Democratic Party Seems Determined to Allow the Perfect to be the Enemy of the Good

Politics & Elections
81

I agree very strongly. In fact, I believe they should not have throttled the second bill down as far as they have (of course that was at the direction of their controlling business partners now- organized crime could learn a few things from the oil and gas industry). I think it is past time for them to come in from the cold, cold reaches of Republican enabling. But they hold the cards (for now).

The progressives are threatening this:
If you do not give us ice creme with our cake - - - well, we will just - throw our cake away uneaten!! That will show YOU! They do not have the cards, they can’t cover Manchin and Sinema man to man or in a zone, they have neither the reach nor the power to knock the two Senators out. They can either take a diminished win – or lose big time.

If they choose to die on this particular hill I will commission a song for them entitled Standing Alone in Their Principles and get the O’Needers from Erie, PA to sing it at their losing campaign events next election cycle.

I believe this is very accurate.

I believe this is far too possible and a very good safety, backup position to employee into party strategy.

If they pass both bills and the Republican Party continues to savage each other, the next cycle might be a break even or even a winning cycle. But if they pass neither they will certainly lose everything. If they pass only the one, they will hand credit to the Republicans – congratulations on a job well failed!!

82

Why do you think the dems win with just the “bipartisan” bill and nothing from the “reconciliation” bill? Why even bother trying to pass any D priorities, in that case?

83

Because doing something is better than doing nothing. If Dems do something, there’s a chance that they won’t be crushed in the 2022 elections, and can make some slow progress on their issues over the next many years. On the other hand, if the Dems do nothing, the Republican will gain control, probably for the long term, and Dem priorities will never, ever have a chance.

Neither is a fantastic outcome, but one is significantly better than the other.

84

I agree with Temporary_Name on commending this point (as well as on other points T_N has made in the thread).

The attitude ‘it’s the Republicans who should be blamed’ (along with its twin ‘it’s Manchin and Sinema who should be blamed’) indicates residence in childhood-land. In that land, all that matters is convincing the Authority (Mommy and/or Daddy) that You Are In the Right. Most Americans agree with your policies! And it’s all Manchin’s and Sinema’s and the Republican’s fault that things haven’t passed!

In the real world, there is no Father or Mother who will buy your argument and therefore unilaterally declare that You Are in the Right.

In the real world, there are voters who never heard of Manchin, or Sinema. And maybe those voters vaguely realize that Republicans always oppose spending by Democratic administrations; more likely they do NOT realize that. But those few who do will not attribute Democratic paralysis to the mean ol’ Republicans; they will attribute Democratic paralysis to Democrats. And vote accordingly.

The cry ‘those OTHERS are to blame’ is useless and pointless and a boon to the fascist right. Smart progressives know that. Smart progressives know that Manchin has been a tool of the fossil fuel industry for his entire political career, and no amount of ‘HE SHOULD’s’ or resentful tweets about him or memes or campaigns to get people to “blame” him will make a particle of difference. Manchin will never vote for anything his masters say no to—and the same appears to be true of Sinema with her massive donations from Big Pharma. They are NO votes on any measure given a gold star by the Progressive Caucus. Pretending this isn’t so is a gift to the fascist right.

Get the bills passed, even if the form they pass in gets no gold stars from the Progressive Caucus. Live to fight another day. Be a grown-up.

85

And Progressives should vote for Democrats because? You have made it clear that you think their priorities (including critical ones like talking climate change) are useless frivolities.

And in exchange for this diet of shit, what do they get in return? Demands that they give groveling thanks for the privilege.

I can’t Imagine this will depress enthusiasm and turnout.

But at least you’ll have the Left to blame.

86

Fuck them. They’re voting the way their goddamn lobbyists tell them to. They can go to hell.

87

Yep, that’s what happens when you’re a fringe group. Want to set the meal become the actual majority not just the loudest group. Once 50 progressives get elected to the senate they can do what they want in the mean time the best they can do is what the most conservative person to get them to 50 wants.

88

Good idea. I’m sure the Republicans would love to have them. After all, Biden’s approval rating in West Virginia is 19%. In Arizona, only 37% say they would vote for Biden again, unless Trump ran. You progressives have mistaken antipathy for Trump with so e sort of progressive shift in the country, but it’s not true.

If Manchin signs on to something he and his constituents clearly don’t want, he’d be committing political suicide for something he doesn’t believe in. The same goes for Sinema. Both are moderates from states that normally vote Republican but went purple in the last election due to Trump.

I remember when McCain was bucking his own party he was lionized as a ‘Maverick’, the only honest Republican, etc. At the same time, the tea party types were calling him a traitor. Now we seem to have flipped the script.

The root problem isn’t Manchin and Sinema. It’s that you are trying to pass heavily progressive legislation in a party made up of progressives AND moderates, and with no cushion to survive defectors.

Your progressive dreams aren’t being held up by two Senators - they are being held up by 52 Senators, and maybe more if some other moderate Democrats who are happy letting those two take the heat step up if they cave.

You have a minority of Progressives in both the House and Senate, which you’d think would temper your grand ambitions. Instead you want to use a combination of brow-beating and harassing your own Senators, screwing with the rules perhaps, or anything else it takes to ram this through.

The Republicans did play ball, and so did Manchin and Sinema: they signed off on a bill that is already almost twice as large as any other similar bill ever. They also all signed off on trillions of dollars of COVID relief. You could have had that infrastructure bill already had progressives not decided to play ransom games with it. Now you may get nothing.

