June 27, 2020

By Joan McCarter

Daily Kos

The nation is headed, as Mark Sumner wrote, toward a "singular disaster." There are more new coronavirus cases in the U.S. this week than there have ever been. There is no leadership from the White House and that has trickled down to all the states where the virus is surging again—and none of those largely Republican governors are going to be willing to go against Trump and lock down.

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Another 1.5 million people filed for unemployment benefits, the 14th straight week of more than 1 million new applicants. The virus is raging, unemployment is rampant, and much of the economic aid passed by Congress back in March and April runs out at the end of July. And the House apparently intends to recess after votes this week until July 21. The Senate will be out from July 3 until July 17. We are collectively teetering on the edge of a cliff and nobody seems willing to do anything about it

Yes, the House passed the HEROES Act back in mid-May. And then left town again, which is safer for them, but they had also passed legislation to allow for working—and passing bills—remotely. That bill, which was good and important, was still an inadequate response when we're looking at a $16 TRILLION hit to the economy. They dropped that bill off with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who clearly doesn't give a damn, and have seemingly washed their hands of it. McConnell is deploying his usual brinksmanship tactic of waiting until the very last moment to try to bend Democrats and the the House to his will, and they're just standing by and watching him do it.

Yes, it's been an insane month. Yes, the murder of George Floyd and the responding Black Lives Matter call to action has immediacy, and yes the House has stepped up there. But the two issues are far from disconnected, and are in fact so entwined that they should be coupled in all policy discussions. Because it is the Black community that is being hit particularly hard. They are dying more and they are hurting economically more and Black Lives Matter just as much when it comes to pandemics as the slow-rolling epidemic of police brutality.

The House needs to act again. The House needs to take big action every goddamned day to draw attention to the very fact that McConnell is doing nothing. The pile of coronavirus relief bills on McConnell's desk needs to turn into an avalanche of media attention and public opinion that threatens to crush him until he acts. Every thing every Democrat in Congress needs to be doing right now should be centered on McConnell and the vulnerable Senate Republicans who are following him like sheep. The Super PACs should be running ads about it. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and all of her deputies need to be using their megaphone to talk about it hourly.

Someone has to be yelling about the fact that we're careening toward the cliff's edge, besides dirty fucking hippy bloggers.

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