The Biden Presidency is underway.

[vyshka]

Sure, and then he will be primaried and hung out to dry.

[Alstein]

He’d have to win a Republican primary, and traditionally turncoats don’t do well in primaries.

WV Republicans will want a raving lunatic not a moderate Republican.

[Canuck]

Going back to polls, I wonder how accurate the polls are when you take into account that probably 1000 Republicans are dying every day more than usual.
Also, why not force a vote on something like voting rights even if it is destined to fail? Get people on the record as voting against it. Would it be too much of a loss of face to have a vote fail? Would it use up too much political capital? Are you not allowed to try the vote again?

[Enidigm]

The GOP has been both reflecting and empowered by the decline of the middle class post-globalization, and the average GOP voters are now more or less unable to distinguish political cause and effect. There’s probably a pretty large overlap between the kind of evangelical voter that is aggressively biblical but never actually reads the bible and the kind of voter that is aggressively GOP but never actually gets independent news except from trusted conservative sources.

This means the GOP seems to have boiled that frog experimentally until they’ve now determined that the public can’t distinguish the causes why a Democratic government is unable to function. So at this point they’re going to use the tools they have to sabotage the functioning of government… forever after.

The frustrating thing for me is that there seems to be a great willingness to put up with this by a lot of forces on the left that seem like they should be more appalled. And not to be all grandstanding, handwavy about it, but it seems like an echo of neo-liberalism’s concern about economic progress at the cost of political progress. If the 21st Century is going to be a century run by demi-authoritarian governments, the descendants of the neo-liberals seem more or less happy to put up with it, because disorder is worse than losing democracy, in name or in effect. That’s all well and good talking about some third world country, you understand. It’s suddenly a lot harder to hear when were talking about western nations. That unwillingness to confront political crisis with economic hardship is probably going to be the real schism in left reactions going forward to the breakdown of the political system.

[Alstein]

A lot of the Democratic power brokers won’t be that impacted by illiberal democracy, they’ll still be rich, and they’ll accept being the managed opposition.

[scottagibson]

Why it’s important to keep Manchin in the tent, no matter where he’s pissing.

Robert Greenwald

Control of the Senate matters.

[Matt_W]

@scottagibson

Why it’s important to keep Manchin in the tent, no matter where he’s pissing.

Yeah, I’m confused about the intent of Psaki’s message too.

The reality is that you just won’t be able to pass legislation more progressive than your 50th vote in the Senate, no matter who that is. Manchin being that 50th vote is better than Susan Collins being that vote. Machin may only vote with progressives 60% of the time, but Collins only does about 25% of the time.

[Thrag]

Well the market reaction to Manchin’s move hasn’t exactly been positive. Good thing he was so worried about hurting the economy.

[Enidigm]

@Enidigm

The Democrats have for too long accepted duplicity and denigration in order to cling onto to what little power they have, to retain some power and keep the wolves at bay.

@Matt_W

The reality is that you just won’t be able to pass legislation more progressive than your 50th vote in the Senate, no matter who that is. Manchin being that 50th vote is better than Susan Collins being that vote. Machin may only vote with progressives 60% of the time, but Collins only does about 25% of the time.

Not that anyone cares but this is literally what I said like 10 posts above.

Anyway at some point Democrats are going to have to stand by some kind of principle and fail in the short term, because the conservatives are standing by principles - rather scary, bad principles - and liberals can’t seem to understand why, because fear underlies everything liberal people have when sewing with politics.

[legowarrior]

Let’s talk about BBB, the GDP, and Manchin… - YouTube

Just because Beau always seems to have a good take on these matters.

[Matt_W]

@Enidigm

Anyway at some point Democrats are going to have to stand by some kind of principle and fail in the short term, because the conservatives are standing by principles - rather scary, bad principles - and liberals can’t seem to understand why, because fear underlies everything liberal people have when sewing with politics.

I’m not sure, exactly, what your prescription here is in pragmatic terms. What would this look like?

I’m not sure what the statement about fear means either. I think it’s possible to characterize any pragmatic agenda as “fearful”, but I don’t think that’s a useful characterization. It doesn’t provide any useful insight. It’s just a meaningless pejorative. Sometimes it’s worth being afraid. More often, fear isn’t, at all, the primary driver of Democrats’ agenda.

