Have I been reading my Twitter feed too much? Maybe! But I've gotten a little fatigued over the constant repetition from progressives about obvious political points. For example:
- Republicans will never compromise! Hasn't Biden learned this?
- Conservatives will call us socialists no matter what! Doesn't Biden get this?
- The only way forward is to ditch the filibuster! Why doesn't Biden understand this?
- Voters don't care about bipartisanship! They just want to get things done. Why does Biden keep talking about it?
- Etc.
I would just like to say that, in fact, Joe Biden and his political staff understand all of this. Trust me, they do. They might differ with you about how to handle it, but they get it. It's Politics 101.
My own guess is that Biden is pursuing a course designed to eventually persuade Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema that he's genuinely done his best and is unable to get Republican support for stuff they agree is necessary. At the least, this will allow a few things to pass on a partisan basis via reconciliation with their votes. At most, if Republicans overplay their hand, maybe they'll even agree to ditch the filibuster. You never know.
My own guess is that Biden is pursuing a course designed to eventually persuade Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema that he's genuinely done his best and is unable to get Republican support for stuff they agree is necessary.
Agreed. Wouldn't even be surprised if Manhin has demanded a full court press on attempts at bipartisanship.
This does seem right to me. And it means we're screwed. My best guess now is that the filibuster goes away right as Republicans take over congress.
Hope nobody was counting on social security. Or individual rights.
I have really gone back and forth on this one, and I think between your point and the "it's the only way to get anything done" point, I lean more toward yours. I hope today's filibuster can be the giant, blinking red symbol Manchin is looking for. If not, then that's that I guess.
Despite the fact that the party holding the White House usually loses seats in Congress during the mid-terms, usually is not always and I think 2022 bids fair to be one of the exceptions. The Republicans keep persistently shooting themselves in the feet, with Trump as chief marksman. The Big Lie plays well to the Republican base, but the Republican base just isn't a majority of the voting population, or anywhere near it.
Trump lost the 2020 election. It looks like he's going to turn the 2022 election into a referendum on the 2020 election and on Trump's "leadership" of the Republican Party. If he manages to do that, he will lose again, by a bigger margin.
Further, the Democrats are managing to get popular things done. They lost the 2010 mid-terms because it took a few years for people to come to appreciate Obamacare; in 2010 it was extremely unpopular because it was implemented very slowly and most of the benefits didn't become visible until 2014. This time, they have the American Recovery Act; people will remember receiving money, and I bet that quite a few people will remember Republican governors cutting off their extra UI benefits. If the Democrats can push the infrastructure bill through by this fall, the benefits of it will be visible by November 2022.
It would be great if they could get the For the People Act through as well, but voting rights just don't have the same effect on hearts and minds as money in the pocket does. Barring some major economic disaster between now and November 2022, the Democrats are in very good shape to strengthen their grip on Congress, and they only need to pick up two or three senators to finish off the filibuster.
If the Democrats hold the Garden State & Old Dominion governor's offices in this year's offyear elections, will be interesting how the lamestream media will manage to paint it as bad news for Biden's agenda & the Congressional Democrats in 2022.
Well argued. I tend to lean toward your position too. If the economy is doing well next year, as it appears likely, the Democrats have a good chance of beating the odds. But the Democrats have to continually beat up Republicans for having opposed every bill that could have benefited the American people has it is certain they will), and having no ideas of their own.
Senate math looks more promising than House, but even House math holds possibilities for Dems: GOP is holding fair number of districts won by Biden (due in no small part to the fact they they picked up seats last November in a general election where they lost the White House; that's a very rare occurrence indeed in US politics).
Dems obviously have to get out in large numbers. Not gonna hold my breath, but I will cross my fingers. And obviously the economy needs to cooperate.
If Dems get real lucky, maybe they wind up with House majority AND, say, 54 Senate seats, which gives them numbers to nuke or eviscerate filibuster. THEN we can get some reforms enacted in the nick of time. The real worry, for me, is the possibility of 2024 elections nullification.
We'll see. I personally think it's abundantly clear GOP is more devoted to filibuster rules than Democrats, because they know the procedure stands between them and their more extreme, more unpopular policy proposals (like, repealing Obamacare).
