this is being a fan ... and isn't thinking or reasoning. It's not a thinking persons way to vote team red OR blue ... if you're ok with just wanting to win, then when your sportball team gets a referee call that goes your teams way, even if it was a bad call, then you're down the rabbit hole of cognitive dissonance. It's ok being a fan, but don't try to spin fandom as being rational
“Win” in this context means incremental improvements and reform. I’m a white guy making six figures. I can wait my whole life for the mythical revolution to happen and be fine. Then, when it never comes, I could die with the comfort of knowing I never compromised.
Or I could compromise and get small Ws on progressive issues I care about.
Why is my father going to go bankrupt for he had a hospital stay of a month (unchosen, a real health emergency), he was unemployed during that time, and would have gotten Medicaid during that time if Texas expanded Medicaid.
“I just want to win”
Note the 3.5 trillion dollar bill we are debating would have fixed this issue if he had the health emergency in the future and not last year. This is because everyone gets health insurance plans if the state does not expand Medicaid, it removes the donut hole the Supreme Court made.
I live in Texas and our failure to expand Medicaid is an unending source of frustration for me. I write state reps about it but it falls on deaf ears.
I desperately want the 3.5 trillion bill (or something like it) to pass too. But I worry about tying these two bills together. Doing big things costs political capital. The third stimulus, allowing 22K more H2Bs while a crisis mounts at the border, and actually pulling out of Afghanistan have already made Biden net unpopular.
I'm concerned about missed opportunities and I feel like we're increasingly not playing from a position of strength here. Hopefully I'm wrong though and the House is just shoring up support for the recon bill they're drafting and it'll all work out.
I'm sorry about your father and I admire how much you want Medicaid expanded to help people like him in the future.
We do not know anything, but reports (whatever that means since this is a leaking game and everything is at least partially obscured, and some of the light may be lies.) Sinema will not reveal her demands on the tax or spend side of reconciliation till the Bipartisan Infrastructure is passed in the house. In sum it is bad faith all over, she just wants leverage and it is not about specifics. But it is what it is even if it’s bad faith.
Of course there are more than 1 actor, but to me I am seeing at least one failure point (of many) and that point is currently acting in bad faith so I am not “confident” of the final results.
Hey, forget being "annoyed" at Democrats. How about being furious at Republicans for being against anything other than lower taxes for the ultra wealthy in the first place?
My observation - probably put there by Krystal of Breaking Pts, or David Sirota, is that team D *wants* the holdouts like Manchin and Sienema ... they can support their wall street and defense industry lobbyists and still play to their home team crowd. My view: Once you move to realizing that team R and D are just like Coke V Pepsi, you'll realize that they're both selling crap to you that's not really good for you ... but are advertising for share, so will make plays that are private poll tested to play well on the social or corp media channels of their markets choice. Sure there are more real issues, but the biggest one is that if you're not part of the ruling class, you're part of the 99%. And everything else is selling you division for share
Coke doesn't take away your bodily sovereignty. Pepsi isn't run by a religious cult intent on a Taliban like loya jirga running the country. Our choice is more like Izzard's cake or death.
I'm not sure I agree with the framing of this post. Why are Manchin and Sinema wanting to stand against party leadership (the POTUS)?
Because they are owned by Oligarchs who don't want to pay for it. Hmm? Why are we calling a win for the Oligarchy, a win for Democrats?
Progressives are funded directly by the people. The people want the government to upgrade our infrastructure, and they want the tax avoiders (wealthiest Americans and corporations) to pay their fair share in taxes). Most of all the major polls confirm that is what the people want. So, progressives are on the side of the people.
Once again, you have to let go of the so-called political spectrum with its two options of right and left because that assumes we are a bottom-up, democracy, where the power lies with the people. It does not!
We are an oligarchy where the power disseminates from the top-down. Everything else is propaganda or smoke and mirrors. A win for "moderate Democrats" is a win for the oligarchy because they get infrastructure but don't have to pay for it.
By the way, how many Republican Governors and Mayors rejected city and state funding from the CARES Act when not a single Republican voted for it?
They voted against it, yet still accepted it. Was that a Loss or Win?
I'm a leftist who's been dutifully voting for the Dems as the lesser of two evils since the mid 1980s. After the disappointment with Obama and the party making things clear with the left in 2020 with Bernie, this is their last chance.
I don't see at all Noah's momentum argument. If they cave here, they'll get nothing else.
It may not even matter if they don't pass voting rights, and it ultimately may not matter as long as the oligarchs control the government and its megaphone corporate media, but I'll probably start voting third party in my purple state as a more long-term strategy. (I never had children so I can't say for my grandchildren's sake.)
I don't know that it's been proven to have thrown that election, but either way, I'm saying I'm about to give up on short-term voting strategy.
In that frame, can you say that Nader's run was counter-productive? I don't know, but the adage about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good loses its meaning when the "good" is getting worse and worse over time and seeming to lead to disaster.
I don't think I understand the point. Is the idea that it would be better to accept the status quo than to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework with the reconciliation bill still up in the air?
> They voted against it, yet still accepted it. Was that a Loss or Win?
It seems to me that it's a win that money got spent on poor people in various states and cities, regardless of who voted for or against it.