[Enidigm]

I think triggercut mentioned a few weeks ago elsewhere during the election the worry that Democrats need to figure out who, exactly their constituency is.

What I mean by fear is this. Imagine Democrats have 100% control of the country and can pass anything they want. What does that look like?

Now imagine - or not really imagine - the world today where Democrats can’t pass anything. If Democrats can’t actually do anything, than why do you need power. What are afraid of losing I’d the Republicans take over? And how many of those perfect world policies are you willing to set on the chopping block and sacrifice to save those other things?

And then having done that, setting both piles and measuring them, what’s really motivating you in the balance? Does climate change really matter, or is it expendable? Does abortion really matter or can we let that one go? What about racial justice, ect? At some point when do you plant those stakes and make a stand?

Or is it never that point, that because one decides not to decide, a never ending spiral of compromise and best of bad situation thinking, clinging on to this and letting that go, watching things get worse but having no answers and no solutions, always reacting and never initiating, ect?

[scottagibson]

@Enidigm

Now imagine - or not really imagine - the world today where Democrats can’t pass anything . If Democrats can’t actually do anything, than why do you need power. What are afraid of losing I’d the Republicans take over? And how many of those perfect world policies are you willing to set on the chopping block and sacrifice to save those other things?

I mean, this isn’t true, The Democrats have passed things in this session; good things. If
Republicans were in charge, those things would not have passed. If Republicans were in charge, those appointments would not have been approved. If Republicans were in charge, those executive actions would not have happened.

[scottagibson]

If we had any doubt that this guy was a conservative…

b-boy bouiebaisse

“I’m worried people might do X. I mean, I would!”

[Matt_W]

@Enidigm

At some point when do you plant those stakes and make a stand?

There’s no central organizing committee in the Democratic party that can make these decisions. It’s politics, which in a democracy reflects competing concerns vying for resources. The GOP has this too, e.g. GOP pols would generally happily pen pro-immigration policy if they weren’t constrained by their constituencies. Not only that, but there are two problems with a “core concerns” strategy:

1. Democrats really do need their whole coalition so can’t really carve it up.
2. There’s no way to actually arrange a trade. Democrats can’t say: “We’ll give up on abortion if you evangelicals will now vote Democrat.” That won’t work. Evangelicals identify as strongly anti-Democrat. They won’t trust Democrats to follow through and there’s no good reason for them to abandon the GOP.

[Enidigm]

Obviously, but what I mean in this particular situation is whether it’s worth chastising Manchin for bad faith negotiation.

[CLWheeljack]

@scottagibson

“I’m worried people might do X. I mean, I would !”

The excessive detail of “hunting trips” is hilarious and telling.

[Enidigm]

Oh I mean I agree, but at some point Democrats have to stand for something other than Not Them. Being the coalition of everyone else has big problem. The GOP has no problem forcing conformity from its members in a way the Dems really have neither capacity nor desire to.

The whole “trade” thing wasn’t really what I had in mind. The idea is something like “how many Manchin will I put up with to save X”. If it means no new taxes ever again, to save X and get the Manchins on board, then so be it. What’s worth sacrificing all your principles to save? What I fear is that the fear of the GOP will eventually turn into the idea that there’s nothing worth dying on that hill over, just a never ending series of retreats because of the fear of the GOP having power is greater than any particular policy at all.

If we have to give up abortion to keep out the GOP, so be it. If we have to give up tax policy, so be it. Climate change is out the window. Environmental policy is and all, but not today. We’d like to stand up for freedom worldwide, but honestly, that’s expensive. Ect

[Matt_W]

@Enidigm

the fear of the GOP having power is greater than any particular policy at all.

But on the other hand, the GOP having power is actually worse than no policy success. Obviously, the two aren’t independent: lack of policy success might translate into electoral losses (though I have zero faith in the public in this regard.) But if I have to choose between the GOP getting power and Democrats being legislatively hamstrung, I choose the latter every time.

[Enidigm]

So… it is fear that governs the Democrats, like I said.