No. 17 of 108
June 30, 2025
The marathon debate known as a vote-a-rama is happening. Right. Now. On the Big Beautiful Bill. One of the last memorable vote-a-ramas is described in Chapter 1 of When No Thing Works, taking place on August 7, 2022, yielding a sweeping bill intending to fight climate change, lower drug prices, and raise some corporate taxes. Three years later, the sweeping Big Beautiful Bill is intended to reverse and stop government support of renewable energies, reduce corporate and wealthier individuals’ taxes, and make it more difficult to be eligible for Medicaid. In 2022, the sweeping bill was met with celebration and fierce opposition. In 2025, the Big Beautiful Bill is met with celebration and fierce opposition. Elsewhere in the country, an act of violence claimed the lives of two firefighters and set the land ablaze, yet to be put out, carried out, once more, by a single individual.
The ruling classes of the country are indeed in a fierce battle to determine the directionality of the country, with a near 50% split as far as political strength moving no farther than a percentage or two from election period to election period. Remarkably, though the country appears to be so equally divided, the ruling classes aren’t hewing to a middle way. And very little work is happening in the bodies politic to figure out, create into, and leap toward an interdependent way. There is work to be done! It may not be possible in the bodies politic, among the ruling classes. There is work to be done! Useful, hard, creative, critical work in the commons.
