51 SHADES OF COWARDICE

JD Vance is already in the green room applying eyeliner and whispering “Daddy will be proud.”

It’s not a bill. It’s a fever-induced ransom note written in crayon, passed around a frat party full of supply-side economists and fundamentalist grief vampires. The “One Big Beautiful Bill” — Trump’s magnum opus of legislative middle fingers — is alive, barely. On Friday, the Senate voted 51–49 to open debate. That’s right: they didn’t pass the bill, they just voted to talk about it. And even that nearly blew up in their faces.

Thom Tillis and Rand Paul peeled off. One because he still has a soul. The other because he wants you to know he read all 940 pages, found the part where it quietly adds over three trillion dollars to the deficit, and decided that was one libertarian wet dream too far. Everyone else? They voted to advance a bill they hadn’t read. A few even admitted it. Lisa Murkowski blinked six times, sighed like someone being forced to eat bear jerky in a church basement, and voted yes anyway. Susan Collins made concerned noises, whispered something about rural hospitals, then voted yes because apparently it’s Opposite Day and we’re all trapped in a broken episode of Veep. Bill Cassidy turned briefly to ash before GOP leaders rehydrated him with a Medicaid carveout.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office did its job and screamed into the void. According to them, Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill would torch the deficit, strip 12 million Americans of healthcare, destroy food assistance, nuke green energy, pump up fossil fuels like it’s prom night in Texas, and still somehow manage to raise defense spending because freedom isn’t free and neither are 17 more aircraft carriers we didn’t ask for.

But here’s the real kicker: nobody knows if it’s going to pass.

Sure, Trump is calling senators on their burner phones, hurling adjectives, threatening to un-endorse their grandmothers, and begging for loyalty like a discount Caesar with rage issues. But even that’s not locking things down. The GOP is fracturing like a gas station windshield in February. Fiscal hawks want more cuts. Moderates want less cruelty. And Trump wants to shove the entire United States through a golden meat grinder and refer to the carnage as beauty.

Enter the vote-a-rama. Yes, that’s a real thing. It’s what happens when Senate Democrats unleash unlimited amendments in an attempt to slow the legislative freight train, or at least set it on fire before it reaches the station. They forced the bill to be read out loud — all 940 pages. Somewhere between page 417 and 418, Chuck Schumer visibly aged five years. Bernie Sanders slammed his binder shut so hard it echoed off the chamber walls. John Fetterman tossed his hoodie over the railing and shouted something about human dignity. Ed Markey just stared ahead, dead silent, like a man watching his house sink into the sea.

This isn’t governing. It’s procedural waterboarding.

And yet, it’s all happening in public. Trump wants this passed by July 4 so he can strut around like an authoritarian Tom Turkey, wings out, gobbling about tax cuts and “America winning again.” He wants to sign it in front of fireworks, flags, and several unfortunate children forced to clap on cue. And if three Republican senators defect — if Collins or Cassidy or some last-minute fiscal purist says no — it could land in a 50–50 tie. That’s when Vice President JD Vance would have to get off the couch, throw on some fresh eyeliner, and cast the deciding vote. The man who once compared Trump to Hitler now stands ready to drive a stake through what’s left of the American safety net. Because symmetry matters.

It’s obscene. It’s grotesque. It’s deeply, catastrophically unfunny.

Watching this bill limp toward the finish line — hemorrhaging amendments, dragging half the Senate down with it, haunted by economists, heckled by nurses, and shadowed by a public that is absolutely not fooled — is like watching the Hindenburg float across C-SPAN in real time, except the blimp is made of Medicaid paperwork and everyone onboard is holding a Bible and a crypto wallet.

Twelve million Americans could lose their health insurance. Tens of thousands of families would lose food support. And every senator who rubber-stamped this flaming barrel of cruelty with a smirk should be made to read those numbers aloud — on the Senate floor, into the record, before their next donor lunch.

Call your senators—especially Susan Collins, Bill Cassidy, and any other GOP Senators who are on the fence. Yell. Fax the bastards. And, if you’re one of the people this bill will hurt — if you’re broke, sick, scared, and being asked to sacrifice more for the comfort of billionaires — know this: we see you. And we’re not going anywhere.

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