89

You’ll have to pardon me, Sam. Occasionally, I fantasize that Democrats actually have some principles and, well, balls to do the right thing.

This country’s fucked and nothing can stop that

90

Except Manchin and Sinema aren’t allowed their principles? Joe Manchin has said very clearly why he opposes those bills. Do his convictions not matter? It seems to me that those two are the ones with ‘balls’, who are sticking to what they believe in and their constituents want, in the face of extreme pressure from their own party.

Sinema handled that obnoxious bathroom stunt with grace. She went up several notches in my book for that. And shame on anyone who thought that was a good idea.

So it appears that there are Democrats with principles and a willingness to stand up for them. They just aren’t your principles.

91

“We”? What “we” are you talking about?

92

The collective ‘we’. McCain was called a traitor by Republicans, but to Democrats he was a Maverick and the only good Republican. Now Manchin and Sinema are getting the traitor treatment from Democrats, while Republicans call them honest and principled.

It’s just politics. Thus it will ever be. Nothing personal.

93

Let’s see - he doesn’t want to encourage an entitlement society…as he parties on his yacht. He shoots down a clean energy provision because he’s taken so much $$$ from the fossil fuels industries it’s sickening.

As for Sinema:

A made-for-TV stunt.

94

But you aren’t a Republican or Democrat, are you? I mean, how can you be when you aren’t an American citizen? So what “we” are you talking about?

95

Oh, I see. Another ‘Canadians should shut up’ comment. The thing is, we do the same thing here. So consider the ‘we’ to be partisans of all political atripes, everywhere.

96

I would go further. I think civilization is fucked.

So we may as well enjoy what time we have left.

97

You’re probably right. So why the moderation, then?

98

I’d rather do something that has a 10% chance of success than something that has zero chance of success. Those are our options.

99

So if Mr. Alighieri was completely correct in in his views of the afterlife, at which level would you place Manchin and Sinema? I am thinking fourth, but perhaps only third level if one is in a certain live and let live mood. On the other hand, at what level might you place Trump?

It seems that now we might replace The Inferno with history books, and if you can assume they will be completely fair and just- capturing the time and motivations perfectly, where might any politician land according to their just merits? (*) Does any very progressive deserve a place in hell?

As much as I insist that I am an atheist, I still like parables as a way to convey lessons of morality and money and society as a whole. I do not recall the source of this ‘lesson’, but I have read quite a bit on money and personal finance (with some small overlap on economics), brain development and brain function, child development and childhood mental issues, with a small spattering of western philosophy. Since most here are better read than I am, someone will eventually pinpoint the source for me (and remind me I might have forgotten as much as I retain in my quest)

There is a game scientists play with innocents where money is found in different circumstances by more than one party. They were all just minding their own business when ten dollars (American) or One-Hundred Dollars or sometimes One-Thousand Dollars is found. They consult and if they agree (someone always has some slight advantage) they split the money as they agree. If one agrees and the other does not then one of them gets the whole amount, but if they both double cross when being asked by the authority which will hand out the actual money – then they both lose out and no one gets any money.

The thing Economists always remember that “civilians” do not is that it is always found money. If you walk away with ANYTHING, it is more than you had and more than you expected ten minutes ago. The interesting thing is how often one person would sacrifice any benefit at all in order to ruin the other persons gain. Before a one-third / two-thirds split almost every one will sabotage the deal. As I recall about forty/sixty is as big as it ever got. So someone who got forty dollars free with no effort would sacrifice that forty clams if they knew they were costing the other person sixty clams. It was small minded and petty and VERY personal. It was like the percentage of the total they were given was equal to their value as a human being. But the power to screw someone else over was always stronger than the power of having some benefit. And a reminder that no one was going to lose anything but something they didn’t know existed before. The smart move it was explained was always to take anything over nothing. Personally, I wish someone gave me forty dollars everyday and kept the other sixty — rather than receiving nothing but keeping the other for getting his or her sixty bucks. (In all honest I might be less enthusiastic about receiving forty bucks out of a grand- but I would still like to believe I would not be petty enough to want to hurt the other at a cost to myself.)

We are in a place where taking something is better than losing everything. Pass the bi-partisan bill and get as much as you can with the clean energy bill as it was laughingly named before. Then work on getting more in the future by showing the progress is working in real life!!

(*) A Visitor’s Guide to Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell | Penguin Random House

I must add an edit: Sam_Stone, I do appreciate your comments and think they should be weighed and measured and judged upon their merit. But they have convoluted the recent conversation which was something along the lines of “Hey lefties, what should we do now” and now is more in the course of international politics and all of human history.

I will thank you for putting our one sided discussion into a larger perspective and for reminding us that whatever happens in progressive circles there is a larger world we must encounter and live in.

I will add this however, I do not believe for a moment that either Sinema (my Senator) or Manchin, are living by their convictions or principles. I was and remain a fan of John McCain and believe that he did have principles (and occasionally wanted to fuck with Trump or some other enemy – not rival). But Manchin and Sinema are not supporting their constituents or their principles, they are taking the money and delivering the votes in a very transactional and cynical manner.

100

You don’t speak for me.

But you do seem to try and include yourself in discussions of American politics as tho you were an actual, active participant even tho you are not.