Republicans – Curtis Wiggins

Et Tu, Pepe…

Let’s talk about the Republican party and their new obsession with “cancel culture” for a minute. Ever since I can remember, the Republican party claimed to support businesses and business owners, as the engine that drives prosperity. They favored minimal regulation, and in many cases deregulation, arguing that market forces would produce the most effective outcomes. In other words, there was no need for government to tell businesses what to do, they would do what market demanded, or they would not survive.

Additionally, since the 1980’s, the Republican party has also claimed to be the party of “family values.” Unfortunately that often translated into “no gays”, but the were ostensibly the party that supported and protected families, and in particular children.

So one has to wonder, when a business that produces entertainment for children, for example a Warner Bros. or a Dr. Seuss Enterprises or a Hasbro, decides that the market is telling them that some of their product no longer aligns with the values parents want to expose their children to, and said companies decide to remove or revise their product to more closely align with the values of their market, a market targeted specifically towards children, one has to wonder why Republicans are upset.

Clearly they’re not upset that businesses are responding to market forces rather than government “interference.” They can’t be upset that businesses are aligning their values to benefit children.

As far as the “taking away their childhood” argument, aside from the Bible’s advice to “put away childish things”, I would point out nothing is gone. He may be less accessible to children, but Pepe le Pew is still out there, available for adults to stream in all his inappropriate touchiness glory. Those six Seuss books will be available in used book stores and on eBay for generations to come. (Let’s be honest, they were not exactly best sellers to begin with.) And if you want to assign traditional gender roles to your potato, well, you know, have at it. No one will stop you.

Here’s what they are really upset about. They don’t see anything wrong with unwelcome advances and uninvited touching directed towards women, and by telling them Pepe is not a good role model for children, we are taking away their “right” to treat women this way.

They don’t see anything wrong with laughing at grossly stereotypical Asian or aboriginal caricatures, and by telling them we don’t want children to make fun of others based on their race, we are taking away their “right” to make fun of others.

They want men to be real men, and women to be real women, and potatoes to… well, be real man-potatoes or real woman-potatoes, and by telling them children should be free to define themselves in their own terms without society telling them what little boys and little girls are supposed to play with, we are somehow taking away their “right” to be manly.

And they will argue that our generation grew up with Pepe le Pew and Asian stereotypes and clearly heteronormative Mr. Potato Head, and we turned out just fine. To that I would reply, yes, we turned out okay, but you know who else grew up watching Pepe le Pew? Harvey Weinstein grew up watching Pepe le Pew. Jeffrey Epstein, Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K. all grew up, like us, watching Pepe le Pew. And the list goes on.

Maybe you don’t want to use your experience to speak for an entire generation. Maybe you, like me, had parents that went to great lengths to explain you do not treat women like you see Pepe le Pew do, any more than you learn gun safety from Elmer Fudd. Maybe today’s parents don’t want to have to explain why a cartoon skunk is allowed to get away with inappropriate behavior.

So, to Republicans, I would say this. Calm down. The market is working exactly the way it is supposed to. And really, you’re not losing anything. If you want to spend your evenings watching an over-sexed cartoon skunk groping a hapless black cat, have at it. If you enjoy outdated Asian stereotypes, please, read away, or better yet, check out “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, you’ll love the Mickey Rooney character. And if you insist that your potatoes have a penis. Well, unlike you guys, we’re not judging.

Once Upon a Time…

Gather around, boys and girls, let me tell you a story about what life was like back in the “Before Time”.

The year was 1990. The Internet wasn’t a thing yet, but CompuServe was, and Sears had just launched Prodigy. (Yes, Sears. Believe it or not, Sears was the Amazon of their day.) We were only two years removed from Reagan, Newt Gingrich and Donald Trump were still on their second wives, the Berlin Wall had just fallen, and grunge didn’t exist yet. In short, it was a great time to be alive.

Back in those days, yours truly lived in a wonderful land called Texas, and Texas was in the midst of electing itself a new governor. See if this sounds familiar: The Republicans nominated an colorful, brash, outspoken, businessman, one with zero experience in government, while the Democrats nominated, wait for it, *gasp*, a woman, one who had made her career in politics.

Texas, then as now, was solidly a red state, and Texans do love their colorful brash outspoken businessman types (see Perot, H. Ross), so conventional wisdom was that the Republican nominee, Clayton Williams, was a sure thing, a done deal. Never mind for a second that the Democratic candidate, Ann Richards, might be more qualified for office.

Then one day the tides turned. Our boy Clayton made a joke about rape. And that joke, somewhat mild by today’s standards, changed the trajectory of the entire campaign.

Now, let me stop right here a moment , and be clear about a few things.

At no time was Clayton Williams ever accused of any sexual misconduct. There is no indication he ever grabbed anyone by their… anything. There were no accusers from his past. No women came forward with complaints. No shopping malls banned him from their Sears. And, as far as we know, no actresses, comediennes , or potted plants were masturbated in front of.

What he did do was this: Inclement weather was delaying a campaign event, and Williams compared it to rape, saying “if it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”

I should also point out, nothing he said suggested that he advocated or condoned sexual assault in any way. Nothing he said implied that one could get away with sexual assault if one was famous or took someone furniture shopping.

Further, there was no question that it was a joke. Although in bad taste, everyone knew it was as a joke. Everyone sort of knew he was a bully and an idiot, and perhaps he didn’t take rape as seriously as he should, but no one, then or now, has referred to him as a sexual predator.

