To Better Understand How Democrats and Republicans Are Alike, You Need To Know the Difference Between "The Voter" & "The Elected Official"
Now that the US House of Representatives has elected a Speaker who just happens to believe that Donald Trump should still be president, CNN's Zachary B. Wolf wants to put to rest the "uniparty myth," namely that the daylight between Republicans and Democrats is negligible:
Republicans’ House speaker morass continued Tuesday with a little help from former President Donald Trump.
Yet another lawmaker with support from most House Republicans – Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, who was picked as their party’s nominee – failed to get the support of nearly all Republicans. He dropped out of the running Tuesday afternoon, leaving Republicans again back at square one. Late Tuesday, the GOP conference selected a fourth nominee, Rep. Mike Johnson, who faces a floor vote Wednesday.
Emmer, who supports military aid to Ukraine and who voted to certify the 2020 election, saw his chances fade in the most bizarre possible way hours after being picked.
Trump lobbied against Emmer with a social media post that hit while Emmer was trying to convince a few dozen skeptics on Capitol Hill and Trump was inside a New York courtroom facing civil fraud charges. Trump later told reporters outside the courtroom, “It looks like he’s finished.”
After one fired speaker and three failed candidates who got majority but not universal support, no one seems currently capable of uniting their tiny House majority – and the idea of getting help from Democrats remains, for now, unthinkable to both Republicans and Democrats.
Wolf goes on to credit Steve Bannon as the originator of the phrase and quotes Matt Gaetz for using it (possibly because Gaetz was behind the ousting of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which set this three-week leaderless legislative ride in motion). And while he acknowledges that government spending goes up regardless who's in charge, Wolf believes that a few Republicans who are pro-government shutdown is more important. This is all the evidence he needs to conclude that the GOP and Democrats are drastically different.
Now we could take Wolf's word for it, or maybe we can follow in the University of Maryland's footsteps and cite a 2020 80,000+ person survey that literally reveals the "Common Ground of the American People" including but not limited to:
- Raising the retirement age to at least 68 years old over ten years;
- Raising the Medicare payroll tax;
- Reducing the defense budget by $7 billion;
- Reducing spending on nuclear weapons programs by $2 billions;
- Raising the effective tax rates for individuals with income over $1 million;
- Keeping the estate tax;
- Offering a government-run public option to all individuals;
- Allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices;
- Expelling, not punishing first-time violators of immigration laws;
- Increasing SNAP benefits for single mothers by at least 13%;
- Removing a company's right to bid on government contract if it is found guilty of not fully paying its workers.
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