To me the big worry is election nullification in 2024. All worries pale beside that one. If GOP wins Congress in '24, won't matter if Biden rightfully wins election. And then all bets really are off. In THIS scenario GOP might well eviscerate social insurance, because there'd no longer be a reason to fear voter wrath. Because we'd no longer be a democracy.
The united states of amnesia............has one party, the property party with 2 right wings, republican ad democrat.
Gore Vidal
I think that Sinema and probably Manchin know that this is the game. And they need to convince their constituents/voters that Biden has done all he can. They need to create some drama around this.
I'm sure Biden knows all of this.
Kelly and Sinema have the same constiuents.
Yeah I think that explains Manchin. Sinema is just a narcissistic attention whore. She started out as a Green Party, get the politics out of politics poser.
I think there's a pretty convincing argument that could be made that Sinema very likely cast her 2020 vote for Hankins or Jorgenson, with a much less convincing case that Manchin voted for Trump.
(Conversely, Collins might well have voted for Biden, just to have someone for the GQP to run against in 2022.)
I think Manchin believes the only way to hold onto his seat is to play Republican Lite[1], and so must block any Democratic objective not covered by reconciliation rules in the name of bipartisanship (aka, appeasing wingnuts).
Sinema seems to think the Senate is a stepping stone to a cable news job, and will keep on blocking Democratic bills to keep getting herself publicity.
We are so screwed.
[1] never mind that the fascists will line him up against a wall along with all the other Democrats come the revolution
Manchin and Sinema are pretty conservative, and so are their constituents. There's no reason to suppose that they have any great enthusiasm for most of what the progressives are urging. So if Biden's plan is not to actually reach any agreement, but to convince Manchin and Sinema that the Republicans are crazy, that may be kind of risky: for all I know, they may decide that he is the crazy one. Or their constituents may decide that they are the crazy ones.
I wish the MSM were as smart as you are.
In other words, I wish the headline in the New York Times was not "Biden's spending plan biggest ever" but rather...
"Biden's spending plan would mark historic change to supporting middle class rather than super wealthy"
But then I'm old enough to think the NYT matters, and that's probably wrong. Or mostly wrong.
Even "biggest spending plan ever" is pretty misleading (in the sense of context-less) in that, as a percentage of GDP, federal spending was much higher during WW2. I mean, I bet in real terms the country spent a great deal more on blacksmith services than it did in 1793, but clearly this sector is vastly less important by any reasonable way to view it in 2021.
trust me, your condescension aside, the Twitter set understands this too.
assuming that Manchin, and Sinema, and the Republicans also understand what you’ve laid out, the question really is why you and Biden think that the best road forward in 2021 is to satiate the cable news, non-Twitter demographic with old school “bipartisanship”?
need an edit button - excuse my hasty prose.
Because a certain group of occasional voters finds political disagreements distasteful, ‘want everyone to work together’, and need to hear happy talk to be enticed to the polls.
Come now Kevin, surely you recognize the Resistance was supposed to become the Revolution?
Nah, the Twitter carping is not the Resistance but #OurRevolution, & much of that latter was previously Ron Paul's rLOVEution.
So I get that you think democracy is in general fine in this country (hope you're right but you're not) but even aside from that assuming Biden plays the long game what makes you think there will be time to do anything once he does convince them?
This is my only concern. Republicans are okay with junking democracy and using politically violent actors like the terrorist proud boys to seize full control of the party (Nevada) so that all those election officials you have so much faith are replaced or intimidated into to going along with election theft. The GA SoS is going wobbly, and the AZ legislature is stripping power from the SoS.
And the response from Dems is... nothing.
Obama Gets It, Folks. Trust Me.
Early indications are Biden is much more clear-eyed about GOP -- and the utter worthlessness of attempts at bipartisanship -- than Obama, don't you think? I believe the palpable difference between the two of them is that Obama actually thought bipartisanship was a viable path to substantive change and desirable political outcomes. Biden thinks it's BS and only does it for the Village Idiots in the media. Look at his first bill -- passed with nary a GOP vote AND quite gigantic (quite a bit larger than Obama's stimulus bill even adjusted for inflation, I believe). And he's trying to get several trillion more in spending through Congress via reconciliation.*
*It's possible Biden will fail at getting anything further passed, of course -- I don't have a crystal ball. But if that happens it's because he can't force Manchin to vote yes. It won't be because of any lack of understanding as to the odiousness and nihilism of the other party. At least that's how I see it.
