Lincoln Project senior adviser Rachel Bitecofer received quite the online backlash after condemning President Donald Trump over his suggestion to increase the long awaited in-person stimulus paychecks from $600 to $2,000.
“Count me out,” Bitecofer tweeted, lamenting that some credit for the stimulus increase went to Trump and not the liberal congresswomen of the Democratic ‘Squad’. “I'd rather be homeless than take one damn dime of blood money from that monster,” Bitecofer continued, adding that earlier this year she “did not need” the first $1,200 stimulus check.
Apparently crediting the Democrats with the second suggested payment, Bitecofer vowed to “deposit” it, saying “…at least it wasn't coming from him.”
A little bit later, she doubled down on criticism of Trump's decision to ask Congress to amend the coronavirus relief bill, blaming some Americans for praising the decision. “Blows my mind that people are lining up behind Trump because he's manipulating them with this $2,000 stimulus,” Bitecofer tweeted.
Bitecofer's comments provoked a visceral and one-sided reaction online.
Many commenters were baffled by her “privilege” to reject the stimulus over a political disagreement amid an economic crisis and a pandemic. One person tweeted that Bitecofer had “zero empathy for people starving and becoming homeless.”
“Imagine how privileged you have to be in order to care more about the person giving you money rather than the money itself,” wrote another commenter.
Some other tweeters were mocking Bitecofer for her curious understanding of economics, as commenters hurried to point out the stimulus checks were not drawn from Trump's personal funds, but from American tax dollars. “It's our money, we need it to survive,” one person wrote, replying to Bitecofer.
It would seem that the Republican president's call for an initially Democrat-supported agenda highlighted the political divisions of the US. For example, similarly to Bitecofer, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar called Trump's proposition “an attack on every American.”
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