Democrats' #1 Priority in 2028 is Rebuilding Public Health
Repeating the "Abundant" Mistakes of the Past is Untenable
The initial Trump Administration introduced a sweeping wave of deregulatory rollbacks regarding food safety regulations, and with the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of meatpacking workers died as a result of SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks in the workplace which went entirely unpunished. The consequences of these deregulatory rollbacks would not be felt until the Biden Administration, which like the previous Democrat Administration, were either too cowardly or apathetic to overturn the disastrous policies of the Republicans. The results speak for themselves:
There is no economy with a contaminated food supply getting workers and children constantly sick and killed. When your child eats a contaminated cheeseburger from a fast-food chain which cuts corners to maximize short-term profits, and they wind up hospitalized as a result, you probably think you'll be able to sue for damages. No longer, thanks to the judicial precedent set by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“If you're in the club for now, that means you haven't yet been harmed. That's all that means. Once you get harmed, you're then out of the club.
And there's all of these rhetorics and processes kick in to justify the fact that you're out of the club and you deserved your harm or nothing can be done…Because if we did anything for you, well, that would hurt the people who really matter.” -Nate Holdren, Historian
As Nate Holdren explained on the Death Panel episode "Unlimited Liabilities," the widespread abuses of employers to forsake COVID-19 public health measures, causing widespread death and disability to countless American families, allowed judges to declare that enforcing the law would cause too much disruption to the economy - thus, the law is now being dictated by corporate America.
With a sweeping deregulatory slash-and-burn of the Food and Drug Administration, replacing experienced scientists with destructive anti-vax quacks like Tracy Beth Hoeg, and an HHS secretary throwing around slurs in staff meetings, this is the worst-case scenario. There are decent odds that disease outbreaks from contaminated food will become so common, that judicial authority will use the precedent established by COVID-19 to say that the law has no responsibility to protect families. With a population so burdened by disease, the economy will inevitably collapse in on itself.
So, is that opposition party making any serious commitment to fight this, or at least rebuild what was lost when they inevitably retake the White House?
An Abundance of Unscientific Bluster
The Democrat Party has been a shambling embarrassment in the first quarter of 2024. Debasing themselves before the leaders of the same Silicon Valley that is aligned with Trump's agenda, feigning powerlessness as they pass Trump's budget, fast-tracking confirmations of Trump's nominees without an ounce of meaningful resistance, and empty speeches only to pass confirmations on unanimous consent and send fundraising e-mails. A “resistance” based solely on vibes.
This is enabling. The Democrats haven't been up front with their constituents about what a shambling mess this country will look like come January 2029, and the years that will follow. What are the Dems' supposed "thought leaders" proposing as their game changing policy platform to rebuild America?
Well, an incredible amount of lobbying and media attention is being dedicated to something called an "Abundance" agenda, based on a book written by two political pundits: Erza Klein and Derek Thompson. As neoliberal misogynist Jeremiah Johnson, who thought the pandemic ended in the summer of 2021 and called for mass evictions to "end" the public health emergency, then insisted we need a "Joe Rogan of the left" in November 2024, summarizes the book:
"This should be the governing template for Democrats for the next 20 years. It's correct, it's necessary, and it has cross-partisan appeal. Every Dem staffer, politician & activist should work from this playbook."
Instead of listening to the material needs of their constituents, your Democrat legislators follow a pitiful array of liberal "thought leader" pundits: allegedly enlightened generalist thinkers in the annals of The New York Times, The Atlantic, Substack, etc. On the leading crisis of our time, the COVID-19 pandemic, this class of Professional Opinion Posters got everything wrong: They denigrated public health mitigations to combat SARS-CoV-2 transmission by claiming they failed to meet a "cost-benefit analysis" - woefully ignorant of the impact of the virus on working Americans, peddled anti-vax myths like "immunity debt," and covered-up the failures of the Biden Administration's failed vaccine-only approach.
The liberal pundit class denigrated public health as politicized radicalism, while legitimizing the modern anti-vaccine movement.