In the end, it really doesn’t matter what Biden gets or doesn’t get. The Democrats asked people to vote for the and to put them in power with the promise of getting things done. But instead we’re told that the senators of our party value the filibuster and the friendship of their Republican colleagues above our agenda. The Democrats need for the approval and permission of Republicans is prioritized above the agenda.
The explanations are not relevant. Without aggressive, immediate, and decisive action on voting rights, the Democrats will lose the Congress in 2022 and Biden will not be able to remain in office after the 2024 presidential election without risking a civil war. The obstacles are in his own party and Biden’s either going to find a way to overcome them or else the party (and our democracy) are going to be destroyed.
I thought a very likely outcome was the GOP winning one or both of those Georgia Senate seats, and we'd at best be looking at a few small ball bills, with acting cabinet heads being relied on to run the government and zero judges confirmed. So, this is gravy for me at this point, although I'll reserve judgment until we see if either or both of Biden's major legislative proposals get to his desk. I didn't think the abolition of the filibuster was remotely likely, so I'm not disappointed in lack of a voting rights bill or DC statehood, or what have you.
I have no illusions about the danger the country's in, and I reckon there's a very strong chance our constitution dies in November, 2024. But it's not inevitable, not yet.
Leaving aside the voting rights protections that Democrats need to be enacting as necessary for the own survival, if for no other reason, I think it’s going to be very difficult for Democrats to campaign for the next several electoral cycles for the reason that I outlined. It hard to generate enthusiasm for electing Democrats when the insurmountable obstacles to implementing the party’s agenda are Democrats in the senate.
If the Democrats go into the midterms with little more than the relief bill and some small ball stuff, they’ll lose. And you can be absolutely certain that the Republicans will use their control of Congress far more effective than they Democrats have done.
As you say, none of this is inevitable. The Democrats may be headed over the cliff but if they change course they could do well in 2022 and 2024. But I just don’t see our senators as being capable of change and I no longer see my party as capable of acting to avert the looming disaster.
Agree.
So if Manchin and Sinema wait until the GOP has won control of the House and/or Senate before having their come to Jesus moment, what good does that do any of us or them?
I think Kevin is right about Biden but I do not think anyone is right about Manchin. His public utterances are those of a fool and therefore Occam's Razor says he is a fool. There is no way to "read" a fool; you cannot negotiate with him because he does not understand what you are asking him to agree to; you cannot motivate him because he does not understand the cause-and-effect relationships that you try to explain to him; you cannot predict what he will do or even hold a conversation with him, even about the weather, because you cannot have any idea what he perceives. Everyone who thinks they know what Manchin is thinking or planning or trading off is going to find out eventually that they were making a category error.
He's shown himself to be more of an extortionist than a fool, from past reports of what he has received. Maybe not quite quid pro quo, but one thing that I recall was that his wife got a pretty good government job before he capitulated on something.
And at least some polls have shown that many of Manchin's constituents were in favor of many of the things in Biden's proposed legislation, however conservative they are.
Sinema is just an exhibitionist whose cause changes frequently.
I would like to think Manchin is an extortionist. That would mean he has his price, and either he's named it or will name it, and of course Schumer and Biden have met / will meet it, and the rest is just tactics.
What I'm afraid of is, he's out of his depth, and he's playing coy -- and of course very much enjoying the attention, because like all of them, he's an attention-whore too -- but he has no real strategy, no plan for the endgame, and he'll end up getting bounced around like a ping-pong ball by people smarter than he. In that case, I would guess, the dominant survival instinct will kick in, and he'll basically duck all the hard decisions, pose a lot with guns, and depend on his family name to get him through the next election.
He's a Democrat who's been elected to statewide office multiple times in West Virginia. Manchin's a lot of things. But "fool" isn't one of them.
If he uses his vote to kill a reconciliation bill I'll join all reasonable people in calling for his scalp. But until that day comes, I'd rather have him in there than a Republican*. I also think there's a decent chance Dems could pick up multiple Senate seats in 2022. Under that scenario I'd still prefer one of WV's two Senate seats be held by a Democrat, even though at that point (thankfully) Dems would be less reliant on his vote (and I think there's a fair chance the filibuster would finally be eliminated or substantively reformed).