For my fellow progressives this is the best we’re going to get in this Congress. The dynamics of the system and the choices of the voters limit our ability to get everything we want and we just have to take the W when we can get it. Remember as much as you hate it the moderates are indispensable and we have to work with them, there simply aren’t enough progressive voters spread out throughout the country.
Yes, progressives are a fringe political group that have unbalanced views. Are there good progressive ideas? Yes. Is labelling yourself a progressive illogical. Yes. Why? Because truth is nuanced. Subscribing to extremist group ideology is tribal behavior - i.e. unenlightened base primal behavior (us vs them). The base primal behavior to define an us vs. them exists for evolutionary reasons (ingroup and outgroup) but it is philosophically unsound and implies your so-called logic ("we progressives are better!") is really rationalized primal behavior. It is like believing your nation or sports team is the only true way (tribal association) rather than acknowledging it may have good ideas and qualities but so do other nations and teams (nuance).
What? You want more nuance but say labeling oneself a progressive is illogical. Ooookay.
Your are painting a pretty broad brush just to I think say labeling oneself at all is illogical. One can say they can be described using a group term and be nuanced about ideas.
Noah I am afraid the fillerbuster and the rules of reconciliation (limited uses per year) make what you want to do impossible. It requires senators to be angels to get stuff done in a progressive way, and the senators are not angels, and some of the senators do not want popular progressive legislation.
This bit about “authority” might as well be about the filler buster even though it was written in a different time and a different culture.
> La crisi consiste appunto nel fatto che il vecchio muore e il nuovo non può nascere: in questo interregno si verificano i fenomeni morbosi piú svariati.
>The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.
The incredible irony is that if Bernie had proposed this same bill, with the same price tag, progressives would salivate over it as proof he's the Messiah, Republicans would torch it in ads and town halls, and Pelosi would say $300B is more reasonable. You know, like when Obama proposed anything.
It's weird framing to posit the progressives are the ones "blocking" Biden's agenda. They're the only ones trying to get both bills passed! (Which is Biden's agenda.)
Lefties like myself get very frustrated with this "it's always progressives' fault" rhetoric, as in this case it is clearly the moderates stopping both bills from passing. Progressives are the ones fighting to get BOTH bills passed!
To say The Squad is voting to keep black kids drinking from lead pipes is pretty preposterous and kinda gross IMO.
Manchin and Sinema voted for the bill to remove lead. The Squad is promising to vote against this bill if Manchin and Sinema don't also vote for another bill. I would absolutely like Manchin and Sinema to vote for this other bill. But I don't see how you sell this as anything other than the Squad voting to keep black kids drinking from lead pipes, if that's what ends up happening.
Because Squad/Progressives/whatever we call them are saying: "We want to vote for both bills, but we (rightfully) don't trust Manchin/Sinema, so we want the bill they're more wobbly on to go first."
Manchin/Sinema/Other Dems who've kept their heads down are saying: "Trust us, we'll vote for the reconciliation bill. We pinky promise."
Yea, but that ignores TONS of context. Corporate Dems get 2,000-word articles in the NYT explaining why they're "moderate" for not decreasing drug prices, while the progressives get labeled as childish for actually trying to enact the agenda Americans want.
I submit that the supremely inaptly named "progressives" (i.e. leftists) do not in fact care all that much about the things in the infrastructure bill. What they really care about is sticking it to high-income taxpayers and redistributing the spoils. Infrastructure is a consolation prize at best.
That aside, I think you're overestimating the importance of the lead issue. For one, there was a recent paper finding evidence of extensive publication bias in the lead-crime literature, finding that the effect size shrinks by 90% when adjusting for this. Maybe there was a problem in that paper, but even putting that aside, blood lead levels have fallen by more than an order of magnitude since the 70s. While it may be true that there's no truly "safe" level of lead, there are levels at which there are no clinically significant effects, and as far as I can tell we're pretty much there now. Yes, eliminating that last little bit would be good, but I don't think that it will yield the benefits you seem to be expecting.
Having the income and wealth of the idle rich and rentier class be the main tax base goes back to folks like Adam Smith. Setting the income tax rate back to what it was for decades is hardly "sticking it" to anyone. They will do fine.
I'm not sure how well you are reading the minds of the "progressives" if you think they don't care about the infrastructure. It looks like they see the first bill as a bare minimum, things that both parties have been talking about since the 90s and have only been hobbled by politics.
As to the marginal health improvement of removing the lead from pipes, it's also a benefit to change the old pipes anyway, again something that has to be done at least once a generation.
I think this post operates poorly in trying to communicate the progressive position in opposition to it, and is defending the infrastructure bill in isolation. Of course it spends money on a lot of things, because it's a relatively large bill and it's building on a lot of programs and the federal government already does a lot. But the same logic could essentially defend any spending bill, and argue that the alternative would be something worse--like a government shutdown (since that's also the season we're in). For these numbers, a good question is "Is this the best Democrats could have expected under a trifecta?" The transportation side is awful for the climate, doing almost nothing to address the emissions from the transportation sector. Status quo policies will probably make emissions worse as we continue the highway sprawl machine. And transit gets increased funding, but it's less relative to the increase in highways. The bill resembles something you'd expect from the mid-2000s when Republicans didn't care about the deficit and just wanted to throw money at their priorities. That may be the best our political system can produce right now, but I don't think "Any money is good for progressives" is the best argument.
