Some reasons that Democrats are starting to relax (unemployment, Iran, drug)

[Clarallel]

From November, reminding us of what we escaped from Trump. I didn't even realize the ramifications of the payroll tax.


You Say You Want a Revolution
By Kevin Baker

We know about Trump’s desire to undo everything accomplished by Barack Obama. But much as Melania Trump blithely dug up the White House Rose Garden, which had been looked after by first ladies for more than a hundred years, her husband has promised to uproot every advance we have made in social justice.

Trump has spoken of suspending payroll taxes not only during the COVID-19 emergency, but permanently—which would terminate Social Security, unemployment, and Medicare. In order to offer up untested cures and vaccines to defeat a pandemic he claims to have already conquered, he has tried to gut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was established in 1946, and the Food and Drug Administration, which Teddy Roosevelt instituted in 1906. To suppress the vote, Trump has begun to dismantle the U.S. Postal Service—an agency written into the Constitution—pulling sorting machines out of post offices and mailboxes off of street corners. In a second Trump term, the very sinews of our democracy will be under attack.

He may do, or try to do, things that are painful even to contemplate. Backed by his newly emboldened gun thugs, his police, and his unscrupulous attorney general, Trump will be the bodyguard of white supremacy, one of the few things he seems to genuinely believe in. His hostile position toward Iran and his decision to pull out of our accord with the country are likely to lead to still more blood, perhaps even a “preemptive” nuclear strike—not hard to imagine from a man who has seriously questioned why we don’t use nuclear weapons to fight hurricanes.

https://harpers.org/archive/2020/11/...-a-revolution/