Other guy is being a bit of a dick, tbh, but you do realize that the PPP loans weren’t just “passed with little oversight”, right? Democrats tried to get oversight and Republicans fought tooth and nail to strip as much oversight as possible. There’s a reason that Republicans disproportionately scammed PPP loans after they were finally passed in an extremely urgent situation where some sort of relief absolutely needed to go out.
At the end of the day, legislation is compromise but one party has unraveling and selling off of the state as their goal, which makes the feasible compromise point a bit hard to create effective legislation. As a result, this means there are no effective or honest Republicans, but there are at least some effective or honest democrats. It’s a sucky situation that is hard to crawl out of.
The Republicans have been more successful in pursuing their policy agenda and moving discourse to the right in part because of their stubbornness and intransigence. Democrats are always the ones that move further and further right to meet the Republicans where they’re at, and because the Republicans know they’ll do it, they keep moving right themselves. So we reach a point where the party that passes as “left” in this country is actively trying to pass tighter restrictions on immigration, is championing our outrageous military spending and arming a genocide, and is bragging about increasing gas production while placing tariffs on EVs. The strategy of the Republican base of playing hardball and laying down strict red lines on things like abortion or gun control has proven more effective than the strategy of the Democratic base of “lesser-evilism.”
Granted, part of it is that the stuff the Republicans want is generally not directly opposed to corporate interests, so their politicians can give in to their base without upsetting their donors. Democrats have to play a game of not disrupting the profits of their donors while trying to appease the base.
I agree that relief was needed, but PPP loans were basically handouts to people who were already well off. Should’ve just been another stimulus check.
Other guy is being a bit of a dick, tbh, but you do realize that the PPP loans weren’t just “passed with little oversight”, right? Democrats tried to get oversight and Republicans fought tooth and nail to strip as much oversight as possible. There’s a reason that Republicans disproportionately scammed PPP loans after they were finally passed in an extremely urgent situation where some sort of relief absolutely needed to go out.
At the end of the day, legislation is compromise but one party has unraveling and selling off of the state as their goal, which makes the feasible compromise point a bit hard to create effective legislation. As a result, this means there are no effective or honest Republicans, but there are at least some effective or honest democrats. It’s a sucky situation that is hard to crawl out of.
The Republicans have been more successful in pursuing their policy agenda and moving discourse to the right in part because of their stubbornness and intransigence. Democrats are always the ones that move further and further right to meet the Republicans where they’re at, and because the Republicans know they’ll do it, they keep moving right themselves. So we reach a point where the party that passes as “left” in this country is actively trying to pass tighter restrictions on immigration, is championing our outrageous military spending and arming a genocide, and is bragging about increasing gas production while placing tariffs on EVs. The strategy of the Republican base of playing hardball and laying down strict red lines on things like abortion or gun control has proven more effective than the strategy of the Democratic base of “lesser-evilism.”
Granted, part of it is that the stuff the Republicans want is generally not directly opposed to corporate interests, so their politicians can give in to their base without upsetting their donors. Democrats have to play a game of not disrupting the profits of their donors while trying to appease the base.
I agree that relief was needed, but PPP loans were basically handouts to people who were already well off. Should’ve just been another stimulus check.