Monitoring Biden and other Contemporary Events

Tax cuts for the wealthy have long drawn support from conservative lawmakers and economists who argue that such measures will "trickle down" and eventually boost jobs and incomes for everyone else. But a new study from the London School of Economics says 50 years of such tax cuts have only helped one group — the rich.

The new paper, by David Hope of the London School of Economics and Julian Limberg of King's College London, examines 18 developed countries — from Australia to the United States — over a 50-year period from 1965 to 2015. The study compared countries that passed tax cuts in a specific year, such as the U.S. in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan slashed taxes on the wealthy, with those that didn't, and then examined their economic outcomes.

Per capita gross domestic product and unemployment rates were nearly identical after five years in countries that slashed taxes on the rich and in those that didn't, the study found.

But the analysis discovered one major change: The incomes of the rich grew much faster in countries where tax rates were lowered. Instead of trickling down to the middle class, tax cuts for the rich may not accomplish much more than help the rich keep more of their riches and exacerbate income inequality, the research indicates.

"Based on our research, we would argue that the economic rationale for keeping taxes on the rich low is weak," Julian Limberg, a co-author of the study and a lecturer in public policy at King's College London, said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch. "In fact, if we look back into history, the period with the highest taxes on the rich — the postwar period — was also a period with high economic growth and low unemployment."

• In our piece for @ConversationUK, David Hope and I argue that governments should not give undue concern to the economic consequences of taxing the rich when deciding how to pay for COVID-19. https://t.co/MRgnX8JfmH
— Julian Limberg (@JulianLimberg) December 16, 2020

Because the analysis ends in 2015, the research doesn't include President Donald Trump's massive tax overhaul, which he signed into law in late 2017 and which slashed taxes for the rich and corporations while providing a moderate cut for the middle class. But Limberg, who co-authored the study with David Hope, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics' International Inequalities Institute, said that he wouldn't expect the results of that tax cut to be much different.

Already, Mr. Trump's tax cuts have lifted the fortunes of the ultra-rich, according to 2019 research from two prominent economists, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley. For the first time in a century, the 400 richest American families paid lower taxes in 2018 than people in the middle class, the economists found.

The "careful" new research from the London School Economics "suggests indeed that tax increases on the wealthy should be considered post-COVID," Berkeley's Zucman said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch.

Engine for stronger economic growth?

To be sure, the economy was humming along before the pandemic struck the nation in March, with an unemployment rate that was at its lowest in about half a century. Conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute pointed to Mr. Trump's tax cuts as an engine for stronger economic growth.

Yet even so, millions of American families struggled to find jobs that paid living wages, while the cost of essentials such as health care, housing and education increased at far faster rates than the typical income. Even before the pandemic, income inequality had reached its highest point in 50 years, according to Census data.

In 2020, the pandemic has worsened inequities across all spectrums, touching racial, gender and educational divides. When the economy shut down in March, workers who couldn't transition to remote work — typically lower-paid employees involved in retail, service and hospitality jobs — were hit the hardest.

At the same time, white-collar workers generally fared better as they were more likely to maintain their jobs as they shifted to remote work. Investors also benefited as the stock market rallied on hopes for an economic recovery — a development that doesn't help most low- and middle-class workers. Only about half the U.S. population is invested in the stock market through their retirement and savings accounts, and even then more than 80% of all stocks are owned by the richest 10%.

• BREAKING: U.S. billionaires have grown their collective wealth by $1 trillion since mid-March. That's more than it would cost to send a $3,000 stimulus check to every person in America.

More of our latest research here: https://t.co/wvfXxl92yK pic.twitter.com/sYgDKiuW70
— Americans For Tax Fairness (@4TaxFairness) December 9, 2020

Since the pandemic began, the combined wealth of America's 651 billionaires has jumped by more than $1 trillion, reaching $4 trillion in early December, Americans for Tax Fairness said earlier this month.

Meanwhile, almost 8 million Americans have fallen into poverty since the start of the pandemic through November, according to new data released by the University of Chicago and the University of Notre Dame.

Rebuilding the economy and household wealth for low- and middle-class families are among the issues facing President-elect Joe Biden after he's inaugurated next month. Raising taxes on the rich and corporations could provide trillions of dollars in resources for helping the economic recovery, Zucman told CBS MoneyWatch.

