Icarus Revisited
This piece is intended to counter the vast majority opinion of my fellow Progressives on the charge that 8 Senators, 1 Independent and 7 Democrats, caved to the MAGAs on SNAP benefits. I propose that we reconsider their votes in retrospect as a triumph, a master stroke that nicely ratified the Democratic landslide on November 4.
Think of it as checkmate against the rampaging MAGAs who temporarily posed as compassionate by saying, “Tell you what, we’ll give you SNAP if you let us take away everybody’s Obamacare.”
Keep this in mind: Those who propose to cut the food lifeline because giant corporations like Amazon and Walmart won’t pay a living wage are the bad guys. And when they propose unaffordable health insurance as “a reform,” they reiterate that fact
The Democrats, on the other hand, have been slow to move after 44 years on the back foot, or supine, or bought off just like the Republicans and MAGA.
None of these 8 “cavers” will be up for reelection in 2026. They took the MAGA offer and agreed to open the government. On conditions.
Their conditions: Open the gov’t and fully fund SNAP for November. Meanwhile the Epstein files issue lay low in the background, Trump having invented distraction after distraction after distraction and then suddenly – BAM.
The Senate forced Mike Johnson into opening the government to vote on the Senate’s SNAP bill. That meant Johnson, having no excuse left, had to administer the oath of office to Arizona Rep. Adelita Grijalva, which meant the Dems bagged their 218th vote on the discharge petition and the Epstein files are now front and center. The vote will take place in 7 days.
Following the Democrats’ nationwide landslide one week ago, these 8 people used a sapping attack against the MAGAs who have been high on their own supply now for decades, and, like Icarus, look unwary over what should have been a cold-water splash in the face that was last week’s vote.
MAGA Senators gave away SNAP, agreed to vote on restoring the ACA Medicaid subsidies in mid-December and, by requiring the House to vote on the Senate’s version of SNAP, opened Pandora’s Epstein box. In one. fell. swoop.
A little history. “Obamacare” was invented by the right-wing American Enterprise Institute and first passed the Massachusetts legislature and signed by Republican Mitt Romney. As Obama quickly came to realize that the Public Option wouldn’t pass, he borrowed from Mitt.
By agreeing to MAGA’s Hobson’s Choice between zero food support for the month and unaffordable health insurance – which is just another GOP divide and conquer tactic – the 8 Senators won the second huge battle in just over a week against MAGA.
The game is not over yet. But ask yourself this: How many want to carry the Trump stains of refusing to feed 42 million people or doubling or trebling Americans’ health insurance, increasing everyone’s costs except for DC politicians? How many will want to run next year saying “I voted to make your healthcare unaffordable? I forced the libs to choose between their constituents’ hunger vs. their continued access to affordable care?”
And ask yourself: How many House members and Senators are eager to run in 2026 saying, “I voted to protect every pedophile in the Epstein chronicles and throw the victims under the bus again?”
Recall that it wasn’t long after the inauguration that these “public servants” were unwilling to hold Town Hall Meetings. This was checkmate for this chapter of the politics of the haves and the have nots.
The grassroots will fight that much harder in 2026 thinking the Democrats caved. But we cannot cast aside the only viable party competing against a violent, dictatorial oligarchy when it is beginning to find its backbone and strategic flare. Yes, many establishment Dems remain slow, somnolent. But consider the strategizing of picking which 8 needed voters to agree with MAGA who are not vulnerable in the next election. The odds of that happening without careful organization are pretty long. This is nitty gritty politics.
One more thing. Yesterday’s Katie Phang podcast featured Erica Payne, a spokesperson for Patriotic Millionaires. That organization has worked on behalf of workers in a livable society for 16 years to beat back our enormous economic inequality. Whereas $50 trillion was redistributed upward from the 90% to the 1% from the 1970s through 2022, Ms. Payne quoted a current figure of $80 trillion.
Patriotic Millionaires have a 4-part agenda to bring a bill to rebalance the nation’s economy. It’s called The money agenda. Read it. It will gladden your heart and give you an identifiable class of really, really good and wise rich people.
Meanwhile, the same day Johnson reopened the House for business, MAGAs voted unanimously to allow citizens to be deported. Think about that and ask yourself what they’ve done for you lately.
Carol L. Clark: First, Armando is sorry that I respond four days later to your excellent post.
I join you.
When we are in late Weimar, it is no good for fellow Democrats to attack each other, in face of the threat from the Aryan-Right.
I agree that a tactical, short-term tactical loss resulted in a resounding long-term STRATEGIC gain.
We have a broad tent.
As such, we must welcome broad visions and differing tactics.
I am on the left with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
But we need ALL who maintain core values.
Core values are those with ancestry in Polybius' sixth book of his Punic Wars, where he describes the Roman Republic with separation and balance of powers; John Locke, with his Second Treatise of Government that set out the "Social Contract" of liberty with a freedom-loving people and a Government that protected the people and their liberty; The Federalist Papers; William Blackstone -- Common Law (1776! -- anyone who sets foot on British soil becomes a free person!); John Stuart Mill (On Liberty); and the late, much missed, Harvard Professor John Rawls, who modernized John Locke's Social Contract in "Theory of Justice" and "Liberalism."
We are in an age where one Party, whose history was "originalist" and "free market," has abandoned any semblance of the separation and balance of powers in favor of a unitary executive, summarized by Dick Nixon, "Well, if the President does it, that means it is not illegal."
The greatest threat to our liberties, too, is the CJ John Roberts Court that ENABLES the dictatorial, unitary Presidency.
In days of mortal danger to our Democracy, our Republic, we cannot afford the luxury of internecine warfare.
We must stand together.
As a diverse group, we will differ on tactics.
But we hold the core values in common: the dignity and humanity of each person; a Society of Ordered Liberty (Justice Benjamin Cardozo, circa 1937); a Government that safeguards the populace and its liberties under the Constitution and its Bill of Rights; Due Process of Law for each person; equality of each person before the law.
If I disagree with someone's tactics, I am open to mutually respectful debate.
But I will never denounce a person who holds the core humane and free values.
Thank you for your excellent article!