Yesterday the U.S. Senate approved a bill written by Republican Senator Mike Crapo (truly a fantastic name) that frees up any bank with assets of less than $250 billion from more stringent Federal oversight, nearly five times the previous threshold. This bill represents another formal rollback of the regulations and stress tests put in place under the Obama administration to keep banks (and their customers!) from going busto on junk investments and 1,000-layer debt collateralizations. Now, you might think those regulations were an okay thing, because we haven’t had a crash of that magnitude in the ensuing decade since.

But Congress, and the banks who so generously donate to its coffers, thinks otherwise. Apparently, despite the nagging problems of mass shootings, immigrants in terminal limbo, crumbling infrastructure and unprecedented legal and ethical breaches in the Executive Branch, Congress has decided that THIS was the problem currently in most urgent need of fixing. And so they have freed the banks of pesky “rules” as a good old fashioned bipartisan venture. Sixteen Democratic senators—including Tim Kaine, Mark Warner, and Claire McCaskill—voted for this bill. In fact, Democrats helped Crapo CRAFT this bill. Why? Well, let’s let Montana Senator and “dad who doesn’t want you listening to that rock and roll music” Jon Tester explain:

"I hope that our bipartisan work can rub off on the rest of Congress so we can break through the partisan gridlock that has plagued Washington for too long."

You don’t need me to tell you that Tester’s bipartisan utopia is a hilarious delusion, and has been for years and years now. There ain’t jack shit rubbing off on Congress unless Goldman Sachs cuts a check for it. Nor do you need me to inform you that the very banks poised to benefit from this legislation are—SURPRISE!—hefty donors to the Democratic party. Elizabeth Warren, who knows more about financial chicanery on Wall Street than perhaps anyone, blasted this banking legislation. And yet, many of her colleagues ignored her and went along with the bill anyway, leaving her a curious anomaly in a party that needs to welcome more and more of her kind.

It makes no sense. Blessed with a touch of momentum going into the 2018 midterms, Chuck Schumer and his colleagues have decided that the best way to “win” is to build up their fundraising apparatus, reach out across party lines, and pass legislation that serves banks more than it serves people… legislation friendly enough to conservative folk that Senators like Tester (Montana) and McCaskill (Missouri) can sell it to their red state constituents and not have them get too mad.

This is the DNC's game plan, and it blows.

It’s an enraging time to be an American, and one of the most frustrating things about it is that the opposition party—the only one with the money and infrastructure to take on a Republican party that is now a de facto criminal enterprise—still leads and acts as if everything is Fine, and that we are not in a state of absolute crisis. I know Barack Obama is venerated for the speech he made at the DNC in 2004 that unofficially introduced him as a presidential contender, but he vastly overrated the value of bipartisanship that night. That Pollyanna mindset would continue haunt him through a great deal of his presidency, as Republicans openly schemed to destroy him at every turn. And, as a final insult, they’ve spent the past year feverishly, and hatefully, working to dismantle his legacy. Time and again, Democrats think the only way to win elections is to NOT fully be Democrats, and this bill is the toxic runoff of that discredited philosophy. Too many Democratic leaders and thinkers are beholden to a bullshit fever dream of civility that has led to staggering electoral losses and Republicans gleefully stripping lower income Americans of their rights and bodies.