"This is not only a viable option, but also a fair option, because some of the wealthiest taxpayers have benefited from the pandemic — for instance large corporations such as Amazon and their shareholders," he noted. "These taxpayers could reasonably be asked to pay more to make up for pandemic losses."

It’s hard to underscore how remarkable a moment in history this is. America’s poised to re-elect a former President who:

• Faces almost a hundred criminal charges
• Has been found guilty of fraud, defamation, lying
• Led a coup or “insurrection” against the seat of government where lives were lost
• Openly and literally touts being a dictator

It’s easy to lose track of that, sight of that, in all the noise. The purpose of the blitzkrieg which accompanies—produces—social collapse is to create a kind of Great Forgetting, after all. To numb the mind, and dispirit the soul. Hence, let me put it in a much sharper way. We are witnessing the possible end of the world’s largest and oldest democracy.

So remember, for a moment, all that. America’s poised to re-elect that figure. In a sense, “we all know that,” but the implications are as profound as they are dire and illuminating. It’s hard to say what else Trump could have done to disqualify himself to people, after all. The line about “shooting someone on Fifth Avenue” rings truer by the day. And so to re-elect a figure like this, knowing all this, raises some difficult questions—because, of course, it’s profoundly abnormal. Not just for people to grudgingly accept a demagogue of this ilk, but to cheer them on.

What’s different about this time around is that nobody really, can claim innocence, or feign naïveté. The first time Trump ran for office, you and I warned, as did everyone vaguely thoughtful around the globe, that this was troubling. Warnings of fascism and authoritarianism were ignored, marginalized, and trivialized—“but her emails!”—and all of that enabled Trump to ascend to the Presidency, shortly after which there were camps, “family separations,” a surge in extremist violence, all of which culminated in the coup attempt of January 6th.

But back then, I suppose, the average person—even the average Trump voter—could claim a sort of innocence, and that claim can be considered maybe even fair. The warnings were pretty extreme, and there was little precedent in American history, let alone modern Western history, short of the Nazis, really, for such a swift, severe meltdown. Looking back, there was an innocence, followed shortly by a sense of disbelief. The “resistance” emerged, the center-left quickly found itself disoriented, and protests began.

This time, though, really is different. Nobody can say that they don’t know what Trump is, who he is, what he wants, or what he intends. We should all have read, by now, or at least understand, the outlines of, Project 2025. That’s not a claim that anyone’s going to be able to take seriously in a few years, because it’s unfair and childish. Trump himself is crystal clear in his intentions, promises, and agenda, and as the old line goes, “when a demagogue tells you who they are, believe them.”

Consider how Trump’s approval ratings remain high after all he’s done—and rise, daily, above Biden’s. Or how people will nod and agree with his “policies,” as if there were any, apart from shredding the government and abusing its powers. Our media too often plays along the pretense that there’s some kind of modern, legitimate governance agenda in Trump’s hands, when of course, there are just merely empty promises—and a plan to create a totalitarian state by purging government, erasing constitutionality, and reshaping what was once consensual, legitimate self-government.

So this time around, Americans—enough of them, at any rate, that if the Presidency were held today, Trump would likely win it—are going to vote for a demagogue, knowing full well what they’re getting into. They might disavow it later, and they probably will, claiming: “but nobody could have predicted this!,” when women and the LGBTQ are jailed or put in camps, or even “real American” families are separated, or young women are imprisoned for life for miscarriage, or any other number of easily plausible horrors—and yet now, we should all know exactly what we’re voting for.

Are Americans Really Going to Vote For Dictatorship over Democracy?

All of that raises some pretty dire and dismal questions about people. I don’t want to get personal, and this isn’t a jeremiad. But we do have to ask: if a figure not just endorses violence, but uses it, if they try to overthrow government, if they’re convicted of fraud and lying and so forth, and you still vote for them…what are you voting for?

Is it fair to say any of the following?

• If a figure uses violence, and you vote for them, you’re legitimizing it
• If a figure attempts a coup, and you vote for them, you’re backing it
• if a figure’s convicted of serious crimes, and you vote for them, you’re saying the rule of law doesn’t matter

Etcetera.

I don’t know if it’s fair to take that all the way. But I do think it’s fair to say that on some level, the answer is yes, even if it’s a sort of minimal “but what harm can he really do” degree. And yet even that sort of willful ignorance is plenty foolish to pave the road to democracy with folly and self-deceit.