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson are no different, as their chapter in Abundance dedicated to the National Institute of Health shows. Not only do they denigrate the science behind PPE, but even worse, they quote economist Jay Bhattacharya, who is presently destroying the National Institute of Health and purging actual scientists. They falsely argue that the past century of gains in life expectancy comes solely from technological advances, denigrating public health regulations. Unsurprising!
Klein and Thompson are selling a fantasy that we can put a smiling benevolent liberal face on the horrors that Trump unleashed and integrate them into a "new normal."
Putting a Smiling Face on Techno-Sadism
This “Abundance” agenda dovetails rather neatly with the present dismantling of federal public health agencies happening under Trump and RFK Jr.: Abundance believes the solution to the Democrat party's electoral struggles is an inherently conservative project - a return to the tech-optimism of the early 2010s under Obama. Toxic positivity and a deregulatory agenda that continues the further transfer of power to a wealthy few as they proceed to strip-mine what's left of America.
This is quite foolish and out of touch: as Ed Zitron of Better Offline has explained in depth, the tech industry has been in a death spiral for years now, chasing dead-end trends like cryptocurrency and the "metaverse," totally unable to produce a profitable innovation other than making everyone even more miserable under the shadow of their handcrafted Slop Society.
“GenAI” is an economic, ecological, and cultural time bomb waiting to go off, already wreaking havoc on the lives of working Americans. The "Abundance" agenda believes the billionaires behind this are too constrained by government regulations, and given even more taxpayer handouts, will produce a cornucopia of plenty for all.
To sell this agenda, Klein and Thompson have aligned with neo-Nazi Richard Hanania, as well as the Koch-funded think tank Niskanen Center…sound familiar? They recently gave an open forum to Stephen Macedo and Frances Lees' pathetic anti-public health tome In COVID's Wake. Another partner is Arnold Ventures, the funder of anti-vax Vinay Prasad's self-named "lab," founded by an ex-Enron billionaire crook.
So, imagine if you will, a Democrat Presidency from between January 2029 to November 2032: inheriting all of the calamity caused by the destruction of public health, environmental regulations, and skyrocketing homelessness amidst economic instability. A new President coming into office with nothing but a plan of deregulatory "abundance." With children constantly sick and lead poisoned, with ever-growing wealth disparity and a continued decline of material conditions, praying for a leader who will do nothing except the sole solutions Klein & Thompson proposing:
Toxic positivity & corporate handouts.
A purely aesthetic non-politics centered around Derek's insistence that "we need the oligarchy," rooted in a submissive obedience to the most depraved, thoughtless creeps our culture could produce.
Just how well do you expect that's going to fare at the polls?
Know Thy Enemy
The "Abundance" charade is an astroturfed campaign of humiliation against working American families who are struggling harder than ever after the Biden Administration dumped the burden of the COVID-19 pandemic on their shoulders. It's also a lose-lose for the Democrats as a party, who have failed to convert "...but Trump!" into a winning message for the past decade - relying on a global pandemic to barely retake the White House. Democrats' priority come January 2029 has to be the restoration of public health and the social contract, rebuilding the very foundations that Trump and Musk have spent years razing to the ground, hoping to salt the earth.
America in 2029 will be incredibly isolated, irrelevant, and in a state of agonizing regression. To rebuild that status and global trust, Democrats cannot rely on taking policy cues from the same billionaires that cozied up to Trump. The restoration of civil rights and protections for foreign nationals - tourists, students, laborers, etc. - is crucial. This will also involves crushing the same reactionary elements who cheered on what Trump is doing now and ensuring that they can't come back into power anytime soon. Ensuring political and economic stability will be key.
A great deal of the instability America faces in 2029 will come from the destruction of public health - and only the heavens know what sort of pestilence calamities we will be facing. There will be no time for rooftop cocktails poured by automated bartenders. If you aren’t willing to get your knuckles bloody, then get the hell out of the way of the damned souls who are.
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