> and Republicans in particular - realise that their ideologies are dead
Good luck. Their base doesn't care. I was speaking with my father a couple days ago, who is a US Board-Certified surgeon and ran his own practice for 40 years. He's a smart guy, but firmly lives in the Fox News/Rush Limbaugh bubble. He was saying how he was hoping this crisis would put the final nail in the coffin ... for the corrupt democrats. It's insanity.
I've found most right wing folks immune to updating their worldview in the face of contradictory evidence and have come to the conclusion they are to be beaten, not reasoned with.
Not Democrats as a whole. Nancy Pelosi and one or two other congress people in particular. As I understand it from various sources spanning the political spectrum, both the Republicans and Democrats that were in Washington DC had productive bipartisan talks over the weekend and had largely hashed out a bill that both sides agreed on. Then Nancy Pelosi flew back from California and injected several additional things into the bill that were highly partisan and permanent fixtures aligned with policy Democrats had been pushing pre-crisis. This act by Pelosi derailed partisan efforts. Liberal media lauded these additions. Conservative media condemned them. Anything that is added that gets opposite reception by partisan media is pretty much the definition of partisan.
Any bill that is a response to a crisis should short and specific to the crisis at hand with no permanent changes to how business is conducted long term. Politicians taking advantage of a crisis is how we get disastrous policy like the Patriot Act, no-fly lists and FISA courts.
Any long term policy changes should be debated and decided upon months and years after the crisis has been averted.
I think it's weird to point at Nancy Pelosi given the current state of politics. McConnell and the republicans denounce any Democratic bill that is passed as partisan, so why would this be any different? And you feel that Steve Mnuchin and his $500B corporate bailout slush fund meet the criteria laid out for crisis spending? Give me a break.
The Democrats are trying to include things like vote-by-mail, since this crisis is already affecting elections and will likely have an impact on the ability to conduct a fair election in November. They want better unemployment and healthcare to make us resilient against this exact situation. These are all good things, and the Democrats would be fools to waste an opportunity to do the right thing for the country.
>I think it's weird to point at Nancy Pelosi given the current state of politics. McConnell and the republicans denounce any Democratic bill that is passed as partisan, so why would this be any different?
This is not about the current state of politics. People are dying. Immediate measures to fix this need to be taken to save their lives. This is not the time for politicians to push their agenda, even they believe it makes the world a better place.
It makes sense to talk about all the things that you mentioned you liked after this emergency is over, so that we can be better prepared for next time. But right now, the bills should be hyper-focused on what to do now, to deal with the emergency that is happening now, so that we can resolve it now, so people don't die tomorrow.
(FWIW I agree with most of what was included. It's just not the time to discuss it)
I agree philosophically, but that's not how the world works. First, we have enough smart people to do both things at once. Secondly, if you have leverage, you use it. Making sure people can vote for a party that will properly manage disasters like this one seems like a top-tier priority right now.
> not if they keep getting steamrolled by the opposite party when they insert their partisan clauses into an emergency bill
How have they gotten steamrolled? The Senate Dems won a ton of concessions, and the House Dems will win a bunch more. Getting steamrolled would be giving the Republicans everything they want just to get table scraps, which is what has happened in the past.
> Again, people are dying. This is not the time to use leverage.
People die every day. These "partisan clauses" will save more lives in the long run. Its silly to pass a bad bill to bail out the Cruise lines just to say we did something when we have the opportunity to help people. It's definitely not on the Democrats to reduce their demands on behalf of working people. The onus is on the Republicans to do right by the people of this country, fund the emergency measures we need in the short term, and pass the "partisan clauses" that will make sure people can survive and operate quasi-normally in the long term in case this isn't a quick fix.
There are 7 months before the election. Address only the immediate economic concerns now, pass that bill. In a month when we have more information, pass another bill. In another month after that, pass another bill. The only things that need to be in the bill right now are only the things that need to be set in motion right now. Everything else can be done later when we have more information and a better understanding.
If I worked at a company whose SRE leadership responds to crisis and failure the same way that our Congress does, I'd quit and find a company that is far more rational and disciplined.
> the Democrats would be fools to waste an opportunity
This is the problem with politics and something no one should endorse. Both parties are operating as if a crisis is an opportunity instead of a problem to be solved. Abusing a crisis to ramrod long-term policies changes is corruption in my book. Again, this is exactly how we ended up with the Patriot Act.
All great ideas, especially since the GOP tries every day to make voting more difficult. At least all this will help people, unlike most of the provisions the GOP wanted to slip in (abortion nonsense, pro-corporate loans, etc)
Whether or not they are great ideas, they are irrelevant to solving the immediate health and economic issues this bill should be addressing right now. None of those are issues that should be cause for holding up that aid.
Good luck. Their base doesn't care. I was speaking with my father a couple days ago, who is a US Board-Certified surgeon and ran his own practice for 40 years. He's a smart guy, but firmly lives in the Fox News/Rush Limbaugh bubble. He was saying how he was hoping this crisis would put the final nail in the coffin ... for the corrupt democrats. It's insanity.