House Republicans have added over 290 “poison pill” riders to the federal budget bill that would restrict government spending. These riders would roll back progress on issues like LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, and environmental protections. The new riders include blocking same-sex marriage equality funding, banning LGBTQ+ flags from federal buildings, restricting visas for foreign farmworkers, and limiting the EPA’s ability to regulate pollution. Advocacy groups are calling on lawmakers to remove all the riders from the budget bill and pass legislation without the controversial restrictions. The riders would damage agencies’ ability to do critical work and reverse gains in environmental justice, according to critics.
The populist GOP is as intellectually bankrupt as it is morally bankrupt. Because it has no animating principle beyond fear and greed, its leaders will never stop with this bullshit. They will dip into endless oceans of manufactured outrage to fuel one attack after another on vulnerable out groups. Ad infinitum, for ever and ever.
We will have peace only after they are driven out of government utterly and completely, and their leadership is ripped root and branch from public life. The only real question is whether that is going to be possible while (hopefully) avoiding bloodshed.
