It’s true that I oversimplified. Even if we’re all rooting for Joe and Kamala and Nancy and Chuck to make responsible, adult governing look good, there’s still a wide range of individual prioritization and passion for the content of the actual bills.
CraigM
5926
The fly in that particular ointment is, however, that other ways have been tried and failed as well. The last 30 years have basically had progressives play good little soldiers with little more than token nods and angry reprisals when they step out of line. It was only when progressives, en masse, decided to ignore the party controllers and actively primary out incumbents that they saw any voice or gain at the table.
You had dems like Dan Lipinski not because they represented the views of their constituents, but because the party machine dictated they would remain the rep of choice. It was only when progressives thumbed their noses at the party and primaried him out anyhow that things changed.
And that’s why you see things like the strategy used with the BBB and BIP bills. Because that has been the only thing in over 30 years to actually get a more progressive voice out there. You have to remember the ACA fight, and how it was constantly watered down from the right (while gaining no votes from the right). There is some strong feelings, not without merit, that Dems should have gone full ‘fuck you’ to the GOP and crafted a stronger left bill because the process as made only weakened their big legislative win. The ACA did some good things, but because of the appeal to centrism and bipartisanship did less good than it may have otherwise.
And that was it. There was no other big legislative win. Then the tea party rolled in, and we know what followed.
So at a tactical level it is very hard to argue the old ways worked. That playing good soldier worked. What could have changed if the left wing of the party had stood stronger and louder in 2009? We don’t know. Is it possible nothing materially is different in the final bill? Perhaps, but I somehow doubt that. Is it possible that a stronger bill that doesn’t have some of the carve outs serves the people better and therefore leads to electoral wins? Again possible, but it is impossible to test.
But at the end of the day we know that what was done did not work. We know playing good soldier all the time does not lead to the kind of progressive legislation needed. So it is hardly a bad idea to try something new. That this strategy failed to yield a win is unfortunate, but it is better to be seen fighting and trying than to casually roll over once more. If the outcome is the same anyhow it is the right play for that reason alone.
Timex
5927
The problem is that we aren’t talking about “standing strong” against the GOP in this case… we’re talking about eating our own, and sabotaging/delaying bills that the progressives themselves want.
For instance, even in this forum, we had people calling the BIP “the GOP bill”.
That wasn’t the GOP bill. The fact that they got a handful of GOP members to vote for it didn’t change that it was a Democratic bill that achieved a bunch of stuff that they wanted to do.
But the infighting and messaging pushed by Progressives had actually convinced progressive members of this very forum of the (totally absurd) idea that the BIP was somehow a gift to the GOP. This, in turn, muted the celebration that SHOULD have taken place when it was passed.
The fact that the BBB had everything the progressives could possibly ever want doesn’t change the fact that BIP was a huge legislative win for the Democrats, and all the infighting obfuscated that. Not only to the independents and moderates, but to progressives themselves… They somehow came out of all this feeling that passage of the BIP was a LOSS, when it totally wasn’t. The passage of the BIP was a huge win for the Progressives.
Enidigm
5928
The Progressive Caucus way of pushing is basically the right politics - for pushing a liberal district even more liberal. It’s not going to push a system where they have even numbers vs the entire opposition.
Ie, demanding to couple makes total sense… when you have a supermajority of Democrats. And maybe the problem is they’re seeing it from that point of view, because the most progressive politicians tend to be from the most solid liberal areas.
Timex
5929
There seemed to be a pretty major disconnect between the progressives and the folks they were trying to negotiate with, like Manchin.
As an example, there was that thing where Bernie Sanders ran direct ads in West Virginia on the issue.
This was straight up dumb. West Virginia voters aren’t the progressive base that supports Bernie Sanders. In 2016, he beat clinton, but that’s largely because Clinton was absolutely demonized by the GOP, and even democratic voters in WV are influenced by that stuff.
In 2020, Sanders only pulled 12% of the vote in the democratic primary.
Progressivism isn’t real popular in WV, so trying to “take it to the streets” like this was just a terrible miscalculation. It likely harmed their goals, by essentially putting Manchin into a position where coming together on stuff would be seen as “giving in to the progressive left” which would have straight up hurt him in his own reelection chances. It was a dumb play by Sanders, and it showed some kind of fundamental failure to understand that shit is different when you get outside the deep blue places.
Plus, there is also this thing that Manchin isn’t up for reelection until 2025. Fucking stuff up isn’t going to impact him. It’s going to impact the Democrats up in 2022… and guess what? If the Dems lose control of things, then the Progressives go back to the gutter, where no one will give even one shit about what they think. They’ll have zero influence again.
