2048

If it doesn’t work, then you’re no worse off than if you don’t try.

It’s not like 2009, where you’ve currently got full control and are wasting time by trying to work with them.

If you don’t work with them, you don’t get anything… so you might as well give it a shot.

2049

How do you get McConnell to allow this to come to a vote?

2050

In what fantasy world does Mitch McConnell allow anything of value to happen in the Senate in the next two years?

2051

The problem is, all the ‘reasonable’ Trump party senators are cowed by Moscow Mitch. Basically you deal with him, and no one else, and he’s not dealing.

2052

Mitch McConnel is going to literally nothing for the next 2 years. Why would he do otherwise? It’s not like the voters will hold the Republican senators accountable. Ever.

2053

Bring back earmarks, let senators trade horses so they can go back to their constitutencies with concrete gains to earn their votes, rather than pure, raw partisanship.

2054

So McConnell is the real president no one else?

2055

They don’t need anything to earn votes. They don’t care if their own people die off. And their own voters are too stupid to see the noose around their necks.

2056

Here’s what I said over on BF, with emphasis added for this discussion:

It’s early yet and the final outcome of this election is not fully known but the big picture here is a disappointing result that is nonetheless an improvement over the last 4 years. That’s the reality. It sucks, but it doesn’t suck as badly as a Trump win.

Here’s the likely next two years, assuming the current numbers bear out and Biden wins the Presidency but the Dems fail to take the Senate:

The Dems will use reconciliation and compromise to pass a single, extremely watered down “COVID relief bill” in the early months of 2020. It will be more than nothing but not much more. Having to compromise to pick up one or two GOP Senate votes will mean the bill is the weakest tea imaginable. This weak accomplishment will nonetheless be the major legislative accomplishment of 2021-2022. The courts may well water it down further. Biden will also take some executive actions, and the courts will likely water those down as well.

The upshot will be two years of more-than-zero-but-not-much-more-than-zero Dem accomplishments. Will that be enough to recover from COVID and the related economic problems? Maybe? The answer depends more on the progression of the disease and the medical/scientific answers to the disease than it does to politics, sadly.

Does that mean we are in a doom loop leading to massive Dem losses in 2022 and inevitable GOP victory in 2024? My view here is probably not inevitable. It depends on a lot of things that are not subject to political control.

I wish I had a better and more definitive view but my overall view is this: we didn’t win, but we also didn’t suffer a terrible defeat either. We either won a costly but small victory or maybe a suffered a narrow defeat that left both sides battered. The future involves further struggle without a clear indication of future victory or defeat.

We’re all stress and exhausted but the future involves fighting on. Period. Right now we should probably detox a bit and let the current counting finish and then gear up for the long struggle.

That’s it. Not defeatist. Not triumphant. Bloodied, exhausted, disappointed. But also unbowed. Not ready to throw the towel in yet.

2057

It’s shocking how much bipartisanship was lost in Congress after earmarks were removed.

2058

Oh, campaigns will always rely on internal polling data to distribute resources. I meant more Democratic voters. If all of those hours spent refreshing and staring at 538 went instead towards volunteering then the outcome may have been different. I know COVID made that difficult this cycle, but next cycle hopefully the opportunity for actual participation in the political process will become feasible again.

2059

The Republicans had the House and Senate and for two year could do as they wish. Biden if elected won’t have that. I think Dems would be a lot happier if the race were close and they won the Senate. But they didn’t, and without it, it’s hard to accomplish big goals like immigration reform, health care reform, deal with global warming, etc.

2060

This is far more likely and not much of a stretch.

2061

Well, if Biden is able to hold on, and Peters is as well, and the GOP takes NC and both GA seats, the Dems will end up with 48 seats. If they had 1 more seat, I could see someone like Collins being willing to help them pass some moderate legislation, but unfortunately the Senate’s rules make that almost impossible. Unless she switched parties, McConnell would control the agenda and nothing of note can possibly happen. Which means that if Biden does win, the campaign for 2022 starts immediately. Starting first with the GA runoff (or runoffs though that’s looking less likely) but continuing with an executive and legislative agenda bent on proving just how terrible the GOP is and how bad in particular the vulnerable senators are.

Basically, Dems would have to stop worrying about whether they can pass new stuff they’d love to pass and start figuring out how to highlight the very-popular positions that the GOP is blocking.

2062

Sweet Jesus, please bring back earmarks. It’s remarkable how much damage the lack of those fucking things has done. I don’t think the toothpaste can be put back in the tube but hell, might as well try.

2063

This means the best way for Republicans to win future elections is to make sure Joe Biden and the Democrats can’t make government work. This has been McConnell’s explicit political strategy the entire time he’s been Majority Leader. The Senate is broke and there’s no procedural way around it.

2064
2065

It was going away anyways. Republicans major ethos now is “hurt the libs even if it hurts our people too. Don’t let them accomplish anything”. Maybe it would have been tempered a tiny bit, but make no mistake, the Tea Party and the rightward march to fascism has made this the new priority.

2066

No it isn’t, but it certainly was one of those “Sounds great until you think about what it does to incentives” kind of populist talking points.

2067

The question is is that correlation or causation? Correlation because it coincided with the rest of Gingrich’s program: nationalizing local elections, demanding maximum party discipline, etc.