The Republicans' Pro-Poverty Program

                                                             By David K. Shipler

                An irony of Donald Trump’s appeal to struggling, working-class Americans is his party’s complete indifference to their financial hardships. Wherever government can rescue people with direct cash assistance, Republicans are opposed. Wherever government can expand proven programs of aid—in health care, housing, food, day care--Republicans are opposed. See now how some Republicans are coming around to a thinly bipartisan infrastructure bill aimed at only things—bridges, highways, and the like—but are apoplectic over President Biden’s bill to help people. Things vs. people: no contest among the people’s representatives in the Republican Party.

                That coldness is compounded by uninformed moral judgments against those near the bottom. They have long been smeared by conservative Republicans as lazy, undeserving, and unlikely to strive upward without negative incentives—in other words, a whip at their backs.

Punitive provisions are almost invariably woven into Republican-sponsored policy. Assume that they don’t want to work, so cut off their $300-a-week cushion in unemployment benefits. Blame them for not taking low-wage jobs that can’t support their families, yet adamantly oppose raising the federal minimum wage to make those jobs worth having. Condition certain benefits on proof that they seek work or job training, pass drug tests, and avoid arrest—stipulations not made when the affluent get government subsidies and tax breaks such as the home mortgage interest deduction.

                Americans generally, even those technically below the official poverty line, don’t want to think of themselves as “poor,” since the society inflicts shame on the deprived. And those just above poverty, including many of Trump’s white supporters who are highly vulnerable to financial disruption, don’t display much empathy for those a notch or two beneath them. But they should, as many fell into disastrous misfortune during the pandemic and might well press the Republicans they elect to give them something back in return for their votes. 

Biden and Putin at a Crossroads

 

By David K. Shipler 

                If President Biden were to act on all the competing (and unsolicited) advice that he’s getting about how to handle Vladimir Putin when they meet tomorrow in Geneva, here’s how it would go: Threaten to harden sanctions, promise to relax them. Threaten to invite Ukraine into NATO, promise not to. Brandish cyber weaponry against Russian infrastructure, propose a cyber treaty against hacking and ransomware. Trumpet outrage over Russia’s rights abuses, make the points quietly and create a working group of mid-level officials for private discussions. Rattle the nuclear saber, seek new arms control. Compete in the Arctic, cooperate in the Arctic. And so on.

It is crucial to get this right, not only to reduce the risk of nuclear miscalculation but also to forestall a dangerous new alignment between Russia and China. A Russian-Chinese rapprochement has been discussed for more than two decades. “If the West Continues the Expansion, Moscow Will Drive East,” was the headline of a 1997 piece by Alexei Arbatov, head of the International Security Center at Russia’s Institute of World Economy and International Relations. It’s not a prospect that has delighted Arbatov. “We currently have wonderful relations,” he said a year ago, “but Russia needs to keep its distance. We cannot go back and forth between extremes, from China being the world's greatest threat to it being our strategic ally or partner.”

A couple of old jokes from Soviet days underscore the issue. One quotes a headline from fifty years in the future: “All Quiet on the Finnish-Chinese border.”

Another is one that Biden could update at his summit.

Putin: Joe, I had a dream last night that Washington was all in red. The White House was red, the Capitol was red, there were red banners everywhere.

Biden: What a coincidence, Vladimir! I had a dream last night that Moscow was all in red. The Kremlin walls were red, there were red stars on the towers, there were red banners across the streets.

Putin: What’s so strange about that? What did the banners say?

Biden: I don’t know. I can’t read Chinese.

Putin has surely heard this joke, so if he has even a shred of self-deprecating humor, he’d probably steal the punch line before Biden could get it out.