*His lack of help on the 1/6 commission legislation is truly infuriating, though, there's no doubt of that.
Agree, but what do you think Manchin could have done to get any more R votes for the 1/6 Commission?
What I meant was: if Manchin merely agreed to support exempting the bill from the filibuster (make up a new rule!), it would have passed. Maybe he'd need to convince Synema, too. I don't think any other Senate Dems were a problem.
The people who want Biden to be more aggressive and radical seem to have forgotten that even Democrats preferred him to Sanders and Warren in the 2020 primaries. Part of his message was in fact that he would try to be bipartisan. He has been more progressive than expected, in the direction of actually promising concrete things for most people, rather than upping partisan division. Barring major change by Manchin, Sinema and a few others, which is very unlikely, Democrats just do not have the power for what they say they want to do. Rhetoric and campaign ads will not change this.
If that’s the case, then little or none of the Democratic policy agenda will advance. And neither will the voting rights agenda. So the Democrats will be going into the 2022 midterms with only the COVID-19 recovery/stimulus bill to their credit (which credit the party has decided to share with the Republicans who voted against the legislation) and dramatically increased gerrymandering and voter suppression.
Basically, the Democrats will have succeeded in preserving the filibuster and the courtly pretentiousness of the Senate by probably at the cost of forever being the powerless minority party. And only if they’re lucky and the Republicans are merciful.
Who cares. Your point is irrelevant and it shows. Nobody wants your socially liberal nonsense boy. I would ask jews in the Democratic party who Augustus Belmont and NM de Rothschild are. Why part black Andrew Jackson served them and why Jews ran the transcontinental slave trade. Ask Schiff that boy.
When Larry David found out he was from a family of slave owning jews, his nostril flared and he realized who he really was.
Don't let your face tattoos do the talking for you.
Post Malone did nothing to deserve this comparison.
@ Monty
Hot take: Post Malone is the best male pop singer to come out of the USA in ages. Killer voice.
Barring major change by Manchin, Sinema and a few others, which is very unlikely, Democrats just do not have the power for what they say they want to do.
That's true for things like voting rights, DC statehood and judicial reform. I think for priorities like those, the best Democrats can hope for is they emerge with 53-54 Senate seats in 2022, and are able to eviscerate or at least substantially reform the filibuster. Obviously they'd need to keep the House, too, to get anything done. It's a tall order but not an impossible one (I personally think winning BOTH Georgia Senate seats was a taller order).
But Democrats absolutely do have the power to greenlight several trillion more in helpful spending unless Manchin/Sinema truly go off the rails. They've got an extremely helpful parliamentarian's ruling all lined up...
Firs things first: get two more big spending bills to Biden's desk; continue to pull out stops to overcome pandemic; get the economy in good shape for 2022; focus with laser-like intensity on voter turnout; and get a big win in next year's midterms. THEN the critical task becomes the general election of 2024 (and preventing the GOP from staging a coup via election nullification). I think there's a fair chance the United States will lose its democracy. But it's not inevitable.
Are you still sticking to "the sky isn't falling" notion?
Not just on social media, I'm seeing lots of pundits going shrill with fire alarms on Democracy, and I'm just wondering if you think the country's soft middle will course-correct the nation in the midterms. Or, are we traveling down an exorable collision with permanent minority control and the rise of Authoritarianism that is ostensibly a democracy but, not.
I mean to make you lay down your marker now, of course.
All of you critical of Kevin here or his best guess about how Biden is trying to
play his hand, other than working privately and publicly to bring around Manchin and Sinema enough to at least get their votes for reconciliation bills, what exactly are his options ? There is a longer game which is to try to change the rhetoric around the role of government, that is, to finally banish the ghost of St Ronnie, so that in the future we can get more done but I think Biden and company area playing that one pretty well too. We are in a predicament here with one major party and at least 40 percent of the population in "my way or the highway" mode - at best. We've been here once before and it ended in Civil War. I don't think Biden is Buchanan but it is a dangerous time.
Both have surnames starting with B.
Both born in Pennsylvania.
Both members of the Democrat Party.
Both followed an AODA sufferer into the White House (Buchanan followed drunkard Pierce; Biden followed amphetamine reptile Trump).
Both had questionable first marriages or betrothals.
It's the Democratic Party, not Democrat Party. Let's not borrow our nomenclature from right wingers intending it as an epithet.
