Blog de Dunlap: re: J.D. Vance

Danielle,

In case you've recently asked yourself, "Who's J.D. Vance again?", here's a quick run-down of what he stands for:

He called Social Security and Medicare "the biggest roadblocks to any kind of real fiscal sanity." Combine that with the fact that Trump proposed cutting Social Security and Medicare in every single one of his budgets, and it's clear that with Trump-Vance, Social Security and Medicare cuts will bear down on seniors like an avalanche.

Vance thinks seniors should get by with less while billionaires get more tax breaks. Trump's only major legislative achievement was a $2 trillion tax cut mostly soaked up by millionaires, billionaires, and giant corporations. Now Vance is backing Trump as he proposes another billionaire tax break that is worth $3.5 million apiece, every year — $3.5 million a year for every billionaire.

So, Wall Street and Silicon Valley billionaires are cheering him on. You know who else is in his corner? Anti-abortion rights extremists. He's supported abortion bans without exceptions for rape or incest because "two wrongs don't make a right." He said he "certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally." And he voted against protections for IVF.

Now, you might be thinking that he sounds about as extreme as Trump's last vice president, Mike Pence. And you might be wondering why Trump, Vance, and their party think they can win elections on such a toxic, unpopular agenda.

That brings us to January 6.

Vance said he wouldn't have certified the 2020 election results the way Pence did. Instead, he would have entertained lies about voter fraud and encouraged slates of fake electors. He claimed that only a "few bad apples" were responsible for the insurrection. He called the January 6 commission a "sham." And the more he and Trump undermine our democracy to deny the will of the people, the less they have to worry about whether their plans are popular.

Now that you've read all those paragraphs, your blood pressure may be spiking.

So let's take a moment to picture the positive future we're pushing for, not just the horrors we're working to prevent.

If we re-elect President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris with a Democratic Congress, we can pass a national law ensuring the right to an abortion.

We can shore up our democracy, including with legislation defending the freedom to vote.

We can tax the rich and lower costs for working families — on child care, on housing, with junk fees, and more.

We can get it all done and more — if we fight side by side. One step at a time. One foot in front of the other.

But a big piece of this puzzle is holding onto our Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. I'm up for re-election this fall, and a right-wing Super PAC has already started up against me — creating a vehicle for national Republicans, special interests, Big Tech moguls, Wall Street executives, and far-right ideologues to pour large sums of money into our race.

Defeating us in Massachusetts would virtually guarantee a GOP-controlled Senate. And national Republicans are desperate to take power so they can enact their radical agenda.

I'm asking if you can make a donation of $100 or any amount to support our re-election campaign right now — because we can't underestimate how much money national Republicans and outside special interests can spend trying to defeat us, and we have to stop their radical agenda so we can put Washington on the side of working people.