I probably agree with you about several of your quibbles on the merits... but voters don't care about those things. I wish it were different - in fact, I spend most of my energies trying to square that circle, trying to figure out how to change the underlying political economy problems. But until then, voters just don't care about whether we're "continu[ing] the highway sprawl machine" - which again, I totally agree with you on as a policy item. The 2022 midterm electorate just sees W's. So does the media. So focus on the W's!
But "votes don't care" cuts both ways. We now have clear evidence this year that voters don't care about the child tax credit payments they are getting, don't care about the added covid assistance, etc. So members get to navigate in a care-free environment and just do what they want!
Well, yes. Precisely. American is mostly about identity, not policy. Zero sum politics in general are like that. I personally detest that state of affairs and spend my time pushing for positive sum politics, but I don’t hold myself under any illusions that it’s not 90% identity, 10% policy.
> a good question is "Is this the best Democrats could have expected under a trifecta?"
That is a good question for thinking strategically about the future, and analyzing the history of the past year or two.
But a more timely question for action now is, "is this the best Democrats can get in this particular legislative session?" Keep fighting to make the things we can get in this session as good as we can. But when we reach the end of whatever time limits exist, we need progressives to actually vote for this best thing we can still do, rather than leave us under Trump-era funding levels.
>>They want to be seen as holding up Biden’s agenda.
They're centrists. That's what they do. They define themselves against the left. But that doesn't mean that they're Republicans - IE, when you put the ball in their court, they don't believe that they fundamentally just don't have to do anything; rather, they feel a sense of urgency to act.
>>If manchin and sinema get the infrastructure bill they won’t vote for anything else and they’ll take that as a win.
This is completely mistaken. If the infrastructure bill passed tomorrow, Manchin and Sinema would bargain the reconciliation bill down a bit in order to show that they're "doing something (centrist)", and then pass it.
I don't agree with that at all. They're democrats because it's easier to run as a democrat in their states. Less competition. Perhaps they have some Dem party principles, but nothing I've observed says they'll do anything but let the reconciliation bill die. The infrastructure bill is all Manchin wants and only parts of it. His state is West Virginia. Clean Energy efforts are not in his plan.
When it comes down to it, they're shooting themselves in the foot because the only way the Dems could possibly hold power is if they passed an overwhelming number of well-liked measures and touted them all next year. Instead these two are mucking the works and they'll be lucky to pass to half-assed bills and we'll still be arguing about a voting rights bill when it's too late.
> They're democrats because it's easier to run as a democrat in their states.
This doesn't seem right. Manchin would be able to cruise to victory as a Republican, but as a Democrat he has to squeak by. I don't think Sinema had an easier field as a Democrat than she would have as a Republican.
You have to think of it as certain values of "easy." Manchin is a very Republican Democrat but he would also be a very Democrat Republican.
In his last election he had to beat one challenger to get the nod. The Republican candidate had to beat out 5 other people and maybe three others.
If he was running as a Republican he wouldn't have made it out of the gate. As a Democrat, he can basically concentrate on a strategy of knowing he's going to get the Dem votes and he knows he'll get Dem money and all he has to do is get enough independents or Republicans to vote for a Dem who's "practically" a Republican anyway. That's much easier, relatively, than going the other way.
Basically, Sinema had a similar scenario. Winning is hard, but that's the case for either party. Winning when you're the only hope for one party makes it a little "easier."
>>I don't agree with that at all. They're democrats because it's easier to run as a democrat in their states. Less competition. Perhaps they have some Dem party principles, but nothing I've observed says they'll do anything but let the reconciliation bill die.
>>When it comes down to it, they're shooting themselves in the foot because the only way the Dems could possibly hold power is if they passed an overwhelming number of well-liked measures and touted them all next year. Instead these two are mucking the works and they'll be lucky to pass to half-assed bills and we'll still be arguing about a voting rights bill when it's too late.
You're only half-right: They're not Democrats, they're Centrists running as Democrats. Which means they will posture against the party right up until it actually threatens to take them down.
The key here is, you can't interfere with or accelerate this process from the left. Progressive hostage-taking only fuels further posturing. You have to put the ball in the Centrists' court in order to run their shot clock down.
>> The infrastructure bill is all Manchin wants and only parts of it.
Pfft! This is the biggest bullshit progressive myth out there right now. And FTR, I'm a progressive!
Manchin wants to pick fights with Democrats. Period. Everything he does is kabuki for his base. Practically half of his base are Trumpists; he literally can't give them anything they'd be happy about because they don't care about anything Democrats want to deliver. All they care about is their own identity as ornery, clannish mountain people who don't like outside authority, which ultimately means him performatively sticking it to their favorite punching bag of authority, the Dems.
Once you give him that, he'll vote on whatever you want. His voters are stupid and incoherent toddlers, but they're not infants: they understand he's a Democrat who ultimately votes for Democrat things, they just want him to hear out their tantrum.
It’s not clear to me that Manchin and Sinema will fall in line. I think it’s more likely they kill all Dem priorities and get jobs on Fox News after this senate tenure.