Last time around, people could claim ignorance, by way of innocence. But this time around, they can’t—the most that they can say is “we didn’t think he’d go this far,” but that’s not some kind of moral exculpation—it’s just an admission of sheer gullibility and folly, really.

Americans, we’re told, are voting for “the economy” or “inflation” or “immigration” and so on. This is the way that punditry puts it, because these are the questions pollsters ask about. But there’s a truer and deeper truth here.

Democracy asks us to be grown-ups. That is, we are to weigh our own narrow, blinkered personal interests—and biases—against higher values and enduring ideals. In this case, that means: is it really worth giving up a democracy? What about equality and truth and justice? How about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Do those matter to us, or just “the economy,” “immigration,” and so on, the mundane, wearisome affairs of everyday life?

Are we really “just” voting for immigration or the economy when we vote for Trump? Isn’t that claim a little bit ridiculous, at this point? There’s a lot more, there, in the promise, intention, and purpose that we’re also accepting, and maybe even endorsing, after all.

So when we’re told that it’s OK for people to vote solely on the basis of “priorities” or “issues,” it’s as if the deeper foundations of this project we call civilization don’t matter—and as if fascism and authoritarianism have mere “policies,” versus fanatical visions of absolute control, coercion, and democratic self-destruction. Hey, the economy’s bad, so let me back the nearest crackpot demagogue! That’s an error that our media, intellectual class, and pundits make, over and over again-equating these two forms, legitimizing implosive forces. At the very least, to keep a democracy, we must vote for it, over and above. “A democracy, if you can keep it,” as a very wise mind once said.

In other words, the choice between democracy and dictatorship is crystal clear this time around. Even if people say it isn’t, speaking numinously of “priorities,” as if cutting taxes were somehow what’s at stake here—that’s not a plausible claim anymore, more an absurd one. This time, to vote for Trump is to vote for dictatorship. Isn’t it? Isn’t that he himself is promising?

So where does that leave us? Asking the difficult question: are Americans really ready to give up democracy for dictatorship?

The Growing Possibility of a Trump Landslide

An old friend called me up not so long ago, after many years. And he said: “You don’t know it, but I’ve been reading you for a long time now. And what you used to write would make me really angry. I’d say: there’s no way! We’re going to elect Trump, he’ll turn out to so fascist, the economy’s going to hurt so badly—all of it. But now…watching it all keep happening, I believe you.” I chuckled, and said: “Where have you been and what have you been up to, anyways, Chris?”

I try to teach you to think in a very different way than American punditry or even American thinking, per se. Why do I get so many things “right?, though that’s not how it should be put? My predictions tend to accurate because I was taught to think in terms of trends, or historical forces. Trends aren’t just “datapoints”—rather, they’re the meaning in data, often lots of it, joining it dynamically and systemically. We’ll talk about that more, but I’m mentioning it so we can think together about…

What do trends say will happen at the election? You see, the consensus take, of pundits and chattering classes, etcetera, was badly wrong: Trump, they thought was finished. But here he is, and he’s never been stronger, because now he has the same approval ratings or higher, after all the abuses. How did that happen? What does it tell us?

Trump has managed to:

• Amass popularity, sometimes surpassing his first run for office
• Even amongst young people and minorities, groups who should be rejecting him wholesale
• Consolidate power within the party
• Break any internal resistance or alternative from his own side
• Shatter norms to the point of openly preaching dictatorship

That’s a brief summary of the last 12-18 months or so. During that time, Trump’s done something remarkable—surged back to power, even more dominant than the last time.

Meanwhile, Biden’s…sinking. I don’t say that in a gleeful way—it makes me sad. Yes, I disagree with him on many issues, like Gaza, debt, and more. But I also think that to see him sink in the polls, while a demagogue rises—that’s a troubling thing.

The trends, in other words, are getting more disturbing by the day. Trump’s rising, Biden’s sinking. Faster and faster, harder and harder. Along many dimensions, from popular power, to internal support, to among “independent voters.” All this points to the growing possibility of a Trump landslide. I’m not saying that it will happen, but I am saying that the risk is growing, and that in itself is abnormal and unhealthy.

Landslides are dangerous things, for many reasons. In our era, though, landslides tend to be accompanied by social manias. Bandwagon effects occur. It becomes “cool” or just voguish to choose a certain candidate or make a certain choice, for reasons of social pressure, conformity, fitting in with an in-group. This is beginning to happen, my Spidey-Sense says, with Trump.

