Reveals of a Crack Where the Light Comes In
Is a Universal Income a good idea? Of course it is a good idea. It will raise people out of poverty, stimulate the economy, save hundreds of thousands from preventable eviction, stop food insecurity. It would help people whom the economy has failed. And it would help them when they need it most.
The XGOP is against it because they believe it discourages work and stifles innovation, an old war horse of an idea. “Give people anything, and it will cause them to be lazy and lead them to vice”. But the real reason they oppose this, even in the form of extending the CARES Act, I think is surprising. Many people will see that when they were working, at least here in America, they were making less than what any form of charity has given them.
What does that tell you about minimum wage and income equality?
The working poor already know how insufficient their jobs were for their own well being. Putting a number on it (like in the CARES Act) displays the value of those underpaid jobs on a massive scale. It is a cheap labor force for the very wealthy.
Almost 40 million Americans live below the poverty line as of 2018. How astronomical is that number today with the McConnell-Trump handling of the coronavirus?
Taking equity from our self-government, our Common Wealth, can be viewed as our right. The rich do it. Even Republicans with a pocket Atlas Shugged drive our highways, fly our airspace, drink our clean water, and breathe our clean air. The Common Wealth belongs to the American People. Heck, the super rich don’t even pay taxes.
The real reason the XGOP is against even extending the CARES Act, is because it exposes a system that is designed to keep people down. The idea that shared equity discourages work is an antiquated fiction. Work would not be discouraged, it would be redirected. New channels of productivity would arise. And in that creativity, that new work, perhaps a majority of people would not want to go back to shit jobs where they were making a disportioncate amount of money for the wealthy (owners, corporate class) and an unfair portion for themselves.
Republicans don’t want to give the American poor and working class any financial breathing room because it will cause social change. It is a travesty that the middle of America would even consider voting Republican, considering the damage their economic policies do to them. The XGOP continues to “win the rhetorical argument”, as William Buckley Jr. aptly pointed out. The Reds have set up a convincing house of cards.
But actual physical money in the hands of the working class may cause a shift in allegiances. They may not want to go back to a serfdom they now see as serving only their overlords. America may rise out of a 19th and 20th Century feudalism with a new creativity, new ideas, a new and progressive destiny that has no place for the Ayn Rand Republicans and their dark and incharitable vision they intend to impose on the world.
And is this charity theirs to withhold?
Mitch McConnell called the CARES Act a handout. His “it will discourage work” comment was delivered with a sneer. He visibly has contempt for the People of this country. Why should anyone maintain loyalty to him? The GOP is no longer the “Good Ol’ Party”. It is the “Gross Old Party”, for “Greedy Old Politicians”.
The global pandemic presented an incredible opportunity for America to work together to force this virus to heel. We could have influenced the entire world toward Science and Liberal Democracy. The Administration = Senate equation failed the test. The humanity of the moment escapes them.
The elephant in the room is that the Republican Party has outlived its usefulness to the American People. What stands as enormous evidence for this is its sickening migration to the Extreme Right. To be a Republican today is to share company with white supremacists, bigots, and misogynists. You room with those who would prefer an Empire to a Republic, and might-is-right use of the law. As a Republican, you oversee the conflation of the houses of government and dissolution of Separation of Powers. At some level, unless you are squarely in this camp, things have got to feel uncomfortable.
Universal Income of any kind will give people a chance. It will give them some order of peace. This is America: Do you really think they will stand idle? We will create the new America in a kinder, more equitable, more just fashion than some dead political party like the GOP ever could. The seed planted long ago has become a very strong tree in a forest of men and women for change, who do not see complicity as their path forward. Universal Income will lead to Universal Suffrage, that of the middle class, women, blacks, gays, along with the majority of this country, this huge number left out of the very equity they have built.
Dylan Nirvana is a musician and writer living in Savannah, GA