Yes, we agree, a dangerous time.
What Biden is doing reminds me of the long game that Pelosi played by delaying the impeachment for the immediately obvious crimes of Trump. I hope it turns out better.
Not that an earlier attempt at impeachment would have fared any better. The Republican Party just didn’t care about Trump’s crimes. They thought he had the key to winning elections with a minority of the voters; and still think they can’t win without demonstrating unswerving loyalty to him.
Biden and his people also understand that the issue that will get Manchin off the fence on the filibuster is one that matters to Manchin's constituents, not to progressives or even to most other Democrats.
I don't know what that issue is. Conceivably it could be elements of the mega-infrastructure bill that mean support for what they want for their own families. Maybe that issue doesn't even exist at all. But I do think Biden is searching for it, because that's the issue that's going to force the gqp senate finally to decide whether they're staying all-in with trump or thinking about their general-election voters. McConnell seems determined to force this too because of the way he's sworn to kill everything Biden wants, no matter how good it might be for the country.
Searching for it is a deep dilemma and major frustration and not just for progressives. Even with a 5-seat Dem majority this would be a really hard needle to thread. At 50-50 it's excruciating.
IMO the fundamental dilemma is this: how do you base your case against the gqp on the (clearly valid) charge that they're willing to blow everything up, rules and procedures and laws mean nothing to them, they'll do anything they can no matter how vile and unthinkable and antithetical to and destructive of democracy in order to get their way, and proceed to get around them by blowing up some of the key rules yourself? That even applies to something as deeply tainted and undemocratic as the filibuster.
When you blow up a rule, you have to have a reason that's strong enough to justify it to everybody, from radicals to thumbsuckers to mossback institutionalists to that person in the mirror. If Manchin can be persuaded to help, it'll have to be something he can give his constituents (and his conscience, to the extent that that's in play). I have no idea what moves Sinema.
None of this is to say that Dems shouldn't be hammering the hell out of the gqp all the time on the 1/6 commission votes and on Greene and on screwing over the ones Leona Helmsley called the little people. They should be hanging this stuff around their necks 24/7, anything that might have a chance to stick. But that isn't the same question as trying to keep Manchin on side.
Definitely agree with this (I'm somewhat sorry to say). WV is now the third Whitest state in the country, generally to very rural, and comparatively poor. WVers in the main don't give a damn about S.1 or 1/6 or the filibuster or the Future of Democracy or any other highfalutin' Washington stuff.
I'm hoping Manchin realizes that their very strong practical streak means that if he brings home a whole train-load of bacon from an infrastructure bill then they'll smile big and pat him on the back and keep him and his cronies right where they are, and that he's already got his price and even maybe named it, and the rest is just tactics and timing.
WV has also been in a slump since 1959 from economic pov. Coal automation, competing western coal and now coal replacement has killed their economy. Democrats had a heck of a run there after the GD, but outside the northern parts, simply don't connect with economic policy anymore. It's a neoliberal fossil fuel state now. I could go into southeast ohio, talk up NG as the fuel that will power electric cars, raise your testosterone and lower breasts cancer, make major gains for the Dems, but WV???? Dead.
Jay Rockefeller was a long time ago.
(Funny how the GQP only ever brings up Robert Byrd when speaking to West Virginny's Democrat past.)
The filibuster is inside baseball. Most voters don't understand it and don't care; they want to see results, and blame the president when they don't get them.
More than those 2. When it comes to infrastructure, Manchin is a ally. His problem is WV started moving more neoliberal by the 90's as their economy has sucked since 59. Democrats coming on their side after the coal wars during the 70's slowed the decline, but a bad economy over time will hurt the party in charge. Kentucky and Missouri imo are opposites in this regard. Both have become to hate neoliberalism. Stop the social liberal nonsense and bourgeois leg humping and Democrats would make big gains in those states. Call Hawley a jew boy and watch Republicans squirm in hatred.
Lets also note, Biden is seriously trying to win back Reagan Democrats in the north via economic policy. He is trying to do everything in his power to get production jobs shored on the US. Unlike Obama who tried overly large grand designs, Biden will take each issue separately. Obama's need for self-absorbed "large plans" didn't work. If he would have tackled issues like China steel dumping individually in the early 2010's, instead of trying to wrap everything into a huge deal like the TPP(which got politically destroyed by corporations and Republicans lackeys trying to extract favors), Trump would have never been.