Not for people like you and me, to be certain. But amongst different elements of various social groups. Let’s go to young people—they should be admonishing one another never to vote Trump, even protesting right now, horrified by the possibility of another such Presidency. They aren’t. Instead, Trump’s support is rising. That tells us something: that social pressure isn’t coming from among and within young people themselves to make it “uncool,” unacceptable, a violation of norms, to vote this way.

Once the possibility of a landslide sets in, in other words, it tends to grow and grow. The risk becomes self-perpetuating. The Democrats, not understanding the modern world much at all, from technology to media, aren’t grasping just the peril of the situation they’ve placed America in. They seem to be leaning and chewing on a straw while the house burns…again.

The End of the World’s Largest and Oldest Democracy

All of that begins to touch on just why this is such a remarkable moment in history. But let me try to sum it up now. What are we witnessing?

• The world’s oldest and largest democracy is on the cusp of no longer being one.
• Not by way of external force, but through choice: by choosing dictatorship instead.
• The front-runner for President isn’t just someone vaguely threatening to undo democracy, but someone who’s proven to be capable of it, dedicated to it, his sole agenda
• Americans, enough of them, across social groups, are so enthralled by this spectacle, that they’re backing him more and more as the days go by.

When I put it like that, maybe it helps, or maybe you already know it. But I feel, perhaps, it helps to have a reminder. This is an incredibly special moment in history. What are some comparable ones? Caesar crossing the Rubicon. Hitler being given special powers over the Reichstag. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand. You might object—but again, we’re witnessing the world’s largest and oldest democracy about to give it up.

What would de Tocqueville have made of that? The Founding Fathers? What would someone like Aristotle have said?

A “special” or “remarkable” moment in history. What does that mean? That list of comparable ones gives you some sense. A pivotal moment. A turning point. An instant where history changes. The past is undone, and another future emerges. The trajectory is altered. Sometimes, in complexity theory, we call this “a bifurcation point”—imagine a curve, splitting into two new ones.

That list of comparable moments, though you can certainly add to it, remains relatively small. That should lend insight into just what sort of scale and scope we’re presented with. Imagine a probability distribution, of time. Most moments are just…moments. They pass by, and we barely notice them. Others matter a great deal—a wedding, a funeral, etcetera. There are less of those. Still others have an even more momentous impact—they shape the destinies and choices of millions. We call those, today, elections, or yesterday, conquests, perhaps—they’re rarer still. But rarest of all are those in our list, which is why there so few: genuinely pivotal moments, from which there’s no going back.

This is where America is, and the world alongside it. We’ll talk more about the implications of a Trump Dictatorship for the world—from climate catastrophe to global financial meltdown to war exploding to destabilization growing. Is the end of the world’s largest and oldest democracy a form of “the end of the world,” anyways? Should we see it as mattering with the intensity and gravity it appears to have when I put it like that?

*No, India isn’t the world’s largest democracy anymore—it was demoted some time ago, by most good political indices of democracy, and I follow their categorization.

The Political Economy of Jackass

I wonder if America understands: there’s no going back, after this. This is it. The choice, the moment, the decision. Dictatorship or democracy. A second Trump era isn’t going to end lightly or well—it’s not going to “end,” in a political sense, at all. There exists already a detailed and sophisticated plan to purge government, install loyalists, and create the beginnings of a totalitarian society and state. This is serious business, to the bad guys. But is just a stunt, a joke, a laugh, to people.

Remember the show Jackass? The point of the show wasn’t to watch amazing stunts. You’d watch, instead, for the wipeout. The moment the stunt went wrong. When everything burst into flames. It was a pioneering thing, in its own time—something new: we’re not cheering on the stuntman, we’re cheering on his failure. We want it all to go wrong. Ha-ha—did you see how he ate it?

At some level, our politics is becoming Jackass. The die-hard Trumpists, of course, are there for an agenda of bigotry, supremacy, hate, and violence. But the rest? Trump’s growing mass appeal is about something….lighter, yet perhaps not much less sinister. There’s the feeling that some people just want to watch a wipe-out. Not Trump’s, but the government’s, America’s, society’s. It’s close to “some men just want to watch the world burn” levels of malignancy, but not quite there. It’s closer to…watching Jackass, and guffawing when the poor guy eats cement.