Now you’re just drinking the Kool Aid. What they do after their terms doesn’t matter, anyways, because it’s so incredibly contingent on what happens now. If you spend all your time denigrating their character and declaring everything you *think* they’re going to do, you’re never going to bother understanding what makes them tick and how to get them to do what you want.
I hope Dem and White House staffers are trying to understand them and figured out how to whip them into voting yes.
I don’t have any ambition to understand them really. I am reacting to their actions and the political timetable. Their actions aren’t consistent with someone in the Dem caucus with Dem priorities.
I mean, Sinema is having a fundraiser today with groups wanting to kill the Dem legislation.
>>I don’t have any ambition to understand them really. I am reacting to their actions and the political timetable.
Wellp, have fun with that. I can't help you.
>>Their actions aren’t consistent with someone in the Dem caucus with Dem priorities.
Duh, because they're Centrists, not Democrats. That doesn't mean they'll nuke every Dem priority, it just means you have to stop treating them like "moderates" who just need to be bargained with, and start treating them like "Centrists" who need you to be a foil for their political kabuki.
This argument is unpersuasive. No, the bipartisan infrastructure bill is not progressive. If it were, it couldn't be bipartisan. You seem to be arguing that only progressives are responsible for caring about "poisoning the brains of poor kids" etc. It is just basic good governance, with a lot of room for improvement. If you think Democrats should use their brief trifecta to pass legislation that you like, but not legislation Democratic constituencies like, then yes, progressives should take the "win". Judging the legislative process as "wins", by the way, seems to be a strange habit that began in the Trump years. Somewhere in your discussion you might want to point out that both bills, as a package, constitute Biden's agenda, and Biden is a moderate Democrat. The reconciliation bill is not a progressive wish list but is already a compromise and has 48-2 support among Democrats/Independants in the Senate. Although a lot of people here seem to despise progressive Democrats, tying the bills together is the party's consensus plan to get this part of the Democratic agenda passed as a whole. May not work, but it is the only chance they have.
The big difference between the Republican Tea Party and the Democrat progressives is that not funding government programs fits perfectly into the Tea Party agenda while the Democrats believe in government programs and want to fund them. Right now, the progressive Democrats are about a quarter of the House and Senate but they want to govern like a majority. The Democrats have only the slimmest possible overall majorities in the House and Senate as a party. The progressives have to show that they are willing to govern by voting for legislation that will promote important government programs, even if not a perfect match for their wish list. Their current strategy means that the Tea Party Republicans don't need to do a thing to get their agenda through, because the progressives will accomplish it for them. If the infrastructure bill goes down to defeat and they are unwilling to vote for something in the $1.5 to $2 trillion range in reconciliation, then they are likely to accomplish nothing but the Tea Party agenda in 2021-22. I expect then the Democrats will lose the House and Senate and nothing will happen in 2023-24 as well because the Democrats will have proven to the nation that they are incapable of governing
Why does the media characterize the Progressives as far left radicals and moderates as somehow mainstream? The so called moderates, centrist, whatever you want to call them blocked Progressive ideas and forced what little did pass to be watered down in mid 90s and under Obama with ACA. What happened? Both following midterms were blood baths for Dems. In 2010 Blue Dogs went from over 30 members to less than 10. The Progressive agenda polls well depending on the issue from 50-80%. Hope the Progressives stay strong as my perception is they are more supportive of Bidens and average citizens wishes than the corporate whores like Manchin and Sinema and New Dem caucus.
That doesn't seem to be going on in this post though. This post is not claiming that Progressives are radicals and moderates are mainstream. It's just saying that there's a bill on the table, and hopefully another one soon, and noting the outcomes of who gets what if these things do or don't get voted for.
Also, I don't think your read of electoral history makes sense - in general, when a party does badly in an election, they lose all their House moderates, because their moderates are in the swing seats. This is true of Republicans (as in 2006 and 2018) and of Democrats (as in 1994 and 2010).
Something I’ve taken to saying a lot to my fellow progressive friends is, “I just want to win.” This post resonates with me.
this is being a fan ... and isn't thinking or reasoning. It's not a thinking persons way to vote team red OR blue ... if you're ok with just wanting to win, then when your sportball team gets a referee call that goes your teams way, even if it was a bad call, then you're down the rabbit hole of cognitive dissonance. It's ok being a fan, but don't try to spin fandom as being rational
“Win” in this context means incremental improvements and reform. I’m a white guy making six figures. I can wait my whole life for the mythical revolution to happen and be fine. Then, when it never comes, I could die with the comfort of knowing I never compromised.
Or I could compromise and get small Ws on progressive issues I care about.
I just want to win.
Why is my father going to go bankrupt for he had a hospital stay of a month (unchosen, a real health emergency), he was unemployed during that time, and would have gotten Medicaid during that time if Texas expanded Medicaid.
“I just want to win”
Note the 3.5 trillion dollar bill we are debating would have fixed this issue if he had the health emergency in the future and not last year. This is because everyone gets health insurance plans if the state does not expand Medicaid, it removes the donut hole the Supreme Court made.
I live in Texas and our failure to expand Medicaid is an unending source of frustration for me. I write state reps about it but it falls on deaf ears.