Aka, Biden gets game theory. My guess TPP's part with Canada and EU to restrict access to Chinese steal will happen and THEN he will remove the steel tariffs. Big winner up in Ohio and Penn which are heavily steel narrative legacy really helped Trump with just not steel workers, but auto workers as well(which is funny since they are hurt by steel tariffs. Worker solidarity baby!!!).
I think the obviously frustrating point, and the one that many seem to find difficult to accept, is that there are no simple solutions.
We have a government which, as I understand it, is designed to turn legislating into a slow grind. The annoying downside is how hard it can be to get anything done. But one bright side is that it can also be difficult to repeal (the Democrat’s) achievements: the New Deal, Great Society, and Obamacare all still exist.
Another fascinating question about our system of government: were we lucky to get rid of trump? Or was that due to a strength in our system? Why has a place like Israel been unable to get rid of Netanyahu even though, as far as I’m aware, he hasn’t actually won a parliamentary majority in their last 4-5 elections?
So the frustrations are understandable , and the concerns are certainly legitimate. But it seems to me like we tend to overlook potentially encouraging signs and developments as well.
And the nihilistic apocalypticism of pretty much all news media at this point does not help. Threats to Democracy are real: but if I see one more headline, or read one more editorial, about the imminent collapse of our free and open society: honestly I might lose it. Concern is good. NonStop hair-on-fire lamentations of imminent and inescapable doom may simply wind up doing mote harm than good. And Biden seems to know that.
Trump did well with Reagan/LaFollatte Dems. So yeah, you were lucky to get rid of him. I never have seen a party 2014-20 Democratic party, campaign like they do. Too much I-95 east coast liberal nonsense.
Every system has its built-in frustrations and imbalances. With us, it's that slow, grinding process that makes legislating extremely hard and whose inertia protects some political/geographic minorities at the expense of ethnic and economic and other geographic minorities, within a country of vast extent and tremendous variety but still with internal free trade and free migration.
In Britain and Canada you have essentially parliamentary tyrannies, and increasingly just prime ministerial tyrannies where parliament is a reality show and the government imposes its will regardless through caucus discipline. Canada lately has even been using Orders in Council much more and Boris tried that himself near the Brexit endgame. Both of them share with us an essentially two-party system of geographical constituencies and plurality-vote winners. In all three of our countries this should encourage broad-based coalitions that breed even more internal friction inside the parties. Which may encourage ministerial and presidential fiat.
Germany is multi-party, which means a lot of opinions get represented, and it's only partly based on constituencies, which makes the representation more fair and more ideological. But they have a lot of the same federalism issues we do, and they're further skewed because Bavaria is both outsized and idiosyncratic.
The biggest problem in Israel, as I understand it, is that although like Germany it's multi-party, unlike Germany they don't set a threshold proportion of the vote a party needs in order to get seats. So they have a lot of parties with very few seats each, which makes coalitions hard to build and encourages parties to be focused on personalities. And from what I've seen, all Israeli politics now is about Netanyahu one way or another. Pretty much the way trump wants all politics in this country (all life, really) to be about him.
Count me on the side that says we were very lucky to have tossed him out. Just on the numbers, I've seen estimates that 40-some thousand votes in certain places going the other way would have put a 7-million-vote loser back in the White House. That's a profoundly dangerous possibility in itself.
It came about mostly because of the inertia in our system that privileges acreage over people when said acreage is organized as a state. Normally that's tended to produce foot-dragging on things that urban and ethnically diverse areas need, and elevate corporate interests over popular ones.
This time, though, that imbalance was instead the vehicle that was ridden into power by an out-and-out tinpot reactionary and a movement with a strong tendency to violence. That's why we were lucky to have seen both a big popular vote win and a convincing electoral college margin last fall. We all know that republicans can get pasted at the polls and still win the EC because they have that acreage advantage. Dems need either big popular-vote wins to gain the EC, or third-party efforts that are very strong with the usually gqp-voting acreage.
I'm still extremely worried. I agree, though, that verbal apocalyptics probably doesn't do all that much good, least of all coming from the White House.
