Rich Thau has a piece in the Bulwark titled, "Dems Can't Run Against the Big Lie in 2022." It's a warning to Democrats who plan on using that strategy in the upcoming midterms against Republican candidates. They've got another thing coming to them, according to Thau. Of the 13 swing voters Thau spoke with, ten said they'd be more likely to vote Republican if the only thing Democrats ran on was the assertion that Republicans doubted Joe Biden's legitimacy as president.
Call it "short-term memory" lapse, call it "what have you done for me lately" syndrome, call it anything you like, but know this much: Democrats had better come to the table with more than just good intentions if they want to avoid a blood bath next year. Even in this polarized, tribal country of ours, people still have some expectations. Failure will be frowned upon by the electorate, I can assure you.
That's why it is imperative that the bi-partisan infrastructure bill that was negotiated by five Democratic and five Republican senators be passed and signed into law by President Joe Biden as soon as possible, even if that means that the reconciliation bill progressives are demanding be coupled to it, doesn't pass.
It's really quite simple. Biden ran on bi-partisanship; in fact it was a core tenant of his campaign. He was going to be the president who would restore decency and normalcy to the White House. Mission accomplished concerning the former; the jury's still out on the latter. This bill, imperfect though it may be, would be a huge feather in his cap, and it would give his party something concrete - no pun intended - to take to the voters in 2022.
Yes, I'm perfectly aware that most of the concessions in this bill came from the Democratic side of the aisle and were signed off on by the White House. I'm also aware that Republicans are just looking for an excuse to bail on the deal so they can use it against Democrats in the midterms. "We were all for infrastructure before Biden and the Democrats moved the goal posts on us." Sound familiar? It should. When you're the Party of No, you learn your lines real well.
It is incumbent upon Democrats not to give them that excuse. Biden was wise to walk back his threat to veto the bi-partisan bill if it wasn't accompanied by the reconciliation bill. For starters, we still don't know whether Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema will even vote for the reconciliation bill. Seriously, if they didn't support the original $2.3 trillion reconciliation package that only had about a trillion in hard infrastructure in it, what makes anyone believe they're going to support a smaller reconciliation package that has virtually no hard infrastructure in it? Think about it for a moment. They got what they wanted in the bi-partisan bill. They're good to go, as far as they're concerned.
I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, but Democrats have an arithmetic problem in the Senate. Yes, technically they have 50 seats, which gives them the majority. But in reality, they only have 47 or 48 seats, depending on how lucid Dianne Feinstein is. Last time anybody checked, she was seen trying to give Lindsey Graham a reach around.
There's no other way to say this, so I'll be as blunt as I can. The agenda progressives were looking to enact is dead on arrival. It was dead on arrival the moment Democrats failed to flip North Carolina and Maine. All winning both seats in Georgia got them was the satisfaction of knowing Republicans wouldn't spend the next two years yapping about Hunter Biden's fucking laptop in a Senate sub-committee investigation.
Face it, there will be no Medicare for All, no Green New Deal, no HR1. Biden and Democrats will have to settle for what they can get, even if it means disappointing the Bernie wing of the party. They'll live, believe me, which is more than I can say for the country if Republicans win back control of both houses of Congress. It's one thing to be disappointed; it's quite another to watch the oldest example of representative democracy get flushed down the toilet.
The bottom line is this. There isn't a state in the Union that doesn't have its share of roads and bridges that are in dire need of repair. A trillion dollars can go a long way towards fixing those roads and bridges. Voters may not give a shit about inflation or the debt or even the border. But like I wrote in an earlier piece, "they will remember which party was in charge the next time they get a flat driving over a pothole, and they will not care in the least about how much of a dick Joe Manchin was."
As any baker knows full well, half a loaf is better than no loaf at all.
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