Every year around this time, the right starts bleating about a purely fictional “War on Christmas.” This year, I’m sure the complaints will focus on state coronavirus regulations designed to prevent unnecessary deaths. As if Jesus told his disciples that it was OK to walk around infecting people in late December.
The real war pits the GOP against blue states. This one is getting more virulent with each passing day. First, we had the limits on the SALT deduction in the Trump tax bill, which were justified as a measure to stick it to states with high taxes and levels of service. Now we have the refusal to provide relief to state and local governments, even though history tells us that it creates a double benefit, by maintaining both employment and service levels. Furthermore, there are plenty of red states that will be forced into unpopular service cuts without federal relief; the problem is hardly limited to blue states. Mitch and his henchmen are unmoved; making blue states squeal is the overriding objective here, not using federal powers to promote the welfare of America as a whole.
If blue state representatives acted in the same way, they would deny relief to Texas and Florida for damage caused by hurricanes on the basis that the residents of red states should just suck it up and be the rugged individuals they purport to be. That won’t happen, of course. As I’ve noted before, but it can’t be overemphasized, blue Americans may in some cases think themselves superior to their red compatriots, but red Americans deny that blue Americans are Americans at all. That is a fundamental difference between the two parties.