One way to look at what Biden's doing is that he's opposing trump's nostalgia for a phony past that never really was, by offering his own very different nostalgia that's also familiar to older voters, a nostalgia for how we used to talk and think about the country. That may be the right way to go-- certainly he's being consistent about it, and the consistency is good. I hope he's right.
Up to the state parties to galvanize support against I-95 liberals. Get 18-49 group into a vision that isn't "them" coastal elites and expand acreage. No more Pelosi. The house needs new leadership badly. The DNC delegating candidates down to state party decisions is huge. No more affirmative action choices like Greenfield or that Iranian chick in Maine.
No doubt Biden "gets" all those baby issues. Politics 101, as stated. But unless he hits something out of the park before the 4th of July, by the fall it's going to be too late. Like Obama did during his first year, Biden's got an opportunity right now, and for just a little while longer. He knows the basics, and he probably knows all the advanced poli-sci tactics at his disposal, too. The questions I have are: 1) does he know how to use them, and 2) does he want to do more than just be a janitor cleaning up the Washington of the messes left behind by Republicans. Looking at his track record; eight years as Obama's VP; it sure seems like he's got little more that he's willing and able to do besides custodial work. Never too late for him to change, so I hope I'm wrong.
Obama made two large policy errors. One was pushing for HC reform when it wasn't a high voter priority. 2nd was giving concessions to corporations for TPP passage. Which came off looking bad. Both blew up in the Democratic party face.
What about Biden? Does he have the ability to use the power he holds, whatever his past failures under Obama? Does he care one way or the other if he uses it or not? You barely scratch the surface of the failures of the Clinton/Obama era. Its prime failure was preventing Bush in the middle, like you know. And Biden was complicit in all of those failures. Hopefully he knows it and he realizes he's got one last chance to make it right for all of them: Democrats over the past thirty (30) years.
"If Republicans overplay their hands .... "
If?
Me?
I don't even want to be in the same zip code as Matt Gaetz's fingers.
I’d like to add one other thing: Oliver Willis made the point this morning that you can't keep telling people "just vote, just vote" and then when they vote -- during a pandemic -- and deliver you into power, you shrug and say ‘we can't do it, cause the rules, guess you just have to vote some more.’it's not going to hold. it just cannot.”
Last night, I was watching one of my favorite cooking shows on YouTube and the commercial was Chuck Schumer pleading for me to sign a petition and give money to the Democrats. And it occurred to me that the President, Speaker of the House, and the majority leader are all Democrats. And the people standing in the way of the Democratic agenda and choosing not to oppose the Republicans war against democracy were all Democrats,too.
Unless the Republicans really seriously, massively overreach they’re going to almost certainly take both the House and the Senate in 2022 and force a choice between a Trump restoration and civil war in 2024. All of which will the the result of choices made by Democrats.
Lol, capital markets collapsing and Republicans losing power as a result would end your civil war fast. Your not getting it moron. You take certainty way too literally when there is no absolute path.
Donald Trump lolz, I mean are you retarded. He is a jew like you, ya know.
You also need to realize that the stuff you want the Dems to pass is not popular with voters. Even the 15$ min wage was considered too much, to fast. Your Trump restoration crap is lolz retarded. If the Democratic party picks up seats in 2022, you shall never post here again.
Odds favor a GOP House majority via the midterms, but not strongly so (but sure, it's early yet) given that they made pickups in 2020 and are therefore holding onto multiple seats won by Biden. And, again, it's early yet, but plenty of analysts believe Democrats are reasonably strong favorites to hold and/or expand Senate majority.
In any event, regardless of what happens next year, 2024 will decide the fate of our democracy. Democrats could conceivably lose next year but win in '24. Democrats could also conceivably win next year but lose Congress in '24 -- in which case it won't matter if Biden by rights wins an EC majority. Congress in that case would award the presidency to Trump/DeSantis/Candidate X.
If the Democrats lose the Congress in 2022 it’s abundantly clear that a Biden victory will not be certified by the Republican Congress and that any Biden victory in a state with a GOP governor or legislature will be overturned by an audit.
Again, it doesn’t matter what Biden knows or believes. Either the Democrats overcome the senators in the party who are protecting Republican efforts to corrupt the electoral process or they are going to lose the Congress and then the White House.
The Democrats are unlikely to be able to hold on to their senate majority, let alone pick up seats, if the Republicans control the process and have a thumb on the electoral scales. They will save the filibuster and the notion that Democrats need Republican permission for whatever they want to do, but they’ll likely never control Congress or the White House again.
