Democrats Shouldn't Play Ball With Republicans, Even If Just Literally
I can't even ...
Republicans have passed a spending bill that turns the social safety net into a cement block. At least 13 million people will lose insurance coverage, thanks to $1.1 trillion (with a “t”) in Medicaid cuts. The $185 billion in cuts to federal food assistance programs will send children to bed hungry. The poor and desperate will suffer so that the wealthiest Americans can pay even less in taxes and ICE can brutalize more people.
The GOP is not resting on its evil laurels. Last week, Republicans defunded NPR and PBS, fulfilling a long-held grudge against Big Bird. Obviously, this is not the time for Democrats to play games. Maybe once they’ve scored a victory more significant than changing the name of Trump’s people-killing legislation, they can take a break for a morale-boosting, team-building retreat someplace nice. However, now’s not that time.
It should also go without saying that Democrats shouldn’t waste time palling around with the very same Republicans who voted for a bill that’s expected to result in more than 16,600 excess deaths every year. They didn’t just vote for it, either. They celebrated it with their mad king. (Watch below.)
Yet, 17 congressional Democrats played softball with eight of their Republican colleagues, as if it’s 1985. I wish I could say I was surprised or disappointed. Still, this level of chumpness is shocking.
Last Wednesday, the Congressional Women’s Softball Team played against the “Bad News Babes” press team. Unlike the Congressional Baseball Team, whose members compete on party-based teams, the Congressional Women’s Softball Team is bipartisan, which is meaningless when people are suffering and dying.
Republican Rep. Lisa McClain was the head cheerleader for the passage of Trump’s abomination. “We are going to celebrate!” she proclaimed. Unless she has secret Meryl Streep powers, she seems like she meant it. However, Democratic Rep. Nanette Barragán raved in a recent interview about how McClain is “a great teammate. At least in softball.”
“I just see her like, ‘Oh, she’s a great teammate,’” Barragán said. “Then, of course, I come off the field and I might see something that she said politically and then it becomes unfortunate, because … you’re like, ‘Oh, like, I can’t believe she said that.’ Or, you know, ‘I can’t believe she believes that.’”
Well, she does. It really shouldn’t strain Barragán’s credulity so much that McClain actually believes the terrible things she repeatedly says — and does! — out loud, in public, around other people.
Just a couple months ago, McClain claimed President Joe Biden had an open door immigration policy for “rapists” and “child molesters.” She’s attacked Biden’s supposed “record of corruption,” all while embracing Donald Trump. She’s accused Barragán’s own caucus leader, Hakeem Jeffries, of “fear mongering” when he simply stated the true impact of the GOP’s spending bill. She said Jeffries supported “the largest tax increase in American history,” which is a lie. You see, it’s not as if McClain and other Republicans are trying to wreck the country but in a sportsmanlike manner. Republicans use deceit and slander as their primary political tactics. You wouldn’t actually play softball with people who constantly cheat and lie during the game, so why give them a pass for their atrocious behavior off the field?
Yet, Barragán insists, “But for the purposes of the charity and the event, we try to leave it all behind and on the field just play together to beat the press.”
The Trump administration has literally beaten the press into submission. Democrats shouldn’t steal bases from journalists but instead ensure that a free press still exists. This game reportedly raised about $550,000 to help young adults with breast cancer. Trump’s spending bill will cut billions from the National Cancer Institute, so much so that cancer research might never fully recover. This $550,000 is cigar-lighting money for the billionaires Republicans are showering with tax cuts. These charity events are obvious PR smoke screens for politicians who are passing horrible legislation that hurts people and then shamelessly lying about it.
One Democrat said about the softball game, “We all have to do hard things. We can’t keep hating each other.”
My apparently hot take is that it’s not that “hard” to just play softball with your fellow congressional colleagues who aren’t about to lose their health insurance or basic human rights. What’s apparently difficult for Democrats is recognizing that it’s no longer 1995 and rules of regular order no longer apply.
The same congressional Republicans playing softball with Democrats have said nothing as Trump’s corrupt justice department prosecutes Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver on bogus charges. “Bipartisanship” on the softball field has not sparked any dying embers of decency among Republicans. They’re gangsters joking around with cops at the local red sauce joint.
Democrats fundamentally don’t understand why their brand has suffered the most among demos that once supported them in large numbers. It’s because they come across as out-of-touch elites, and well-off members of the same country club hanging out in the name of “bipartisanship” doesn’t inspire anyone except maybe their donors.
Also, if you treat Republicans like a mere rival sports team — the Lakers to your Celtics (or vice versa) — you can’t very well fundraise as if the stakes are significantly larger. Magic Johnson never asked me for more money to help him “stop” Larry Bird.
Republicans were the chief beneficiaries from this softball spectacle. The news coverage was all about putting partisanship aside for a worthy cause, while Republicans still have blood on their hands after shivving the working class.
From even a basic political standpoint, imagine the news coverage if Democrats had chosen instead to not participate in any more “business as usual” events, especially ones that only humanize some of the worst actors in Congress. Democrats should spend all their off hours volunteering to directly help the increasing number of poeple Republicans are actively hurting right now. Democrats could say, “Yeah, we don’t have time for bipartisan softball when children are going hungry because the GOP cut SNAP benefits. I’m delivering meals to people’s homes.”
Authoritarianism arrives slowly and then suddenly. American democracy is the frog slowly boiling in water. Any effort that maintains the pretense of normality enables the authoritarian takeover. Democrats need to realize that this isn’t a game before we all lose.
It brings me no joy to say- The Democratic Party is drowning themselves in the center. If they don’t start advancing the progressive policies the people actually need, they’ll die out before MAGA does.
I can only speak for myself, but I long ago stopped donating to any national Democratic group, because too often I saw how they used that collective cash to support the most "mainstream" Democrats and deny support to the most progressive ones. I saw them allow themselves to be moved more and more to the right to attempt to appeal to voters who were not their own, longtime base of voters.
I do however, send donations directly to Democrats who will stand up and strongly advance truly Democratic principles, who will take a stand and take the heat for it.
The whole idea of Congressional comity and collegiality is now, and has always been, nonsense. You can't play nice with people who are willing to separate children from parents, or create a masked, secret police force. Or bomb innocent people for show. Or who enthusiastically support a convicted sex offender. Or attack the powerless to score political points. Or sneer at the Constitutional principles that underpin civil society. Or lie so disgustingly shamelessly.
Enough!