There’s a popular and recurring chant that echoed throughout the recent No Kings protests several weeks ago: “This is what democracy looks like.” But on Capitol Hill over the past four weeks, during a protracted government shutdown, Republicans have been displaying the opposite. The quiet, moribund center of American government looks anything but like a democracy.
Source
New research published Monday shows that the 10 richest people in the United States have seen their collective fortune grow by nearly $700 billion since President Donald Trump secured a second term in the White House and rushed to deliver more wealth to the top in the form of tax cuts. The billionaire wealth surge that has accompanied Trump’s return to power is part of a decades-long…
Source
There’s a popular and recurring chant that echoed throughout the recent No Kings protests several weeks ago: “This is what democracy looks like.”
But on Capitol Hill over the past four weeks, during a protracted government shutdown, Republicans have been displaying the opposite.
The quiet, moribund center of American government looks anything but like a democracy. The deserted hallways and empty offices portend something radically different: a future where the messy work of legislating on behalf of the public is replaced by the whims of a ruling oligarchy.
In other words, Republicans are showing us what autocracy looks like.
To understand why, and the implications for the body politic, it’s critical to recount how their handling of the ongoing shutdown has been remarkably anti-democratic.
It began when Democrats refused to vote for a continuing resolution to fund the government last month. Democrats wanted Republicans to reauthorize expiring Obamacare tax credits, subsidies enacted during the pandemic to make insurance premiums more affordable for millions of Americans. Republicans allowed them to lapse in the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Democrats have called the end of these credits a crisis. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 2.2 million people will lose health insurance if the subsidies aren’t renewed.
But instead of getting to work and negotiating, House Speaker Mike Johnson sent the entire legislative body home. It was not just an impractical move; it made the possibility of brokering any kind of deal exponentially more difficult.
Importantly, many of Johnson’s own constituents depend on the very programs his party has refused to fund. His district has one of the highest percentage of Medicaid recipients for a Republican controlled district in the country.
Earlier this month, Ohio State Rep. Melanie Miller (R-Ashland) introduced legislation that would require Ohio public schools to show a video about “Baby Olivia,” inaccurately detailing fetal development, to students as young as the third grade. Abortion rights group Reproaction notes that the “Baby Olivia” video claims that fetuses experience hiccups at seven weeks gestation…
Source
Nearly two dozen Michigan House Republicans have signed on to a resolution calling for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to share the state’s complete voter rolls with the Trump administration, without redactions of potentially sensitive identifying information. Michigan is one of several states being sued by the U.S. Justice Department over their refusal to share unredacted voter rolls in…
Source
As the current government shutdown enters its fourth week with no end in sight — making it the second-longest U.S. shutdown in history — two new polls suggest that most Americans are faulting Republicans for the standoff, with a plurality saying they support Democrats in Congress demanding negotiations on health care. President Donald Trump has thus far refused to discuss a possible solution…
Source