Letters from an American - January 2, 2025

Episode Date: January 3, 2025

Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

January 2nd, 2025. This evening, President Joe Biden awarded 20 Americans the Presidential Citizens Medal, which is given to those who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens. Biden shows these particular individuals because he believes these Americans are bonded by their common decency and commitment to serving others and that the country is better because of their dedication and sacrifice. Those 20 included civil rights leaders who fought

to end racial segregation, promote black voting, restore rights for Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II, legalize same-sex marriage, and defend women's rights to equality, and reformers who advanced tax reform and the reform of financial markets, moved forward child care policies, advanced common-sense gun safety regulations, and promoted women's health. They included military personnel who perfected trauma care, ensured that female service members receive the recognition they deserve, and worked to repair the relationship between the US and Vietnam. A war correspondent who recorded the experience of battle, a

photographer and philanthropist who has advanced teacher training and micro enterprise in developing countries, an educator who has guided students toward the arts. The recipients included both Democrats and Republicans, with Biden honoring Senator Nancy Kassebaum, a Republican of Kansas, for example, for supporting abortion rights. She stood up for what she believed in, even if it meant standing alone, he said,

and she reached across the aisle to do what she believed was right. And the recipients included the chair and vice chair of the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, informally known as the January 6th Committee, Representative Bennie Thompson, a Democrat of Mississippi, and former Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican of Wyoming. Biden praised Thompson for defending the rule of law with unwavering integrity and a steadfast commitment to truth.

He praised Cheney for raising her voice and reaching across the aisle to defend our nation and the ideals we stand for, freedom, dignity, and decency." He added, Her integrity and intrepidness remind us all what is possible if we work together. Biden also offered a public message today in response to the horrific New Year's Eve attack in New Orleans, in which Shamsuddin Jabbbar, an American citizen and Army veteran from Texas, drove a

truck into a crowd in the French Quarter, killing 14 people and wounding 30 others. Before today's Sugar Bowl playoff between Georgia and Notre Dame in New Orleans, Biden addressed the nation, Today all America stands with the people of New Orleans. We pray for those killed and injured in yesterday's attack. We are grateful for the brave first responders who raced to save lives. We're glad the game is back on for today, but I'm not surprised because the spirit of New Orleans

can never be kept down. That's also true of the spirit of America. We just have to remember who we are. We're the United States of America. There's nothing, nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together. God bless New Orleans and God protect our troops. While Biden focuses on protecting civil rights

and making progress together in a unified America, Trump and Elon Musk are doubling down on dividing Americans. Over the holiday, the fight between the original MAGA and the new tech billionaires taking over the Trump White House continued and Trump and Musk appear to be trying to heal that rift by returning to culture war themes. The fight began over immigration, which MAGA opposes and Musk champions for skilled workers, but spread as the Musk faction attacked the American culture MAGA celebrates. After rising to prominence by attacking immigrants, Trump

sided with the Musk faction. On New Year's Eve, as President-elect Trump set out for a party at Mar-a-Lago, A reporter asked him why he had changed his mind on the H-1B visas that enable employers to bring skilled workers to the US. "'I didn't change my mind,' Trump answered. "'I always felt we have to have the most competent people "'in our country. "'We need competent people.

"'We need smart people coming into our country. "'We need a lot of people coming in. This is a dramatic change from Trump's previous positions. On March 4th, 2016, for example, Trump's social media account posted, the H-1B program is neither high skilled nor immigration. These are temporary foreign workers imported from abroad for the explicit purpose of substituting for

American workers at lower pay. I will end forever the use of H-1B as a cheap labor program and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers first. No exceptions. It is this stand on immigration that Trump's MAGA base supports. For his part, last Friday Musk told those opposed to H-1B visas to take a big step back and f*** yourself in the face. He said, I will go to war on this issue the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend.

But MAGA news sites, Breitbart and Newsmax, didn't back down, reporting a story by Fred Lambert of Electrek, a site that follows the changeover from fossil fuel to green vehicles, pointing out that Musk's Tesla is a major user of H-1B visa workers and that it requested more than 2,400 such workers at the same time it was laying off U.S US workers early in 2024. On New Year's Eve, Musk changed his name on X to the name of a meme coin, a cryptocurrency based on an online meme, and changed his avatar to one using symbols favored by the far right. Some of

his supporters saw the changes as a signal of his true beliefs, especially as he is strongly supporting the right-wing AFD party in Germany. Trump also seemed to swing back to his MAGA base when he returned to his attack on immigrants by echoing a mistaken report by the Fox News Channel. Trump falsely linked the New Orleans attack to criminals coming in from other countries and claimed that the US has open borders, although

in fact encounters at the border have fallen to a four-year low, lower now than when Trump left office. The abrupt elevation of culture wars echoes the formula Republicans have used for the past 40 years to distract from the reality that between 1981 and 2021, their embrace of so-called supply-side economics moved $50 trillion from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. Distracting voters with outrage over welfare queens, libtards, and so on, kept the country focused on cultural issues rather than economic ones.

As Musk and Trump appear to be making up for their defense of immigration by courting the far right again, Anthony Adragna of Politico reported today that incoming House Republicans are also relying on culture wars to hold their coalition together. Adragna reports they are planning to make trans rights their marquee fight of 2025.

That focus is likely intended to distract Republican voters from the reality that Trump has promised to swing the country away from Biden's investment in rebuilding the middle class. Biden's focus on unemployment meant that unemployment dropped dramatically during his term. More people got access to affordable health care. Labor unions showed historic growth. And real wages went up so much that according to economist David Doney, workers now have the highest real hourly wages since the 1960s.

Good news for workers was good news for everyone. The country's economic growth was more than double that of any other country in the group of seven, or G7, economically advanced democracies. But Trump has been very clear that he rejects this system and intends to take the country back to supply side economics, in which the government encourages the concentration

of wealth at the top of the economy. Those who embrace this theory argue that wealthy investors will use their money more efficiently than they could under government regulation. Trump has promised to fill his cabinet with billionaires and top donors have been donating as much as $2 million to his inaugural fund. Those at that level can get up to six tickets to events of the inaugural weekend. According to Gina Smylek and Anna Swanson of the New York Times, Trump's promise

to back Wall Street investors in corporate boardrooms has given them high hopes for the Trump administration. And of course, Musk, the world's richest man, has eclipsed Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, and sometimes even Trump himself, as the face of the incoming administration. Trump's very public embrace of billionaires comes just weeks after the December 4th, 2024

shooting of UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Officer Brian Thompson revealed a large American population that is desperately angry at wealthy and powerful executives. Across social media, posts have been defending and even praising Thompson's alleged murderer since the shooting. Even those who avoided championing the shooter took exception to the fact that those defending Thompson's industry and deploring his murder had little to say about those people who died after insurance companies denied their claims.

For decades now, Republicans have been able to keep class tensions at bay by hammering constantly on culture wars, and they appear to be trying that again to smooth over the fight between MAGA and the billionaires. But it is possible that the rumbling anger that flashed to the surface over the killing of an insurance CEO will reinforce the MAGA wing and keep class, rather than culture, uppermost. If Trump does not bring down prices, as he promised and now has downplayed, if he imposes tariffs that will force poorer and middle-class Americans to pay for the tax cuts he has promised to the wealthy and corporations. If Republicans cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to balance the budget, all while Musk continues to pull down billions of dollars in taxpayer money, the rhetorical formula that worked for so long might finally break. Thanks for watching!