I desperately want the 3.5 trillion bill (or something like it) to pass too. But I worry about tying these two bills together. Doing big things costs political capital. The third stimulus, allowing 22K more H2Bs while a crisis mounts at the border, and actually pulling out of Afghanistan have already made Biden net unpopular.
I'm concerned about missed opportunities and I feel like we're increasingly not playing from a position of strength here. Hopefully I'm wrong though and the House is just shoring up support for the recon bill they're drafting and it'll all work out.
I'm sorry about your father and I admire how much you want Medicaid expanded to help people like him in the future.
We do not know anything, but reports (whatever that means since this is a leaking game and everything is at least partially obscured, and some of the light may be lies.) Sinema will not reveal her demands on the tax or spend side of reconciliation till the Bipartisan Infrastructure is passed in the house. In sum it is bad faith all over, she just wants leverage and it is not about specifics. But it is what it is even if it’s bad faith.
Of course there are more than 1 actor, but to me I am seeing at least one failure point (of many) and that point is currently acting in bad faith so I am not “confident” of the final results.
Idk. Progressives winning more would mean more progressive actions.
"Not only does that make Democrats look like an incompetent, divided party that is incapable of governing"
Look like?
Hey, forget being "annoyed" at Democrats. How about being furious at Republicans for being against anything other than lower taxes for the ultra wealthy in the first place?
I've been annoyed at that since I was 10 years old
My observation - probably put there by Krystal of Breaking Pts, or David Sirota, is that team D *wants* the holdouts like Manchin and Sienema ... they can support their wall street and defense industry lobbyists and still play to their home team crowd. My view: Once you move to realizing that team R and D are just like Coke V Pepsi, you'll realize that they're both selling crap to you that's not really good for you ... but are advertising for share, so will make plays that are private poll tested to play well on the social or corp media channels of their markets choice. Sure there are more real issues, but the biggest one is that if you're not part of the ruling class, you're part of the 99%. And everything else is selling you division for share
Coke doesn't take away your bodily sovereignty. Pepsi isn't run by a religious cult intent on a Taliban like loya jirga running the country. Our choice is more like Izzard's cake or death.
Good luck selling that message in the midterms.
I've been thinking this for f'ing months
If they can't pass infrastructure, I don't know what to do anymore.
I'm not sure I agree with the framing of this post. Why are Manchin and Sinema wanting to stand against party leadership (the POTUS)?
Because they are owned by Oligarchs who don't want to pay for it. Hmm? Why are we calling a win for the Oligarchy, a win for Democrats?
Progressives are funded directly by the people. The people want the government to upgrade our infrastructure, and they want the tax avoiders (wealthiest Americans and corporations) to pay their fair share in taxes). Most of all the major polls confirm that is what the people want. So, progressives are on the side of the people.
Once again, you have to let go of the so-called political spectrum with its two options of right and left because that assumes we are a bottom-up, democracy, where the power lies with the people. It does not!
We are an oligarchy where the power disseminates from the top-down. Everything else is propaganda or smoke and mirrors. A win for "moderate Democrats" is a win for the oligarchy because they get infrastructure but don't have to pay for it.
By the way, how many Republican Governors and Mayors rejected city and state funding from the CARES Act when not a single Republican voted for it?
They voted against it, yet still accepted it. Was that a Loss or Win?
I'm a leftist who's been dutifully voting for the Dems as the lesser of two evils since the mid 1980s. After the disappointment with Obama and the party making things clear with the left in 2020 with Bernie, this is their last chance.
I don't see at all Noah's momentum argument. If they cave here, they'll get nothing else.
It may not even matter if they don't pass voting rights, and it ultimately may not matter as long as the oligarchs control the government and its megaphone corporate media, but I'll probably start voting third party in my purple state as a more long-term strategy. (I never had children so I can't say for my grandchildren's sake.)
> If they cave here, they'll get nothing else
Except for like, the good things that come from good legislation?
I realized voting 3rd party was counter productive in 2000
I don't know that it's been proven to have thrown that election, but either way, I'm saying I'm about to give up on short-term voting strategy.
In that frame, can you say that Nader's run was counter-productive? I don't know, but the adage about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good loses its meaning when the "good" is getting worse and worse over time and seeming to lead to disaster.
I don't think I understand the point. Is the idea that it would be better to accept the status quo than to pass the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework with the reconciliation bill still up in the air?
> They voted against it, yet still accepted it. Was that a Loss or Win?
It seems to me that it's a win that money got spent on poor people in various states and cities, regardless of who voted for or against it.
For my fellow progressives this is the best we’re going to get in this Congress. The dynamics of the system and the choices of the voters limit our ability to get everything we want and we just have to take the W when we can get it. Remember as much as you hate it the moderates are indispensable and we have to work with them, there simply aren’t enough progressive voters spread out throughout the country.
My bar is so low, I think having any sort of functioning govt is a win for progressives.
"And where will House progressives be then? Out of power, scrabbling for influence within a minority party. Who does that help?"
For some people it's better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.
It's always hilarious when Democrats gradually start to realize that progressives are crazy (i.e. illogical) - an Ex-Democrat
Ah, nuanced political opinions like “all progressives are crazy and illogical”.