Get those “libtards!” Hey, those “f****”—let’s teach them a lesson. Women? They’re barely people, let’s grab ‘em by the. Ha-ha-ha. There’s a sense of the same sort of cheap spite, veiled in humor, behind Trump’s resurgence. The same feeling of grade-school bullying gone mega. Some people want to watch society, everyone else, governance, rules, norms, codes, civilization…wipe out. Eat the pavement. Kiss the dirt.

Or is it just “Papa Trump will fix everything! Including my miserable life!”

I don’t think enough people are straight-out raging KKK-level supremacists and bigots to really explain Trump’s newfound popularity all over again. But I do think that they’re little-league ones, and our politics have become Jackass, in which it’s OK to cheer on the wreckage of others, or even the wipeout of civilized society. In the name of what, though?

In the end, that’s the question history will ask. How did it happen? How did a figure with all this baggage, from leading a coup to being found guilty of fraud to touting becoming a dictator…win so much popularity…again? To the point that politics itself became a Jackass level spectacle, where throngs cheered on the idea of wipeout?

That tends to happen when people lose hope. In themselves, their futures, their societies, everything. As living standards fall and crater, through the generations. When the idea of a better life seems reserved for the most venomous, embittered, greedy, and vile. Hey, if that’s who I have to be to win this game…maybe I should try just a little taste.

Poison is poison, though. It kills. The drinker, not the maker. America, I fear, is about to learn all that the hard way.

Eric Segall@espinsegall
Saturday I debated originalism at a trial lawyer conference. I noted the Canadian SCT has no use for it. The last speaker was a Canadian justice who said, “I’d like to show you what role Originalism has played at our court.” Then she turned and left the room for 10 seconds .

Jacob N. Kornbluh@jacobkornbluh
Mar 6
“I really don’t care how you vote.” —ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt introducing Jared Kushner at the ADL summit in NYC

The Republican Party now belongs to Trump. On the heels of his wins on Super Tuesday, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, his last serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination, suspended her campaign Wednesday morning. That afternoon, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who enabled Trump during his administration but apparently hoped to see him replaced at the top of the party, endorsed him.

Haley did not endorse former president Trump, suggesting he needed to earn the support of those Republicans who don’t back him. But Trump’s team has dismissed Haley supporters, saying he doesn’t need them.

In contrast, President Joe Biden continued to broaden the Democrats’ tent. Biden reached out in a statement, saying there was a place for Haley supporters in his campaign. “I know there is a lot we won’t agree on,” he said, “But on the fundamental issues of preserving American democracy, on standing up for the rule of law, on treating each other with decency and dignity and respect, on preserving NATO and standing up to America’s adversaries, I hope and believe we can find common ground.”

President Biden continued to outline the differences between MAGA Republicans and the rest of the country in tonight’s State of the Union address.

Biden launched the speech, a draft of which the White House made available in advance, by referring to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s attempt in January 1941, about a year before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, “to wake up the Congress and alert the American people that…[f]reedom and democracy were under assault in the world.” Biden identified the same crisis in the present. “Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today,” he said.

Overseas, Russian president Vladimir Putin has invaded Ukraine and threatens Europe, Biden said, putting “the free world at risk.” He warned that those blocking aid to Ukraine are destroying “our leadership in the world” and blasted Trump for saying he would tell Putin to “do whatever the hell you want.” Biden urged Congress to “stand up to Putin. Send me the Bipartisan National Security Bill” that funds Ukraine.

Then he turned to the home front. Identifying those who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, as “insurrectionists” who “had come to stop the peaceful transfer of power and to overturn the will of the people,” Biden called “January 6th and the lies about the 2020 election, and the plots to steal the election…the gravest threat to our democracy since the Civil War.”

That threat remains, he said. He asked Republicans to “speak the truth and bury the lies.” He urged them to “[r]emember your oath of office to defend against all threats foreign and domestic. Respect free and fair elections. Restore trust in our institutions. And make clear—political violence has absolutely no place in America.”

As Democrats stood to applaud, Republicans remained resolutely in their seats.

Biden continued his study in contrasts. He urged Republicans to guarantee the right to in vitro fertilization, a popular measure that they killed in the Senate again this week. He called out Republicans for trying to pass a national abortion ban and declared, “If Americans send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you, I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again.”

