Business Insider magazine recently polled a group of registered voters, asking them for their preferences on three different Congressional plans that have been floated to help the nation avoid damage from the looming sequester.
The poll found that when the voters didn’t know which plan was whose, the policies that most voters preferred were those offered up by the Progressives Caucus in the House of Representatives.
More than half of those polled favored “The Balancing Act” plan, proposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Shockingly, 47 percent of Republicans polled preferred the House Progressive approach, instead of the across the board cuts proposed by Republican Congressional leaders.
According to Business Insider, the results show that not only is America not a “centrist” country like is commonly believed, but that the policy ideas most attractive to American voters are those that are most often put on the backburner, receiving little attention and publicity from the corporate media.
Or, to put it simply, very few Americans like the ideas and policy proposals coming out of the Republican Party, and a few of the Conserva-Dems. It’s clear that Americans know which ideas that will actually help the country, and disagree with the bizarre Republican position that only those things that help the billionaire class and corporate America will help working people. They say that history repeats itself, and it seems like this is an example of it. Consider the state of American politics in 1948 – when Harry Truman accepted the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
Truman said, in his famous acceptance speech, the reason that Americans prefer Democratic ideas over bizarre Republican beliefs is because, “the people know that the Democratic Party is the people’s party, and the Republican Party is the party of special interest, and it always has been and always will be.”
Truman then went on to list the accomplishments of the Democratic Party at the time. He highlighted increased investments in the agriculture industry, increases in wages and salaries, and massive increases in the GDP. Truman told the crowd at the convention in Philadelphia that, “these benefits have been spread to all the people, because it is the business of the Democratic Party to see that the people get a fair share of these things.”
After highlighting how the Democratic party had helped Americans and worked wonders to improve the country as a whole, Truman then proceeded to list how Republicans had failed the country in the 80th Congress that he’d been doing battle with for the past two years, and how Republicans always ignored the well-being of average working people.
He said, “Ever since its inception, that party has been under the control of special privilege; and they have completely proved it in the 80th Congress. They proved it by the things they did to the people, and not for them. They proved it by the things they failed to do.”
Those things included refusing to act on a housing bill, refusing to enact “moderate legislation to promote labor-management harmony,” and tearing apart the Department of Labor. Republicans in the 80th Congress refused to pass an increase in the minimum wage, and refused to fund more public education and schools. They refused to pass any sort of comprehensive health program, and more importantly, they refused to fix the tax code but instead passed more tax breaks for the very rich.
As Truman said, “And when tax relief can be given, it ought to go to those who need it most, and not those who need it least, as this Republican rich man’s tax bill did when they passed it over my veto on the third try.”
From failing to fund our public schools, to trying to tear apart labor and keeping the wallets of the wealth elite padded, the parallels between Truman’s 80th Congress and the 113th Congress today are uncanny. And, in 1948, the American people realized how little the Republican Party had done for the country, and how that party only cared about the interests of the wealthiest Americans.
Truman ended up winning the Presidential election in 1948 because he told the truth about the Republican Party, and Democrats took back the Congress. Because Truman spoke so bluntly, the Democrat’s win in the House was so overwhelming and long-lasting that Republicans didn’t take back the House for over 40 years.
As Truman closed his acceptance speech, he spoke of the 80th Congress, saying that, “Now, what that worst 80th Congress does in this special session will be the test. The American people will not decide by listening to mere words, or by reading a mere platform. They will decide on the record, the record as it has been written. And in the record is the stark truth, that the battle lines of 1948 are the same as they were in 1932, when the Nation lay prostrate and helpless as a result of Republican misrule and inaction.”
Today, the battle lines are drawn pretty much the same as they were in 1948 and 1932. Millions of Americans are struggling to survive, to get a proper education, and the very rich are making out like bandits, all thanks to Republican “misrule and inaction.”
If the Democrats of today will speak more and more like Harry Truman did, we can get this country back on track. Get out there and share the word with others!
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