The Progressives really should be absolutely dedicated to the dems holding power, because that’s what put them into the catbird seat. The members of the progressive caucus themselves have essentially zero worries about getting reelected, but their power (and Manchin’s) comes entirely from this super slim democratic majority.
Actual views of West Virginians on the BBB proposal.
wahoo
5931
Gosh how did polling from for a lefty advocacy group not move the needle for Manchin? Let’s see if there is other, more recent data from the more centrist the daily kos when some tradeoffs are mentioned.
don’t cherry pick data from lefty advocacy groups and be surprised when pols dont’ listen to them.
This is the best example of a neutral question I have seen in my entire time on this earth.
Gosh, I wonder where the leftist slant is in those polling questions? Can you point to it, please?
You prefer polling questions that omit any facts about the proposals entirely, and instead ask people to choose between competing vague impressions of them?
In any event, it’s hardly crazy for anyone to run ads touting the package in West Virginia. It might be true that Manchin doesn’t give a fuck what his constituents want, but it strikes me as more charitable to suppose that he at least occasionally does.
Timex
5934
Arguing about whether you could persuade west virginians to support elements of the BBB plan misses the fact that Bernie Sanders is extremely unpopular in West Virginia, and even if you can persuade the population to support your policies, Bernie Sanders is not the guy to do it.
Matt_W
5935
Is he? He handily won the Democratic primary there in 2016. He lost in 2020, but he’d already suspended his campaign by that point.
Timex
5936
Yes he is.
He was propped up by Trump supporters.
There are some crazy things in West Virginia, when you look at the data… like the fact that a majority of the registered voters are Democrats.
But, at the same time, Trump won WV with 68% of the vote.
He was absolutely crushed in 2020, with only 12% of the vote.
Alstein
5937
A convicted felon in 2012 got a 40% of the primary vote in west virginia from his prison cell.
In 2016 a lot of Bernie’s support was folks who were against Hillary more than for Bernie.
Timex
5938
Funny thing, in 2008, I think Clinton beat Obama bad… and I’m 99.999% sure it was because he was Black.
If you look at the data from 2016 though, something like a full 40% of the Sanders supporters in exit polls said that they were going to vote for Trump in the main event. Their goal was pretty much just to fuck over Clinton, who at that point was associated with Obama, and who the conservative machine was in full force against.
Strollen
5939
I think the infrastructure Bill is an A- bill, badly needed by the country. Depending on what gets included in BBB, it is in the range of C- to C+. For me the cons almost outweigh the pros. If I felt we needed more fiscal stimulus, I’d give it a B grade, but we don’t. To me the best reason to pass it is because Biden needs the political win, which frankly isn’t a great reason to pass it.
So I’m mad at the progressives for delaying the bill because I think it cost Biden political capital and the message of all the great things that Biden did in getting an infrastructure bill (something that Trump failed to do in 4 years) got lost in the fight over the BBB price tage.
Strollen
5940
Dude, you really have to stop believing polls of Republicans. It is pretty much established that Republicans lie, period. In fact, you’ve made countless posts to that effect.
Polls have consistently, underestimated Republican strength for the last 5 years. When a WV voter gets a pollster, most will simply hang up. The rest will lie especially to progressive pollsters. It is too bad that filesforprogress.ord didn’t ask WV their preference for President, because I’m sure it would have shown the preferred presidential candidate was a young Muslim transgendered, non-binary person who supports banning guns, coal plants, smoking, billionaires, and high school football.
There’s a difference between “WV democratic primary voters preferred Biden to Sanders” and “Sanders is extremely unpopular amongst WV democrats”. By your logic , Buttigieg got 1.8% of the primary voters in WV, and so he must be absolutely hated by WV democrats.
Timex
5942
I mean, you’re free to believe that west virginians are really craving a self described socialist.
Again, the majority of registered voters are actually Democrats… But they are also huge Trump supporters.
The Democrats in West Virginia are not like you, man.
And yeah… Pretty sure the west virginians probably DO hate the gay urban professional guy.
Matt_W
5943
He had already suspended his campaign. He wasn’t in the race anymore. Biden had already effectively won. It was over. And he got 12% of the primary vote. It’s true that West Virginians in general probably are not big Bernie fans. And maybe the socialist label now is an albatross among WV Democrats. But using this data to support your thesis is flawed.
Alstein
5944
I do think they would prefer a populist racist to a capitalist racist.
