Careful what you wish for
It’s hardly news when Republicans, who lie all the time, either lie outright about Democratic policy – either the one that’s on the table or the one that was recently passed – or take credit for the effects of Democratic legislation despite openly refusing to vote against it. These two aren’t mutually exclusive either – as Republican lawmakers will usually be on either end of the spectrum as new laws come to fruition.
These are usually also not single efforts, with the party spending sizable amounts of money to lie about things like the Affordable Care Act or immigration on Fox News. What is news, however, is when Republicans are adamantly opposed to a policy of their own party – particularly when their policies that the guy who’s been the de facto leader of the party for a decade, is the loudest proponent of it.
Yet, that’s exactly what’s happening right now – not with the ACA this time, but with the Inflation Reduction Act, which was one of the pivotal forces in the last election as Republicans used it to falsely blame Democrats on causing inflation but now Republican mayors fear that repealing the sizable investment will be catastrophic to factory jobs – essentially removing all doubt that a new Trump administration will have killed manufacturing in the US.
Donald Trump has yet to be sworn in and already, local leaders are fearing the consequences of his election. This is why state assembly races matter. Democrats currently have the majority in 40 different state legislatures, with 15 state trifectas of power. Let’s do everything we can to increase those numbers going into 2025 and 2026.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making