Conservative Republicans want to kill Grandma in October.
Please call your Republican Congressmen and women at 202-224-3121 and demand they sign The Discharge Petition with Democrats to keep the government open and care for Grandma.
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Only cruel conservatives shut down the federal government, a tactic they began in 1981. Conservative shutdowns of government align with their limited government philosophy, which really means limited empathy. In the mid-1980s, during cruel conservative Ronald Reagan’s Presidency, Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform, coined a phrase that he wanted to “drown government in a bathtub.” The following are my reflections and call to action on the looming conservative terrorism of the American people with a shutdown of government.1
My OH-2 Congressman Brad Wenstrup doesn’t care about Grandma’s Medicare
Do you want your grandparents to get their Medicare in October? Please call your Republican Congressmen and women at 202-224-3121 and demand they sign The Discharge Petition with Democrats to keep the government open and care for Grandma. I’ve called OH-2 Congressman Brad Wenstrup twice this week, and his staff seem unconcerned that I and other grandparents will not get their full Medicare after he kills the government with a shutdown.
Are there six Republicans who will sign a Discharge Petition with Democrats?
Conservative Republicans want to kill Grandma in October when they gut half of Medicare’s staff. Surely, there are six pro-empathy, freedom-loving Republicans in the US House who don’t want to kill your grandparents. Pro-empathy, freedom-loving Democrats need six pro-empathy, freedom-loving Republicans to sign a Discharge Petition with them so Grandma will get her Medicare by keeping the government open.
My parents and grandparents were pro-empathy, freedom-loving Republicans who fought fascists in defense of strong, diverse, nurturing American families caring for each other in all aspects of their lives - including government. My father grew up on a farm in Illinois and was used to community barn raisings. My mother was the daughter of Oklahoma wildcat oil parents during the Great Depression. Both worked for the US Corps of Engineers most of their lives, and they never missed an election. They also never missed a government paycheck. They would be grieving today that conservatism had infected their party and had adopted cruelty as a core governing principle.
Cruel and infectious conservatism created MAGAs over decades.
But the conservative mind is a cruel mind. In the midst of pandemic deaths, Yale historian Timothy Snyder wrote “Killing Parents in Bad Faith: How Historians Will Remember This Pandemic.” In that article, he described how the conservative cruel mindset helped kill hundreds of thousands of nursing home residents as their unmasked adult children visited them and infected them with covid.
My friend and mentor, cognitive scientist, linguist, and progressive activist George Lakoff, in his FrameLab Substack, recently wrote, “Today’s MAGA Republican Party is the product of conservatism, and it seems like it would be a mistake to let the conservative ideology off the hook for today’s situation. In some ways, (insurrections and shutdowns) were always the logical endpoint for conservatism. The threat has been rising for decades, even if most people do not want to accept or admit it.”
I hope you will subscribe to George Lakoff’s FrameLab Substack. His August post asked the question, “Are MAGA Republicans ‘conservative?’ “ It’s an important question since there are plenty of Republicans like Liz Cheney, Michael Steele, Steve Schmidt, and Joe Scarborough who insist that they are conservative while MAGA Republicans are not. Don’t get me wrong. I am very grateful for Liz Cheney’s role on the House January 6th Committee. Nevertheless, her conservative ideas remain. And, of course, the 500-700 American billionaires are funding conservatism’s core values of the authority of the richest billionaire, obedience to those billionaires, and cruel punishment for disobedience to those billionaires.
In addition, we know Russian and American billionaire buddies Putin and Trump don’t care about anyone but themselves. They don’t want you to vote, your grandparents to receive Medicare, or those without income to receive healthcare through Medicaid, the Centers for Disease and Control, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, etc.
So, if you’re a pro-empathy freedom family voter, now is the time to call your Republican Congressman or woman at 202-224-3121 and demand they sign The Discharge Petition with Democrats to keep the government open and keep Grandma healthy.
Nadler, Jerry, Congressman from New York’s 12th District, How would a conservative shutdown of government impact you?, https://nadler.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=395072#:~:text=The%20Special%20Supplemental%20Nutrition%20Program,benefits%20may%20also%20be%20affected.