Yet overnight, what had been a huge lead in the polls dwindled away. His supporters turned away from him in droves. In the end Ann Richards was elected the first women governor of Texas. (With an asterisk, there was another before her, but that is a whole other story.)

Why?

Well, boys and girls, back in those days the people of Texas, including the Republicans of Texas, decided that character matters. They were unwilling to sacrifice their principles or their values just for the sake of party loyalty. They were unwilling to overlook a serious character flaw just to keep the other side from power. Principles mattered. Values mattered. I know it’s hard to understand today, but it was a different time back then.

And thus a Democrat, a woman, became the governor of the reddest of the red states. And guess what? Texas survived. Texas remained Texas. There were no riots in the streets, no gun confiscations, no rampant waves of abortions, no sharia law, and the whole state didn’t turn gay overnight. None of the fear-mongering we know today came to pass. Texas remained steadfastly Texas.

What did happen was, the people of Texas came together and rejected someone they found to be unfit of character, and instead elected someone they might not agree with, but at least someone they could respect.

**sigh**

That all seems like such a very very long time ago now.

Why Can’t Republicans Repeal and Replace Obamacare?

Lately our President’s team and our Congressional leaders have been throwing verbal jabs back and forth, each blaming the other for the failure to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, which those of you not paying attention, is the official name of what we have taken to calling “Obamacare”.

In the latest, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated the repeal failed because of artificial timelines and unreasonable expectations on the part of the President, for whom “it may not have been understood” just how these things work. Dan Scovino, Trump’s director of social media fired back basically saying “more excuses”, you’ve had seven years, how much time do you need?

Now I’m going to do something that might surprise you. In this blame-apalooza between Trump and Congress, I’m siding with Trump. Yes, you heard me. Trump said on day one he was going to ask Congress for a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, and as far as I know, he did essentially that. He did his part. The only other thing he had to do was sign the bill when it came out the other end. A bill that never came.

It was up to Congress, and particularly the Republicans in Congress, who by the way, have literally FULL control – they can do anything they want, it was up to them to actually come up with the replacement.

Now Trump was no help on that front, but honestly, did anyone think he had an actual plan? Come on, of course not. We all know he’s not a “details” guy, he just blusters around and throws out tasty sound bites, and expects others to come up with the details for him. This is not new, he has literally always worked this way. No one should be surprised by this.

So, Republicans, with a solid majority in both houses of Congress, were unable to pass a bill to repeal and replace. Why? It’s simple. Their bills were, in a word, shit.

Trump promised to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something better. Remember? Better. That’s the key point here. The replacement was meant to be an improvement. It was going to be “a beautiful picture”, remember – his words. And you know what? I’m on board with that. I can get behind that. You want to repeal the ACA and replace it with something better, you have my full support. Have at it. Seriously. Do that.

The problem is, not one single bill from the Republicans, not the House bill, not the first Senate bill, not the revised second Senate bill, not the repeal-now-replace-later bill, not even the “skinny repeal” bill, whatever the fuck that was, not one of those bills was even remotely better than the existing ACA.

Not. One. Of. Them.

Not even close. They were all, demonstrably and quantifiably, worse. And by a lot.

How do we know they were worse? I’m glad you asked. Did you know, we have a department of the government, the Congressional Budget Office, whose sole job it is, I mean really, this is the only thing they do all day long, is to look at every single piece of proposed legislation that comes out of Congress, and determine its financial impact.

These are not politicians or bureaucrats. These are accountants and actuarials and statisticians and economists, you know, the mathy, sciencey guys. In short, they’re professional bean counters, non-partisan bean counters, and they count up exactly how many non-partisan beans it’s going to cost us, for literally every piece of legislation.

And they counted the beans for each of those repeal and replace bills, the ones that survived long enough to be counted anyway, and they all came up short. Way, way short. And yes, I know: projections, estimates, error, all of that. Sure, but… even if their estimates are off by a factor of ten. Even if the exaggerated the impact to ten times worse than reality, those bills are STILL significantly worse than the ACA they meant to replace. More uninsured, higher premiums, less coverage. By any measure, each and every one of the proposed bills was far worse than Obamacare. Like I said. Shit.

The real shame for Republicans here is not that they failed to repeal Obamacare. The real shame is that, in the end, there were only three Republican Senators, only three, unwilling to sell out their constituents and replace Obamacare with something they knew would be worse. That, is shameful.

So, why could they come up with nothing better? Well, first off, what nobody ever realized, according to our President, is that: healthcare is hard. I mean really hard. It’s complicated, with like lots of math and probabilities and charts and stuff. Us ordinary guys have no chance of understanding it. Who knew?

Beyond that, to come up with something better almost certainly means moving closer to universal coverage, that’s just the way insurance pools work. And it probably means moving closer to single payer, or otherwise removing the profit motive from the business of deciding who lives and who dies. And because modern-day Republicans have decided they will always side with businesses interests over the best interests of individuals, they can’t move in either of those directions.

To be fair, Democrats often side with businesses over individuals too, but at least they’re coy about it. They at least pretend to support and value the individual, and on rare occasion even put forth legislation to reflect that, you know, just to keep up appearances. Things like, for example, oh, I don’t know, the Affordable Care Act.

And by the way, the ACA is devolving into the problem it is today precisely because of the business interests at work with the Democrats during its creation.

So where does that leave us? Well, Obamacare is starting to stink like day old fish. All this flailing about in Congress for the last six months has done nothing to solve the problems with the ACA. It still needs to be fixed. Or replaced. Either way, I don’t care, but the result HAS TO BE something better than what we have now.

I cannot explain why no one in Congress understands that. Even Trump figured out that part of it. Sad.