Yes, progressives are a fringe political group that have unbalanced views. Are there good progressive ideas? Yes. Is labelling yourself a progressive illogical. Yes. Why? Because truth is nuanced. Subscribing to extremist group ideology is tribal behavior - i.e. unenlightened base primal behavior (us vs them). The base primal behavior to define an us vs. them exists for evolutionary reasons (ingroup and outgroup) but it is philosophically unsound and implies your so-called logic ("we progressives are better!") is really rationalized primal behavior. It is like believing your nation or sports team is the only true way (tribal association) rather than acknowledging it may have good ideas and qualities but so do other nations and teams (nuance).
What? You want more nuance but say labeling oneself a progressive is illogical. Ooookay.
Your are painting a pretty broad brush just to I think say labeling oneself at all is illogical. One can say they can be described using a group term and be nuanced about ideas.
You’re ascribing lots of additional definitions of “progressive” that only exist inside your head.
Bi-partisan politics is for fools. Truth is nuanced.
Then you look at the alternatives, and realise so called lesser evils aren't that bad after all.
But there are only two real parties in this democracy. So we always end up with only two answers, the right and the wrong answer.
Completely broken.
Noah I am afraid the fillerbuster and the rules of reconciliation (limited uses per year) make what you want to do impossible. It requires senators to be angels to get stuff done in a progressive way, and the senators are not angels, and some of the senators do not want popular progressive legislation.
Thus the impass.
This
This bit about “authority” might as well be about the filler buster even though it was written in a different time and a different culture.
> La crisi consiste appunto nel fatto che il vecchio muore e il nuovo non può nascere: in questo interregno si verificano i fenomeni morbosi piú svariati.
>The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.
Crises really, utterly suck!
The incredible irony is that if Bernie had proposed this same bill, with the same price tag, progressives would salivate over it as proof he's the Messiah, Republicans would torch it in ads and town halls, and Pelosi would say $300B is more reasonable. You know, like when Obama proposed anything.
Optics is everything.
It's weird framing to posit the progressives are the ones "blocking" Biden's agenda. They're the only ones trying to get both bills passed! (Which is Biden's agenda.)
Lefties like myself get very frustrated with this "it's always progressives' fault" rhetoric, as in this case it is clearly the moderates stopping both bills from passing. Progressives are the ones fighting to get BOTH bills passed!
To say The Squad is voting to keep black kids drinking from lead pipes is pretty preposterous and kinda gross IMO.
Manchin and Sinema voted for the bill to remove lead. The Squad is promising to vote against this bill if Manchin and Sinema don't also vote for another bill. I would absolutely like Manchin and Sinema to vote for this other bill. But I don't see how you sell this as anything other than the Squad voting to keep black kids drinking from lead pipes, if that's what ends up happening.
Because Squad/Progressives/whatever we call them are saying: "We want to vote for both bills, but we (rightfully) don't trust Manchin/Sinema, so we want the bill they're more wobbly on to go first."
Manchin/Sinema/Other Dems who've kept their heads down are saying: "Trust us, we'll vote for the reconciliation bill. We pinky promise."
No one trusts them. But if you vote against a bill, you should expect everyone to say that *you* voted against the bill.
Yea, but that ignores TONS of context. Corporate Dems get 2,000-word articles in the NYT explaining why they're "moderate" for not decreasing drug prices, while the progressives get labeled as childish for actually trying to enact the agenda Americans want.
Yes, I think that is awful too. But that's not what's going on in this piece.
Yes, it is — "progressives are treating the infrastructure bill like it’s unimportant.
Direct quote.
I submit that the supremely inaptly named "progressives" (i.e. leftists) do not in fact care all that much about the things in the infrastructure bill. What they really care about is sticking it to high-income taxpayers and redistributing the spoils. Infrastructure is a consolation prize at best.
That aside, I think you're overestimating the importance of the lead issue. For one, there was a recent paper finding evidence of extensive publication bias in the lead-crime literature, finding that the effect size shrinks by 90% when adjusting for this. Maybe there was a problem in that paper, but even putting that aside, blood lead levels have fallen by more than an order of magnitude since the 70s. While it may be true that there's no truly "safe" level of lead, there are levels at which there are no clinically significant effects, and as far as I can tell we're pretty much there now. Yes, eliminating that last little bit would be good, but I don't think that it will yield the benefits you seem to be expecting.
Having the income and wealth of the idle rich and rentier class be the main tax base goes back to folks like Adam Smith. Setting the income tax rate back to what it was for decades is hardly "sticking it" to anyone. They will do fine.
I'm not sure how well you are reading the minds of the "progressives" if you think they don't care about the infrastructure. It looks like they see the first bill as a bare minimum, things that both parties have been talking about since the 90s and have only been hobbled by politics.
As to the marginal health improvement of removing the lead from pipes, it's also a benefit to change the old pipes anyway, again something that has to be done at least once a generation.
While your tone is negative about it, I agree as a progressive democrat that increasing the taxes on the rich is my top policy wish.