If the Democrats lose the Congress in 2022 it’s abundantly clear that a Biden victory will not be certified by the Republican Congress
Not following you. It's the Congress elected in 2024 that certifies (or fails to certify) a candidates Electoral College win in the 2024 presidential election. If Democrats lose control of either chamber next year, legislative progress comes to a halt, yes. But they could still win in 2024. (Maybe you're convinced state legislatures simply won't allow the purple states they control to award their electoral votes to Biden? I think that's a risk, but I don't think it's an inevitability; if this is an unavoidable eventuality, there's no sense in even discussing this stuff: we'd all best start formulating plans to emigrate).
I think we’re making a lot of assumptions about how things work that really operate on sufferance and are not self enforcing. Whether it’s the incoming or outgoing Congress that votes to certify the election will be decided by Mitch McConnell not an academic reading of the constitution.
What’s more, it’s unlikely that even the most power wave election will be capable of dislodging the GOP from its gerrymandered 2002 gains. Even Matt Yglesias, normally a beacon of complacency, sees the dangers of backpedaling on voting rights and gerrymandering: “The reason I am basically stuck on redistricting is that it’s very likely that even if Democrats have one of the best midterm performances ever they will still lose the gerrymandered House and all the gerrymandered swing state legislatures, setting up 2024 election theft.” As a practical matter, if the Democrats can’t get it together they’re finished—the referees aren’t going to penalize the GOP and give the government to the Democrats because the Republicans didn’t play fair.
I am actually exploring places to land. I’ve got friends and acquaintances who live or once lived in authoritarian countries like Russia. Life goes on but it’s never quite the same. It’s “fiddler on the roof” territory.
The problem is not with republicans or democrats the problem is US
We refuse to see things that need to be seen
republicans believe in QAnon because it suits their purpose. They LIKE outrageous stories and conspiracy theories. It's the beauty salon gossip on steroids and we eat it up
Then there's the Democrats who set the bar so high for themselves because in all honesty they thought that Mitch McConnell would still be majority leader. It rook a runoff election in Georgia and lowered turnout for the run off to give the DEMs the majority and they still don't know how to use it.
Retaking the Senate from where they WERE was gonna be hard and they weren't planning on it either. They thought they would be close. Now the biggest enemy they seem to face is not republicans but conservative DEMs.
If Cal Cunningham in NC and Gideon in Maine had won the conversation would not be about Manchin and Sinema - they could \vote conservatively on every issue to keep their voters happy
But the worst outcome happened - a tie. Now those conservative DEM voters are wannabe republicans. Their supporting autoritative Trump and the GQP.
Manchin and Sinema didn't change. We did.
Give the DEMs a 3 seat Senate Majority and a house plurality and watch what happens. The DEMs become one big happy family.
As a NC resident let me say this.
I would LOVE to have either Manchin or Sinema as my senators. Heck I'd take them as a pair. You folks are brutal in your criticism when they represent the MINORITY of the DEM party - conservative democrats. Big tent my ass - progressive democrats discriminate when they don't get their way. They turn on their own. I'd take a person who votes 75% with their party over my senator Thom Tillis any day. We're lucky to have Manchin and Sinema and I hope we get more conservative DEMs from flyover country.
Joe Biden DOES get it. We NEED both of them in the Senate but we need to get MORE, not less of Democrats like them
Guthman is the type of progressive authoritarian you are describing
Mid-
I sometimes don't get the Democrat party.
Big tent
All welcome
Until it comes to policy over party. Then when Manchin and Sinema was negotiation, want bipartisanship WE RESORT to calling them names and vilifying them
The problem boils down to what the parties stand for
Democrats are supposed to be inclusive
Republicans march in lock step because to them its party and power over policy.
Republicans are not worried about sounding hypocritical and McConnell knows how to play the room and the press. They "tar" the democrats with demeaning slogans that somehow stick with the general public. (Defund the police being the latest example)
Manchin and Sinema are conservative DEMs from conservative GOP states. Recognize it, embrace it.
There ARE conservative DEMs, There have been Dems from flyover country. Gephart, Mosely-Braun, Benson
We act like we want a big tent party then act out against anyone who goes against the DEM party.