Schwab: Democratic Party was caught between caving and caring

By Sid Schwab / Herald Columnist

I have mixed feelings about the seven Senate Democrats and one independent who gave in to pressure to reopen the government.

It’s always Democrats who do it, and Republicans count on it. Because when people are hurting, Democrats care. In the case of SNAP benefits, aka “food stamps,” Republican Congress-squatters not only didn’t care but delighted in knowing “moochers” weren’t getting them. How they see suffering of ordinary people is the most reliable way to predict a legislator’s party affiliation: If they care, D. If they don’t, R. Maybe some readers can think of exceptions.

The votes happened just as courts had ordered Trump to fully fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, while he was trying hard not to, including threatening states that were providing their own funding. This, after the cerulean outcomes of last week’s elections ought to have made those senators realize they had leverage: voters turning against Trump. Including football fans (YouTube: tinyurl.com/2Bcheered). Had he continued to deny funding despite court orders, millions more would regret and reverse their prior votes. So, considering future outcomes, Democrats’ capitulation was a self-inflicted foot-shot, a case of premature retraculation. And it allowed Republicans to pretend Democrats were the problem all along. Because lying is what he does, Holy Mike Johnson, in constant contact with God, was quick to say so.

The more blatant the lie, the more Trump and his abettors know it’ll be believed by MAGAs and promoted by their media cartel. The truth about Democrats’ till-now refusal to flinch is the opposite of what Trump and his cadre would have you believe. The loss of SNAP benefits seems to have been what broke backbones, despite rightwing lies.

Here’s a typical one, from Newsmax: “Fifty-nine percent of all illegal aliens are collecting food stamps, meaning that most of the people getting food stamps from the U.S. government and the U.S. taxpayer are not even Americans.” That grotesquely false statement flooded MAGA media. The truth, as reported in an excellent, receipts-bringing New York Times article, which I have munificently gifted to readers (tinyurl.com/SNAPtruth), is that “nearly 90 percent of SNAP recipients are native-born American citizens and 96 percent were citizens.” Of those that were neither, nearly all were included under rules extant under both Biden and Trump. Adding homeless people, certain veterans, and young people aging out of foster care happened under Biden, following the above-mentioned “D if they care” rule. Even so, the numbers are small.

And here’s Trump, speaking in tongues to Republican senators, as reported in the linked Times article: “I will say about SNAP benefits, so when I was president, we had $7 billion worth and now they have many times that because these benefits were given to anybody that asked. And they’re up to, I hear, just many times, $47 billion … Biden went totally crazy, gave it to anybody that would ask, gave it to people that were able-bodied, had no problem.” Those statements, the numbers he spouted, are 99 percent false. The 1 percent truth consists of the words “to” and “so.” Wise people, non-FoxoMAGAified ones, know that anything Trump says is a lie unless proved true. Which might have happened, once or twice.

I sympathize with those eight senators who joined the Republicans. There was suffering out there and they could end it. But, assuming their concerns were for the effects on food and travel, among others, the deal they agreed to is vaporous. A dubious promise from Republicans to allow a vote on continuing the expiring Affordable Care Act tax credits, which, if it happens, is unlikely to get GOP votes, because there’s nothing they hate more than Obamacare. And it’d die in the House.

The agreement reopens the government for two-and-a-half months, restores full funding for SNAP, and reverses Trump’s furloughs of government employees. So it’s not nothing. It is, in fact, good. But, for the issue over which Democrats stood firm for weeks, maintaining ACA subsidies, they got only an empty promise. However — and maybe it’s the point – ballooning premiums will be a powerful campaign issue. That seems like a Republican foot-shot. As will voters remembering how cruelly Trump fought against funding SNAP. We’ll see. Dishonest spin, like vote suppression and not caring, is an enterprise in which MAGA excels.

Another important revelation, though obvious since Day One of Day One Two, is the message Trump sent to his supporters this week: Lie for me and join in my criminal activities, political or otherwise, and I’ll take care of you. More elections are coming. So go forth and subvert. The latest example is pardoning everyone who abetted his fake-elector scheme and other transgressions in trying to overturn a fraud-free, decisive election defeat. Like he did for Jan. 6, 2021, criminals, too, many of whom, because they’re criminals, have continued to crime (CREW: tinyurl.com/morecrime4u). To his corrupt DOJ, Trump added, as “senior adviser,” one who called on rioters to “kill cops” (NPR: tinyurl.com/2hireDOJ).

This is Trump, and those are his people. Consider it when next you vote.

Email Sid Schwab at columnsid@gmail.com.