I think this post operates poorly in trying to communicate the progressive position in opposition to it, and is defending the infrastructure bill in isolation. Of course it spends money on a lot of things, because it's a relatively large bill and it's building on a lot of programs and the federal government already does a lot. But the same logic could essentially defend any spending bill, and argue that the alternative would be something worse--like a government shutdown (since that's also the season we're in). For these numbers, a good question is "Is this the best Democrats could have expected under a trifecta?" The transportation side is awful for the climate, doing almost nothing to address the emissions from the transportation sector. Status quo policies will probably make emissions worse as we continue the highway sprawl machine. And transit gets increased funding, but it's less relative to the increase in highways. The bill resembles something you'd expect from the mid-2000s when Republicans didn't care about the deficit and just wanted to throw money at their priorities. That may be the best our political system can produce right now, but I don't think "Any money is good for progressives" is the best argument.
I probably agree with you about several of your quibbles on the merits... but voters don't care about those things. I wish it were different - in fact, I spend most of my energies trying to square that circle, trying to figure out how to change the underlying political economy problems. But until then, voters just don't care about whether we're "continu[ing] the highway sprawl machine" - which again, I totally agree with you on as a policy item. The 2022 midterm electorate just sees W's. So does the media. So focus on the W's!
But "votes don't care" cuts both ways. We now have clear evidence this year that voters don't care about the child tax credit payments they are getting, don't care about the added covid assistance, etc. So members get to navigate in a care-free environment and just do what they want!
Well, yes. Precisely. American is mostly about identity, not policy. Zero sum politics in general are like that. I personally detest that state of affairs and spend my time pushing for positive sum politics, but I don’t hold myself under any illusions that it’s not 90% identity, 10% policy.
> a good question is "Is this the best Democrats could have expected under a trifecta?"
That is a good question for thinking strategically about the future, and analyzing the history of the past year or two.
But a more timely question for action now is, "is this the best Democrats can get in this particular legislative session?" Keep fighting to make the things we can get in this session as good as we can. But when we reach the end of whatever time limits exist, we need progressives to actually vote for this best thing we can still do, rather than leave us under Trump-era funding levels.
I’m with you.
I will however prioritize getting any spending authorized over none.
I just can’t see tanking a spending bill because we think we could spend the money better in respect to climate.
If manchin and sinema get the infrastructure bill they won’t vote for anything else and they’ll take that as a win.
They want to be seen as holding up Biden’s agenda.
>>They want to be seen as holding up Biden’s agenda.
They're centrists. That's what they do. They define themselves against the left. But that doesn't mean that they're Republicans - IE, when you put the ball in their court, they don't believe that they fundamentally just don't have to do anything; rather, they feel a sense of urgency to act.
>>If manchin and sinema get the infrastructure bill they won’t vote for anything else and they’ll take that as a win.
This is completely mistaken. If the infrastructure bill passed tomorrow, Manchin and Sinema would bargain the reconciliation bill down a bit in order to show that they're "doing something (centrist)", and then pass it.
I don't agree with that at all. They're democrats because it's easier to run as a democrat in their states. Less competition. Perhaps they have some Dem party principles, but nothing I've observed says they'll do anything but let the reconciliation bill die. The infrastructure bill is all Manchin wants and only parts of it. His state is West Virginia. Clean Energy efforts are not in his plan.
When it comes down to it, they're shooting themselves in the foot because the only way the Dems could possibly hold power is if they passed an overwhelming number of well-liked measures and touted them all next year. Instead these two are mucking the works and they'll be lucky to pass to half-assed bills and we'll still be arguing about a voting rights bill when it's too late.
> They're democrats because it's easier to run as a democrat in their states.
This doesn't seem right. Manchin would be able to cruise to victory as a Republican, but as a Democrat he has to squeak by. I don't think Sinema had an easier field as a Democrat than she would have as a Republican.
You have to think of it as certain values of "easy." Manchin is a very Republican Democrat but he would also be a very Democrat Republican.
In his last election he had to beat one challenger to get the nod. The Republican candidate had to beat out 5 other people and maybe three others.
If he was running as a Republican he wouldn't have made it out of the gate. As a Democrat, he can basically concentrate on a strategy of knowing he's going to get the Dem votes and he knows he'll get Dem money and all he has to do is get enough independents or Republicans to vote for a Dem who's "practically" a Republican anyway. That's much easier, relatively, than going the other way.
Basically, Sinema had a similar scenario. Winning is hard, but that's the case for either party. Winning when you're the only hope for one party makes it a little "easier."
I think you're both right, you're just talking about different stages of the election - primary vs. general.
>>I don't agree with that at all. They're democrats because it's easier to run as a democrat in their states. Less competition. Perhaps they have some Dem party principles, but nothing I've observed says they'll do anything but let the reconciliation bill die.
>>When it comes down to it, they're shooting themselves in the foot because the only way the Dems could possibly hold power is if they passed an overwhelming number of well-liked measures and touted them all next year. Instead these two are mucking the works and they'll be lucky to pass to half-assed bills and we'll still be arguing about a voting rights bill when it's too late.
You're only half-right: They're not Democrats, they're Centrists running as Democrats. Which means they will posture against the party right up until it actually threatens to take them down.
The key here is, you can't interfere with or accelerate this process from the left. Progressive hostage-taking only fuels further posturing. You have to put the ball in the Centrists' court in order to run their shot clock down.
>> The infrastructure bill is all Manchin wants and only parts of it.
