What is “Two Santa Clauses” and how has the GOP used it to manipulate Americans for 40 years?
NOTE: this text was not written by me and is from user u/Saxamaphooone. The only changes were minor formatting for readability. I would merely link to reddit if they had a way to highlight comments, but they do not.
The original post.
Good. Now they need to really start the messaging surrounding the Two Santas Strategy and how these threats from the GOP are part of the playbook they’ve been using to manipulate voters for decades.
“The only thing wrong with the U.S. economy is the failure of the Republican Party to play Santa Claus.” – Jude Wanniski, March 6, 1976
“The stock market is falling, in part a reaction to GOP threats to shut down the government: it’s all part of their plan.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen last week warned us that the GOP is about to use Jude Wanniski’s “Two Santa Clauses” fraud again to damage Biden’s economy and our standing in the world. And, sure enough, Mitch McConnell verified it when he said last week there would be “zero” Republican votes to raise the debt ceiling.
Yellen responded yesterday by telling The Wall Street Journal that if the Republicans force a shutdown of the U.S. government like they did to Obama in 2011, “We would emerge from this crisis a permanently weaker nation.” But the GOP is adamant: they have their strategy and they’re sticking to it.
Here’s how it works, laid it out in simple summary:
First, the Two Santas strategy dictates, when Republicans control the White House they must spend money like a drunken Santa and cut taxes to run up the U.S. debt as far and as fast as possible.
This produces three results: it stimulates the economy thus making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy; it raises the debt dramatically; and it makes people think that Republicans are the “tax-cut Santa Clauses.”
Second, when a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans must scream about the national debt as loudly and frantically as possible, freaking out about how “our children will have to pay for it!” and “we have to cut spending to solve the crisis!” Shut down the government, crash the stock market, and damage US credibility around the world if necessary to stop Democrats from spending money.
This will force the Democrats in power to cut their own social safety net programs and even Social Security, thus shooting their welfare-of-the-American-people Santa Claus right in the face.
And, sure enough, here we are now with a Democrat in the White House. Following their Two Santas strategy, Republicans are again squealing about the national debt and refusing to raise the debt ceiling, imperiling Biden’s economic recovery as well as his Build Back Better plans.
And, once again, the media is covering it as a “Biden Crisis!” rather than what it really is: a cynical political and media strategy devised by Republicans in the 1970s, fine-tuned in the 1980s and 1990s, and rolled out every time a Democrat is in the White House.”
This was written in 2021, but it could’ve been written now. Or at any point since the 70s dems have taken over. It happens every time.