{"id":24726,"date":"2025-05-18T18:22:46","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T01:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=24726"},"modified":"2025-07-22T15:00:25","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T22:00:25","slug":"gop-conservatives-and-the-rich-and-the-countryside-and-star-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/05\/18\/gop-conservatives-and-the-rich-and-the-countryside-and-star-wars\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP\/conservatives and the Rich; and the Countryside; and Star Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>The GOP tax bill will hurt lowest earners and help the rich (of course!);<\/li>\n<li>NYT&#8217;s Jamelle Bouie on Republican hypocrisy and the countryside;<\/li>\n<li>Trek v. Wars, and how Wars reveals conservatives&#8217; authoritarian fantasies.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/05\/16\/multimedia\/16dc-tax-effects-vclk\/16dc-tax-effects-vclk-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"200\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, Tony Romm, 16 May 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/05\/16\/us\/politics\/republican-tax-bill-trump.html\">G.O.P. Tax Bill May Hurt the Lowest Earners and Help the Richest<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;Even though most Americans may see lower taxes, Republicans\u2019 spending cuts could outweigh those benefits and leave some worse off.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>May? May? It&#8217;s always happened like that in the past. That&#8217;s why some from the left criticize NYT for being too accommodating.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>As Representative Jason Smith commenced a marathon session this week to consider a sprawling and expensive Republican tax package, he took special care to emphasize his party\u2019s commitment to \u201chard-working Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPro-growth tax policy will shift our economy toward one that serves them, not the wealthy and well-connected,\u201d Mr. Smith, the Missouri lawmaker who leads the House\u2019s top tax panel, proclaimed.<\/p>\n<p>But the proposal he is trying to get to President Trump\u2019s desk ultimately tells a more complicated story. The Republican tax plan may offer only modest gains to everyday workers, according to a wide range of tax experts, and some taxpayers may actually be left in worse financial shape if the bill becomes law.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>For example.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/05\/17\/multimedia\/17bouie-newsletter-fmtw\/17bouie-newsletter-fmtw-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, Jamelle Bouie, 17 May 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/05\/17\/opinion\/trump-rural-voters-budget.html\">Republican Hypocrisy Reaches Into the Countryside<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">President Trump won his second term in office with the overwhelming support of rural America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Not only was overall turnout up in the nation\u2019s rural counties, but Trump won many of those areas by <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/dailyyonder.com\/in-the-race-for-the-presidency-gop-turnout-declined-democratic-turnout-collapsed\/2024\/11\/08\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more than two-to-one<\/a>. And while it is a little too much to say that Trump\u2019s dominance with rural voters delivered him the White House, it is true that without this over-performance, his path to victory would have been harder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Given the importance of rural voters to his political coalition \u2014 and that of any Republican who hopes to follow in his footsteps \u2014 you might assume that Trump would prioritize the interests of rural voters. This is, after all, what you\u2019re supposed to do in a democracy: reward your supporters for their support.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Not so for Trump and his Republican allies in Congress. If anything, their agenda is calibrated to devastate rural America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Consider the budget proposal now making its way through the House of Representatives. To pay for their $3.8 trillion tax plan, which includes possibly trillions in tax cuts and extensions for the wealthiest Americans, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/05\/13\/us\/politics\/house-medicaid-cuts.html\">Republicans want to cut $700 billion from Medicaid<\/a> and other federal health programs. If passed into law, these cuts \u2014 some which come <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/05\/15\/us\/politics\/house-gop-tax-bill-trump.html#:~:text=Businesses%20would%20receive%20several%20tax,hate%20the%20expensive%20tax%20break.\">in the form of work requirements<\/a> for Medicaid \u2014 could cause <a class=\"css-yywogo\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/05\/13\/upshot\/medicaid-cuts-democrats-republicans.html\">as many as 8.6 million<\/a> Americans to lose their health insurance.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>And this. I&#8217;ve never been a Star Wars fan &#8212; it struck me as juvenile space opera, from the first time I watched the first film &#8212; while Trek instilled in me an idealism about the future at an early age, and which I&#8217;ve never abandoned. In both cases, I have not followed up on the subsequent TV series and movies. Especially since Trek has veered away from the point of the original series. (There&#8217;s a narrative pattern here: adaptations usually dilute the premise of the original in favor of themes more palatable to the masses. Just consider the original novel FRANKENSTEIN compared to the many, many adaptations and sequels by others.)<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Sequence-03.00_00_00_00.Still001.jpg?resize=990,556\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mother Jones, Sam Van Pykeren, 16 May 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/politics\/2025\/05\/andor-star-wars-republicans-defend-empire-palpatine\/\">How Star Wars Reveals Conservatives\u2019 Authoritarian Fantasies<\/a>, subtitle: &#8220;Republicans are gunning for their own galactic empire. And they\u2019d blow up a planet\u2014or this country\u2014to make it happen.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Running late this afternoon, or I&#8217;d explore this in detail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The GOP tax bill will hurt lowest earners and help the rich (of course!); NYT&#8217;s Jamelle Bouie on Republican hypocrisy and the countryside; Trek v. Wars, and how Wars reveals conservatives&#8217; authoritarian fantasies. &#8211; &#8211; &#8211; NY Times, Tony Romm, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/05\/18\/gop-conservatives-and-the-rich-and-the-countryside-and-star-wars\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,16,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-culture","category-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24726"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25329,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24726\/revisions\/25329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}