Pfft! This is the biggest bullshit progressive myth out there right now. And FTR, I'm a progressive!
Manchin wants to pick fights with Democrats. Period. Everything he does is kabuki for his base. Practically half of his base are Trumpists; he literally can't give them anything they'd be happy about because they don't care about anything Democrats want to deliver. All they care about is their own identity as ornery, clannish mountain people who don't like outside authority, which ultimately means him performatively sticking it to their favorite punching bag of authority, the Dems.
Once you give him that, he'll vote on whatever you want. His voters are stupid and incoherent toddlers, but they're not infants: they understand he's a Democrat who ultimately votes for Democrat things, they just want him to hear out their tantrum.
I don't know that I agree with you, but I don't know that I disagree with you. It's an interesting theory.
In a world where the stalemate of "let's respectfully disagree" is the most common outcome, I'll take that as a W.
;-)
It’s not clear to me that Manchin and Sinema will fall in line. I think it’s more likely they kill all Dem priorities and get jobs on Fox News after this senate tenure.
Now you’re just drinking the Kool Aid. What they do after their terms doesn’t matter, anyways, because it’s so incredibly contingent on what happens now. If you spend all your time denigrating their character and declaring everything you *think* they’re going to do, you’re never going to bother understanding what makes them tick and how to get them to do what you want.
I hope Dem and White House staffers are trying to understand them and figured out how to whip them into voting yes.
I don’t have any ambition to understand them really. I am reacting to their actions and the political timetable. Their actions aren’t consistent with someone in the Dem caucus with Dem priorities.
I mean, Sinema is having a fundraiser today with groups wanting to kill the Dem legislation.
>>I don’t have any ambition to understand them really. I am reacting to their actions and the political timetable.
Wellp, have fun with that. I can't help you.
>>Their actions aren’t consistent with someone in the Dem caucus with Dem priorities.
Duh, because they're Centrists, not Democrats. That doesn't mean they'll nuke every Dem priority, it just means you have to stop treating them like "moderates" who just need to be bargained with, and start treating them like "Centrists" who need you to be a foil for their political kabuki.
I don’t think I understand the point about them being centrists not moderates.
This argument is unpersuasive. No, the bipartisan infrastructure bill is not progressive. If it were, it couldn't be bipartisan. You seem to be arguing that only progressives are responsible for caring about "poisoning the brains of poor kids" etc. It is just basic good governance, with a lot of room for improvement. If you think Democrats should use their brief trifecta to pass legislation that you like, but not legislation Democratic constituencies like, then yes, progressives should take the "win". Judging the legislative process as "wins", by the way, seems to be a strange habit that began in the Trump years. Somewhere in your discussion you might want to point out that both bills, as a package, constitute Biden's agenda, and Biden is a moderate Democrat. The reconciliation bill is not a progressive wish list but is already a compromise and has 48-2 support among Democrats/Independants in the Senate. Although a lot of people here seem to despise progressive Democrats, tying the bills together is the party's consensus plan to get this part of the Democratic agenda passed as a whole. May not work, but it is the only chance they have.
The big difference between the Republican Tea Party and the Democrat progressives is that not funding government programs fits perfectly into the Tea Party agenda while the Democrats believe in government programs and want to fund them. Right now, the progressive Democrats are about a quarter of the House and Senate but they want to govern like a majority. The Democrats have only the slimmest possible overall majorities in the House and Senate as a party. The progressives have to show that they are willing to govern by voting for legislation that will promote important government programs, even if not a perfect match for their wish list. Their current strategy means that the Tea Party Republicans don't need to do a thing to get their agenda through, because the progressives will accomplish it for them. If the infrastructure bill goes down to defeat and they are unwilling to vote for something in the $1.5 to $2 trillion range in reconciliation, then they are likely to accomplish nothing but the Tea Party agenda in 2021-22. I expect then the Democrats will lose the House and Senate and nothing will happen in 2023-24 as well because the Democrats will have proven to the nation that they are incapable of governing
Why does the media characterize the Progressives as far left radicals and moderates as somehow mainstream? The so called moderates, centrist, whatever you want to call them blocked Progressive ideas and forced what little did pass to be watered down in mid 90s and under Obama with ACA. What happened? Both following midterms were blood baths for Dems. In 2010 Blue Dogs went from over 30 members to less than 10. The Progressive agenda polls well depending on the issue from 50-80%. Hope the Progressives stay strong as my perception is they are more supportive of Bidens and average citizens wishes than the corporate whores like Manchin and Sinema and New Dem caucus.
That doesn't seem to be going on in this post though. This post is not claiming that Progressives are radicals and moderates are mainstream. It's just saying that there's a bill on the table, and hopefully another one soon, and noting the outcomes of who gets what if these things do or don't get voted for.
Also, I don't think your read of electoral history makes sense - in general, when a party does badly in an election, they lose all their House moderates, because their moderates are in the swing seats. This is true of Republicans (as in 2006 and 2018) and of Democrats (as in 1994 and 2010).
Because the media starting point is that the nation is center-right
This they have to portray progressives as radical.
I know and it chaps me. Same reason media portrays Merchel as center-right when she's left of Sanders
If you watch a Sunday morning new show you wouldn’t even know there was progressive politicians.
Lol, she is not.