The American political structures have been stressed to their breaking point. What’s next for the cryptocurrency markets as hyperpartisan reality settles in?
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The economic relief bill that has been over six months in the making appeared very nearly to be over and done with as recently as last night, but Congressional leaders say they’ve reached an impasse over measures Republicans are insisting upon that Democrats say are designed to ensure it is very difficult for the incoming Biden administration to pass further relief. The bullish relief sentiment played some role in Bitcoin’s recent ascendancy, leading cryptocurrency investors to wonder about the health of the rally.
It is overwhelmingly likely that stimulus measures are not going to be far from public discussion for the foreseeable future, but as Paul Krugman recently pointed out, the Republican Party seems to have reverted to its pre-Trump playbook by pivoting to overwhelming support for austerity measures that have been proven to not work. Strategically, the GOP seems intent upon stonewalling any policy at all from the Democratic side of the aisle.
This is a playbook that has served Republicans well in the past, fomenting enough dissent with the prevailing progressive program to place Donald Trump in the Oval Office. The Republican leaders who have presided over this most-tumultuous presidential administration, far from repentant, have doubled down on the obstructionist policies that put them in this situation, to begin with.
The political situation has never been more tense, with an outgoing authoritarian Republican president refusing to acknowledge that he lost the election, that the coronavirus is a serious problem, that vaccines need to be invested in to get the US economy back on track. Hacks of US Government agencies have potentially caused untold damage to the security of the American nuclear weapons program and the President and Senate Majority Leader have absolutely zero intention of defending US interests in cyberspace.
The significance of the Georgia runoff elections has never been more clear. If the Senate becomes evenly divided as a result of Republican refusal to acknowledge the need for major components of the United States Government to address the multiple crises it currently faces, Democrats will have de facto control of the Senate as well as a substantial House majority and the presidency. They’ll also benefit from a party structure that is far more organized than it was during the Obama administration, thanks in part to the efforts of President Obama himself to get grassroots party operations up and running.
The American future is up in the air as a result of the chaos which pervades the tail end of the Trump Administration. By the time six months have come and gone, we should know significantly more about the hopes we hold out for the American and global economic recovery from the terrible COVID-19 pandemic, and we should be free of the failed Trump administration with its awful policy goals that did little aside from encouraging the rapid spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19.
Bitcoin’s star is rising, whether or not we believe that the US Government is on the verge of taking a more active role in the economic and physiological health of the American Citizen. Institutional investment has increased substantially over the past week, despite the notable lack of a new stimulus bill, which has been expected for months now. Republican skullduggery seeks to staunch what those on the right see as bleeding caused by payments directly to disenfranchised American workers whose jobs have disappeared. Mitch McConnell seems to view the general poverty of the American working class as a way to make money and, therefore, a laudable asset to his bosses from the upper echelon of American society.
This conflict dates back at least to the Obama administration and the widely-criticized financial bailout of 2008, which was a landmark event that saw the income inequality gap take off even more from already-high levels under President George W. Bush. Neoliberalism’s decline has seen a more-rabid assault upon government from the right-wing of politics just as it has seen the decline of confidence in the agenda touted by center-right leaders of prominence in the Democratic Party.
That is, the struggle to succeed for Bitcoin has taken place amidst the most profound era of political dysfunction in our collective memory. Republicans get power and refuse to do anything good with it; then the Democrats get power and can’t get anything good done, though this is more due to Republican stonewalling than anything else.
While the economic recovery package, if passed, will be a boon to cryptocurrency markets around the world, it is also important to note that the cryptocurrency markets’ future in no way hinges upon the passage of an economic recovery bill. Control of the network may become more democratic if the US Government passes a stimulus bill, simply due to more Bitcoin being bought up by retail investors from the working class, but the existence of the network at this moment does not appear to be threatened by the stubborn and antagonistic people in charge of the world’s largest economy. Though politics will eventually become central to Bitcoin’s existence, there remains some distance between cryptocurrency and public policy discussions today.
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