I don’t understand when people say there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats. I think that’s just an excuse for political apathy and inaction.
It certainly is true to say that there’s not enough difference between Republicans and Democrats. Lord knows that there are many Democrats who kiss up to greedy, special-interest lobbyists as shamelessly as any Republican.
But to say there’s no difference at all simply isn’t true. Republicans often leave in their wake trails of stench that last for years, maybe decades.
Take the U.S. Supreme Court. Compare those who weren’t appointed by a Bush or a Trump (Ketanji Brown Jackson, for example), to those who were (Clarence Thomas). The difference is stark.
But here’s a more obscure example. In late October, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a “guidance” stating that segregating people with disabilities in employment settings such as sheltered workshops may be a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Specifically, the guidance says that disabled people in sheltered workshops “perform highly repetitive, manual tasks, such as folding, sorting, and bagging in shared spaces occupied only by other people with disabilities. They also often earn extremely low wages when compared to people with disabilities in integrated employment, resulting in stigmatization and a lack of economic independence . . . Sometimes these workshops pay wages well below the minimum wage.”
The ADA was signed into law in 1990. One would think that ought to be more than enough time for the DOJ to decide it’s okay to declare that sticking disabled people with crappy, dead-end jobs that can pay well below minimum wage just might be a violation of that law.
The guidance says that a “significant number” of disabled Americans toil in a sheltered workshop daily, “which is often highly regimented and typically offers no opportunity for advancement.”
Well it’s about time, eh? After all, the ADA was signed into law in 1990. One would think that ought to be more than enough time for the DOJ to decide it’s okay to declare that sticking disabled people with crappy, dead-end jobs that can pay well below minimum wage just might be a violation of that law.
This guidance seems like the kind of thing that should have come out years earlier. Well, it did! The DOJ, during the Obama Administration, issued a similar guidance in 2016. I don’t know why Obama’s DOJ waited so long to take this action, when he was practically out of the door after eight years in office. This is an example of how Democrats aren’t different enough from Republicans.
But the DOJ of the squatter who occupied the White House between Barack Obama and Joe Biden wasted little time scrapping the guidance. Attorney General Jeff Sessions (remember him?) rescinded it in December 2017, after the squatter issued an Executive Order requiring all federal agencies to identify regulations for “repeal, replacement, or modification.”
Putting out a guidance isn’t a monumental act. It doesn’t have the force of law. It’s just an agency’s way of warning everybody that certain behaviors might eventually run afoul of the law.
But the squatter and his people didn’t even think we deserved that. That’s a pretty clear example of how Republicans are different.