Aren LeBrun

Note: the 400 richest people in the U.S. are now worth a record $6.6 trillion, after getting $1.2 trillion richer over the past 12 months. #BigBeautifulBill #TaxTheRich

I’m not suggesting she’s the same as Sinema at all. I’m saying their differences don’t make much of a difference in the grand scheme. A party that receives substantial financial backing from the prime beneficiaries of neoliberal trade & tax policies is ill-equipped by design to reform said policies.

It’s easy to take a moral stand against big money when you know it won’t make a difference. It’s much harder when you control both chambers and the WH. Why, for instance, didn’t the Dems roll back Trump’s disastrous 2017 “tax cuts & jobs” bill when they had the chance?

In the year 2025, most people understand corruption is bipartisan. This fact is taboo among many liberals, but it shouldn’t be. Billionaires haven’t magically forgotten to finance the Democratic Party as well.

We’re told America is more divided than ever. But it turns out there’s one BIG thing we can all agree on: the ultra-wealthy have stacked the deck against us, and it’s about time our lawmakers did something about that. #mepolitics #taxfairness #bigbeautifulbill #biguglybill

Because they did not arrive at these conclusions in a vacuum but via the same complex system of (dis)info channels we’re all caught up in every day

As for “conflating the two groups,” it’s hardly a conflation to suggest the overwhelming majority of Congress members, Rs and Ds alike, are in the bag for Wall St. financiers and multinational corporations. Meeting people where they’re at on this is critical to not coming off like a partisan hack.

In my experience, you’re not going to get a stranger to cast off years, if not decades, of indoctrination in the space of a single discussion. What you can do is impart a small dose of skepticism about their supposed ideological certainties. You might find this effort atrocious, but I don’t.

Our goal is not to chastise but to establish common ground. Congress members are by no means innocent bystanders in the mass gov’t sell-off to monied interests. In fact, they’re the only ones who can stop it. If you can connect with someone on this fact, other points of connection become possible.

The point is to talk to people and get their opinions about tax cuts for billionaires.

We asked rural Mainers what they thought about tax breaks for the 1%. Here's what they shared with us. #taxfairness #taxfairnessnow #mepolitics

It’s a very good question. I think they feel more embittered and hopeless than many realize, and not without good reason. For what it’s worth, we didn’t talk to a single person who had anything good to say about the Republican Party either. Trust in these institutions is eroding uniformly.

To me, they sounded more misled than stupid. Clearly their instincts are much more progressive than they realize (more progressive, for instance, than a great many elected Democrats). Very few will ever realize this if we don’t go out and make these connections ourselves.

Give it time!

We asked rural Trump voters and independents what they thought about cutting taxes for billionaires. Here's what they told us. #TaxFairness #TaxFairnessNow #MEPolitics

One Evening - The Forge Literary Magazine One Evening, fiction by Aren LeBrun

Our short story of the week is One Evening by Aren LeBrun. @arenlebrun.bsky.social