This is a 3-part post, and I worry that the title may not fit on the page.
Biden After 100 Days
I saw a lot of Biden's--distanced--address to Congress. There was not a lot of surprises, but maybe I missed something.
He did take credit for the improved COVID picture. What he did differently from Trump was more about the tone he adopted, rather than concrete steps he took, but--let's face it--he did throw a heck of a lot of money at the vaccine problem. This what I tried to say so many times (and never succeeded): a predatory real-estate mogul, such as Trump sets himself up to be, does not have the training to handle a national emergency. Businessmen generally aren't going to do well at anything except business.
He described his plans as having been drawn up with "forgotten" people in mind. These are the people who feel that they (A) do not have the training for good jobs. He sold his program as providing good new jobs; he mentioned the word 'jobs' numerous times, so much that Stephen Colbert mocked him for it!
He elaborated on his plan to make the $3000 cash allowance per child, for raising kids, at least through 2025, and possibly permanently.
He said that responsible gun owners weren't upset at restrictions on military-style assault weapons. ("You think deer are wearing Kevlar vests?")
There was also reference to Republican efforts to make voting more difficult for (B) the elderly, those without a lot of mobility, and those who had to take time off from work in order to vote.
Roads and Bridges, or Daycare and Education?
The Republicans seem firm in their preference for things such as roads and bridges and schools and airports, over people, and services, e.g. childcare, schools, education, elder care, etc. They feel, I suppose, that that sort of investment will be directed more towards the sort of people that Democrats have tended to support: Blacks, Hispanics, women and minorities, etc, rather than the traditional Republican base of business owners.
Here's what I think. There is already a certain amount of money for roads and bridges; it just needs to be deployed. If roads and bridges take more money than Biden has budgeted, there is no chance at all that more money cannot be voted for it, because, as I said before, the Republicans love roads and bridges, because perhaps they use them more heavily than Democrats do! But the Republicans will balk at 'wasting' money on free education from PreSchool to Community College, as Biden wants to do. But in the 21st century, most ordinary jobs require more than a high-school education, supervised poorly by rich land-owners in each school district. In bygone days, the school boards could keep kids simply learning whatever they needed to work in the small businesses that these landowners owned. These days, though, to work even in a Best Buy, the salespeople need to know the inside story on a lot of technology, for which just a high-school education is not enough.
Furthermore, a lot of women are forced to stay at home looking after aged parents, or tiny infants, keeping some very promising workers out of the labor force. The picture of labor that Trump and his cronies have is more suited to the early days of the 20th century. Today, it is a different time. The Chinese educate their workers. If we want back our jobs, we would need to educate our workers too.
Lies are Everywhere
There are a lot of theories as to why the Republicans believe, and / or spread such huge lies. Why the GOP leaders spread these lies is because it works; their rank and file believe them. There are complex theories about wish-fulfillment and solidarity and so on, but once they started the lies, they quickly discovered that it was a strategy that worked with the particular demographic that they wanted to attract and control.
The problem with using disinformation as a tool is that it only useful for deceiving voters. It can be used for winning an election, for instance. ("So much winning.") Once the election is won, though, it is almost impossible to put a Republican (whose mind comes ready-packed with the lies you yourself have spread) to work on a real problem. Part of the difficulty Trump had with his administration is all the fairy tales that these jokers believed, which made them useless as workers. Steve Miller, the immigration guy, and Betsy de Vos, the education lady, both hauled around a great weight of misinformation, which prevented them from doing anything worthwhile.
How is Biden Doing?
Some historians were asked to assess Biden, on his 100th day in office. Now, historians, as you could guess, are all about looking for patterns. You could look up a lot of these fanciful comparisons yourself; you can't avoid them.
But one of these fellows (Meacham?) said something interesting.
He said that, when Jimmy Carter was elected, he proposed all sorts of legislation that was new. He began environmental reforms. He began recycling initiatives. He presided over the asbestos mitigation efforts, and so on. But of course, the Iranian Revolution, and the Oil Crisis brought him down. And the Oil Companies hated his guts.
Ronald Reagan found it easy to defeat him, and with supreme confidence, began to dismantle the welfare programs that the Democrats had put in place, lower taxes (temporarily; in fact, Reagan quietly increased taxes in the end), and generally turn public opinion against welfare programs in general.
Fast-forward 40 years, to Donald Trump. People would be surprised to compare Donald Trump to Jimmy Carter, but Trump did for the GOP what Carter did for the Dems, moved the policies way to the right. But like the Iran Crisis, Trump has the COVID crisis, and he loses the election.
Biden did not find it easy to defeat him, and Trump fought him tooth and nail, but not with political arguments, but merely lies. With supreme confidence, Biden takes up the task of dismantling the American First in The World, and Business First in America structure, Biden says: let's work together; let's earn the right to claim to be the best.
