut their budgets, but they want to give a pay cut to people who lost their jobs for no fault of their own & largely because of White House mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic.
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The worst thing for people to think would be that folks just want to go back to normal.
People understand that even after the election, 8 million more people have been added to the 140 million people in poverty and low-wealth [conditions].
Millions more people have lost their health care. There’s nothing normal about this situation.
The Constitution doesn’t say, “Just give half the people equal protection under the law.” That’s being centrist.
It doesn’t say “Give half the people the establishment of justice.” It’s a requirement of the whole. So we don’t need this language that’s really more about people getting along on the surface, but not having a real healing.
Most people in this country don't hold stocks, are too far in debt or in jobs where they don't have access to a pension fund or something like that to be directly impacted by the stock market, whether it is going up or down.
If Americans have wealth at all, it is invested in their homes, but, through loans or mortgages. This may still not translate into any "positive" wealth, i.e., they may be in debt or "under water," where they owe more than they own.
This means the stock market is more a reflection of the wealth of the wealthy. Poor & low-income people are indirectly impacted by it, as the wealthy make decisions on their different sources of wealth (investments, firms/businesses they own, etc.) that affect the rest of us.
At 2:30pm ET today in 25 state capitols, we are reviving #MoralMonday with caravans of mourning for those who have died needlessly in this pandemic.
Today’s processions are led by poor & low wealth people & their allies & religious leaders who are calling the nation to fight for just COVID relief, a smooth transition, and a moral and merciful first 100-day agenda in the new administration.
And tonight at 6pm ET, I’m joining a Jewish rabbi and Hindu clergy to deliver a national eulogy for all those we’ve lost.
Medicare For All & a $15/hr federal minimum wage are not socialism. They’re social justice. They promote the general welfare for all people, and any Black or white person who says they’re socialism is wrong.
If Democrats truly presented what these policies would do for the American people, esp. for poor & low-income ppl, they can win on these policies. $15/hr minimum won in FL, even as Biden/Harris lost there.
If Dems aggressively fund voter turnout, stop playing defense & play offense instead, they can win even in the so-called "solid South," as well as all over the country.
Biden didn’t say compromise, he said cooperate—and that it’s a choice. Compromise never comes up with Republicans, because they never compromise.
The first stimulus bill was a compromise, and 84% of the money went to corporations. The ACA was a compromise, and Republicans still didn’t vote for it.
The Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, these were all compromises. "3/5 of a person" was a compromise.
Why can’t Democrats pass what is just, fair, and necessary and then fight for it? Use social media. Call on impacted people to march on the Senate & build campaigns in the states of the 3-4 Senators whose support you need.
"In 1860, Southern Democrats, flush with the disproportionate power granted to them by the Electoral College, had torn the Union in half and instigated four years of bloody internecine warfare.
"Mindful of this history, in December, 1868, Senator Aaron Cragin, of New Hampshire, and Representative William Kelley, of Pennsylvania, introduced drafts of what eventually became the Fifteenth Amendment.
“Black voters were meant to be a bulwark against a similar regime arising to again threaten national unity—which is to say that people who had scarcely ever experienced democracy were now among its chief safeguards.