I agree, you don’t talk it, you just do it.
McConnell has said he is open to an infrastructure bill, and there are good political reasons to do it. McConnell doesn’t have control over how Manchin and/or Sinema vote. If Biden can get them on board, the bill gets passed, if he doesn’t it fails.
OK, McConnell has said that he is open to an infrastructure bill*. He was also super onboard for a bipartisan 1/6 Commission, till he wasn’t because it became politically inconvenient for him in turn because the Crybaby Loser Trump bitched about it.
And of course I’m not talking about McConnell having control of Manchin and Sinema. I’m talking about him having sway over GOP Senators, of which 10 are needed (even with all the Dems on board) for the bipartisan bill to move to a yes/no. Until that cloture vote is done and on the record, that bipartisan bill isn’t happening, right? And if there aren’t ten GOP yes votes on cloture because they’re shocked, shocked to learn that Biden won’t sign the thing unless there’s a guaranteed follow-on Reconciliation bill with the big ol’ wishlist provisions/spending, the whole thing has been a waste of time, except possibly to demonstrate Biden and Manchin and Sinema’s bipartisan bona fides.
*Always in the abstract. The moment it’s perceived in OANN/Fox-land as a Dem win, NOPE.
Seriously, am I missing something here? I get @Timex’s point that it makes the GOP look bad to back out now, but when the hell has that stopped them before? They make up some bullshit talking points and go on the Sunday talk shows to explain how they were sadly bamboozled by those evil Dems, and thus had to reluctantly, with super-furrowed brows, withdraw their support. Problem solved.
Yeah, to state the obvious, if they can’t get the GOP to come on board with the proposal the group of 10 agreed to, Democrats will just take everything from that and shove it into the reconciliation bill and declare victory anyway.
Menzo
3327
It’ll be interesting to see Republicans embrace the “all public infrastructure spending is socialism” platform. It seems inevitable if only as a face-saving move for not voting even for the compromise.
Here’s hoping they can actually DO that, because if they don’t get some shit done that improves the average American’s life that they can point to, it’ll be 1994 and 2010 all over again (one hopes without a financial crisis this time).
I’m so fucking tired of a few careerist Dem fucks in Congress snatching defeat from the jaws of victory OVER and OVER again. Meanwhile the train barrels on down the track to the “bridge out” canyon of overt authoritarian ultra-plutocracy and environmental/climate devastation.
I’ve been arguing for over a month, that there will be a bipartisan infrastructure bill. The reasons haven’t changed, A. Biden wants one. B. It is in the political self-interest of Red/Purple Republicans to support it. I understand the skepticism and it is far from a done deal. The reasons to be optimistic is both Biden and Senators think it is going to happen. Yesterday, Thune said there will be more than 20 Republican votes. I figure the folks in the capitol know more than I do.
I sincerely hope my pessimistic skepticism is misplaced this time.
However, Mitch McConnell is an evil asshole who gives no fucks about anything but his own power and wealth (and maybe his family and friends), and will do whatever he can get away with if it preserves and protects those things, the country and almost all of its people be damned, so I won’t believe it till I see it.
No one saw this coming! /s
Standard GOP playbook: Unleash the fauxrage and watch the media treat it as credible.
I think the piece below gets it right, GOP had hoped that by agreeing to the bipartisan bill the corporate centrist Democrats wouldn’t go for a reconciliation bill, but when Biden called their bluff threatening to veto this bill if Democrats didn’t also pass reconciliation with his priorities their strategy blew up, so pass out the smelling salts. But, they know they can get away with being hypocritical, lying assholes because the beltway media largely lets them.
The “defund the police” slogan seems to have lost majority support among Black Americans as well.
Only 18% of respondents supported the movement known as “defund the police,” and 58% said they opposed it. Though white Americans (67%) and Republicans (84%) were much more likely to oppose the movement, only 28% of Black Americans and 34% of Democrats were in favor of it.
- When asked if they support the “Defund the Police” movement, 70% of all respondents opposed it, including a slight majority of Black Americans (52%). But when asked if they supported diverting some police funds to community policing and social services — the idea that launched the movement — 57% of all respondents endorsed the goal.
The last part of the Axios quote highlights the failure in sloganeering that occurred here.
A thread on how the far right does messaging. This kind of thing just does not work for the left.
It seems to me self-evident that when the truth is irrelevant - just say whatever makes your listener happy, or more likely with the GOP, frightened - it makes persuasion a lot easier.
The shitty part is, if he squawks about it enough, that puts the fear of God into wavering corporatist Dems in the House and Senate, et voilà the Reconciliation bill is gone.
THis is why we the Dem electorate to radicalize, things aren’t going to change until Dems start fearing the base the way Republicans do.
You want the Democrat base to become insane?
RichVR
3340
I dunno. If I was insane I wouldn’t be so scared of the future.
Well, no, not that. But clear that they will primary any mealy-mouthed idiots who still think that “whatever is good for General Motors Amazon/Google/Koch Industries/Wall Street/billionaires in general is good for America.”
CraigM
3342
I still celebrate the death of Dan Lipinski’s political career.
More of that please.