He touted the economic successes of his administration—15 million new jobs, unemployment at 50-year lows, 16 million new businesses, 800,000 new manufacturing jobs, more people with health insurance, rising wages, falling inflation—and described a nation with a thriving middle class. He reiterated his support for unions, noting that he was the first president to walk a picket line, and praised United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, who responded by putting his fist in the air and mouthing, “Thank YOU!”

Biden then looked ahead to “a future where the days of trickle-down economics are over and the wealthy and biggest corporations no longer get all the breaks.” He promised to continue to fight unfair tax codes, price gouging, shrinkflation, and junk fees.

Biden called out the Republicans for bowing to Trump’s demand that they kill the bipartisan border bill, which would provide 1,500 more border security officers, 100 more immigration judges, 4,300 more asylum officers, and 100 more high-tech drug detection machines and give the president authority to shut down the border when the number of migrants reaches a certain level. As House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) shook his head in apparent disagreement, Senator James Lankford (R-OK), a staunch conservative who negotiated the bill, nodded, saying, “That’s true.”

Biden took on the two biggest controversies in his presidency directly. “I know the last five months have been gut-wrenching for so many people, for the Israeli people, the Palestinian people, and so many here in America,” he said.

He recounted the deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, continued to defend Israel’s right “to go after Hamas,” and promised to continue to negotiate for the remaining hostages. He also said that the war “has taken a greater toll on innocent civilians than all previous wars in Gaza combined. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed…. Nearly 2 million more Palestinians under bombardment or displaced. Homes destroyed, neighborhoods in rubble, cities in ruin. Families without food, water, medicine.”

The U.S. has “been working non-stop to establish an immediate ceasefire that would last for at least six weeks,” Biden said. “It would get the hostages home, ease the intolerable humanitarian crisis, and build toward something more enduring.” The U.S. has “been leading international efforts to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza” and is now building a temporary pier on the Gaza coast to “receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelters.”

Biden addressed Israel’s leaders directly: “As we look to the future, the only real solution is a two-state solution. I say this as a lifelong supporter of Israel and the only American president to visit Israel in wartime. There is no other path that guarantees Israel’s security and democracy. There is no other path that guarantees Palestinians can live with peace and dignity. There is no other path that guarantees peace between Israel and all of its Arab neighbors, including Saudi Arabia. Creating stability in the Middle East also means containing the threat posed by Iran.”

Biden then took on the issue of his 81 years. Age makes “certain things become clearer than ever before,” he said. “I know the American story.”

“Again and again I’ve seen the contest between competing forces in the battle for the soul of our nation. Between those who want to pull America back to the past and those who want to move America into the future. My lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy. A future based on the core values that have defined America. Honesty. Decency. Dignity. Equality. To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor.

“Now some other people my age see a different story,” he said, in a reference to Trump, who will turn 78 in June. “An American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution.”

“[T]he issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are, it’s how old our ideas are,” Biden said. “Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are among the oldest of ideas, but you can’t lead America with…ideas that only take us back. To lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future of what America can and should be…. I see a future where we defend democracy, not diminish it. I see a future where we restore the right to choose and protect other freedoms, not take them away. I see a future where the middle class finally has a fair shot and the wealthy finally have to pay their fair share in taxes. I see a future where we save the planet from the climate crisis and our country from gun violence. Above all, I see a future for all Americans…. So let’s build that future together.”

Biden spoke powerfully for an hour and a half, veering off script to make points stronger or respond to Republican heckling. He seemed to enjoy the scrapping (and might even have set it up), using the back and forth to get Republicans to reject tax cuts just as last year he forced them to reject cutting Social Security.

The Republicans tapped Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) to give their rebuttal to the speech, evidently hoping to contrast her youth—she’s 42—with Biden’s age. But while her team helpfully distributed talking points to Republican influencers before either Biden or Britt had spoken, suggesting they describe her as “America’s mom” and say that Biden’s speech was “tone deaf” while hers was “the perfect pitch,” the fact that the Republicans had a female senator give what could be the most important speech of her life in a kitchen seemed to tell its own, more powerful, story.

the fact that the Republicans had a female senator give what could be the most important speech of her life in a kitchen seemed to tell its own, more powerful, story.

This image was posted to twitter by Katie Britt. Now, imagine if you'd tasked an AI program to create a visual image of plastic humans in a totally sterile kitchen.