Politics ought to be about seriously debating important public issues. It’s not.
Republicans, it seems, debate nothing and lie about everything.
And a lot of what they want wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, be debatable anyway. For example, they want to use public schools to indoctrinate kids with their Christian religion (or, I should say, their version of it). That violates the constitutional rights of students of other faiths. It should be a non-starter.
Government has to be religion-neutral. It can’t favor one over others. Thus, a municipal government can’t display a creche on the city hall grounds during the Christmas season. But let anyone try to enforce that, and Republicans will accuse them of waging a “war against Christmas.”
They do it to rile up their base, because angry voters are more likely to vote than apathetic ones.
It’s also a “culture war” trick they use to slander Democrats. It doesn’t matter whether Democrats are actually raining on their Christmas parade. If they aren’t, Republicans will lie about it and say they are, because they need the issue for the reasons above.
While past imaginary “wars on Christmas” have centered on religion, this year’s “war” has a twist: Joe Biden is keeping toys from reaching your kids.
That’s silly nonsense, but Republicans in need of an emotion-stoking narrative have never let facts or common sense inhibit their venal impulses.
Biden isn’t responsible for all the dead people who won’t return to factory, warehouse, and truck driving jobs. He didn’t cause the low pay and bad working conditions that drove people away from trucking jobs. He wasn’t one of the MBAs who engineered the profitable but flimsy global supply chains that are now cracking under the strain of disrupted economies.
He did indirectly contribute to consumer product shortages by successfully gaining passage of another round of stimulus that put $1400 checks into the hands of every adult American, which led to a lot of buying all at once, more than businesses reeling from the pandemic could cope with. In retrospect, maybe that wasn’t such a hot idea from another standpoint, because all that concentrated spending power also contributed to inflation, and it now appears every penny of that $1400 will be swallowed by price increases. There’s no free lunch.
Business executives are publicly saying your kids can have a Christmas this year, but you’ve gotta buy gifts now, don’t wait until December. If you put it off, and find only empty shelves, don’t blame Joe Biden.
But Republicans will anyway. Read that story here.