Rebuttals and closing arguments:
GOP: we got gripes. Democrats: we got solutions. GOP: No, no, not that way. Me: So...got better ideas?
One of the strangest stances of the GOP has flown under the media radar. They tout buzzwords they think to resonate politically, and either fail to offer a plan to fix it or, if they have a plan that does not fit their ideological boundaries, they vote against the fix. The buzzwords cropping up in October were crime, inflation, small government, and "stop the steal", or the more polite, unspoken term,:" if we lose, it was because it was a fraud. If our side wins, there was no fraud"." Election fraud is why democracy is in jeopardy".. Democrats have a different take " claiming fraud is a fraud itself since there was no evidence of fraud. Destroying faith in election security for political propaganda gain is the basic threat to democracy since the alternatives to rule by a vote of people and rule by law are autocracy and violence."
Crime: "Democrats are for defunding police, so therefore Democrats are to blame for the crime." Biden put money for 100,000 more police in his "inflation fighting" law every Republican voted against. While there are a few on the far left who bought into the defund slogan, Biden also has the plan to fund police to help them do their job better by giving them better training and social and mental health workers to relieve the police of that burden, but it will take Democrats to control Congress to pass that. The day after the "defund police" slogan appeared, Biden slapped it down, and he has been consistently for funding the police ever since. There is no secret that Biden wants to reinstate the ban on the sales of assault weapons. That is not what the GOP wants to do to fight crime: they want more guns in the hands of even the too-young and mentally ill, more weapons of war on the streets, and they support the police who act on their behalf: In their implied mantra," good police are those who stop Antifa and bash in the heads of those police protecting the Capitol from the peaceful sightseers on January 6, 2021".
Inflation: " It's all Biden's fault. His big spending bills caused the problem, so reverse them." While inflation is bad, say, Democrats,it is not as bad as the rest of the inflation in the industrialized world. That is little comfort, but provincial and uninformed Americans and the GOP hope their voters just ignore the rest of the world's experience or the lack of presidential power to fix it . Much of Biden's agenda has not even been implemented and spent yet, but Biden's legislative agenda is to blame for inflation? "Blame Biden anyway'". Petroleum product prices are set internationally by cartels, including the Saudis. Still, Biden kept gas at the pump costs going down by releasing strategic reserves and is now threatening to slap an excess profit tax on the gas producers who have record-breaking profits due to suspected unjustified price increases. No, no...says GOP. " It is bad policy to release reserves "(or to tax our oil and gas-supporting political contributors.) Ok, then, any other great ideas, GOP, to reduce inflation? Zip. Nada. "Great talking points, though."
One way GOP wants to fight inflation (and the parallel bogeyman, deficit) is to reinstate big pharma's unbridled charges for prescription drugs. "Government debt is bad, but student loan debt is just fine", in the GOP pantheon of kinds of debt..The usual GOP fallback is: "cut government waste, but we'll not tell you where it is and what should be targeted." (That might upset some folks. ) One they did promote, however, was cutting wasteful spending by putting Medicare and Medicaid on the chopping block for a vote every year or every five years. (This one is a political puzzler, since older people on Medicare are usually GOP voters, and they have been having deductions taken from their paychecks throughout their working lives to fund such retirement security).
One of the most significant reductions in the deficit lately is the requirement that pharma has to compete with bids to provide Medicare drug coverage, but the GOP does not want the deficit cut that way: They are mum on what they would cut other than Medicare, Medicaid, all social programs, and aid to Ukraine. Better to keep the rest of what they would defund vague. Instead, they want to restore tax cuts to the rich that pays for Biden's build-back better agenda, Cut aid to Ukraine? Putin loves, American Firsters and US right-wing extremists when it comes to Ukraine, and it appears in this wing-nut bromance, feelings about one-party, strong-man dictatorships are mutual and shared values. Ok, So instead, Democrats fear,"We'll have to take our stand in the Baltics and the Balkans instead against an expansionist Russian dictator and give the green light to China to take over Formosa/Taiwan. American firsters, you like that strategy better?"
A word about small government: There is nothing bigger than a government, state or federal, that supports a government telling its citizens it cannot get an abortion for any reason, dictates who they can love and wed, what gender anyone can say they are, and how or if they can plan a family. There is nothing bigger than a government that imposes and enforces particular religious interpretations held by a minority over the majority. and even makes it a crime to defy their law, enforced by police and courts.
Stop the steal: See you in court over that one, GOP, again, and again, and again, and again. You will lose every time because after nearly two years of trying, recounts, official government, and Ninja audits, you still could not come up with evidence. Courts demand evidence, not theories and what-ifs. Attorneys are disbarred for using lies and failure to provide evidence. The courts are where the BS buck has stopped so long as we still have the rule of law.
It has not just become a choice between democracy and autocracy, but a choice between democracy and. political violence. Without the trust in the system of voting to give citizens any chance to shape public policy, the alternative is violence. This is what is at stake. We saw it on Jan.6 and in Nancy Pelosi's home. How much more do you want, GOP?
The GOP is counting on public ignorance of the process developed by election officials to use modern technology and bi-partisan vote counters to catch dead bodies, signature forgers, and double voters, in order to keep their votes from being counted. Maybe, just maybe, some will realize that the lie the 2020 election was stolen was just a way to explain away a loss, to install their partisan election-denying election administrators, and to justify violence to overturn elections. (Anther puzzler since mail-in ballots were the object of their blame for fraud was also a beloved convenience used by older people, who usually favor the GOP).
