Yes. If no Infrastructure Bill at all gets passed, the Republicans will win in a landslide in 22, and take back the House and Senate, and likely 24.
Besides if a few years back you said that the Democrats only had 50-50 in the Senate and was passing a $2.5-3T infrastructure bill after a substantial stimulus bill, most Democrats would have been really happy. Pass the massive infrastructure bill and get to work electing more progressives in the Senate and you can get the rest.
There is 0% chance of replacing Manchin with somebody better from WV. There is maybe 10% chance of replacing Sinema with someone better from AZ.
What Democrats need to do is pick up WI and PA (and hold GA, NH, NV, and the other AZ seat) so that those two’s votes don’t matter as much.
For the OP, I always try to think “hold out for what?”. Without Manchin and Sinema you get nothing. That’s just the political reality right now. They also only have like a 7-seat majority in the House, so you need almost everybody on board. If the progressive wing in the Democratic party want to blow up both the reconciliation bill and the bipartisan infrastructure bill, I guess they can, but there is a very low chance they will get anything better in the next 3 years, IMHO.
I very much doubt that a single progressive in the house lacks the fundamental understanding of where the electorate is in this country. It’s certainly not with them. The plurality of the voting public is moderate and that includes both Dems and Repubs (i.e. those who are not Trump cult members). Progressive trying to hold out would be like trying to rob a bank by holding a gun to their own heads and threatening to shoot the hostages if their demands aren’t met.
Yep. Sinema and Manchin don’t need to be replaced, at least three Senate seats, net, have to flip from GOP to Dem next year. Dems who take global climate change seriously and place advancing a social safety net and investment in human capital over vague and ironic concerns that we’re not creating enough incentives to work*, or we’re right back in the same straits.
*Seriously, Manchin, proclaiming from the back of your yacht, what the heck does the complaint that there’s not enough Clinton workfare-style requirements in BBB have to do with adding dental and optical coverage to Medicare, which covers retirees? Or improved child-care benefits, which encourage people to return to the workforce? 
Yeah, maybe, or maybe showing that the Dems can actually do something wins them enough new votes that it might happen.
But actively trying to replace these two sends the message that the rest of the party is officially sick of their shit, and is willing to at least try to marginalize them. That can also motivate people elsewhere to elect other Democratic candidates, since the party actually seems willing to try to win, rather than just give up. People can accept a loss, if such happens, but to not even try to win is just depressing.
Some untapped reserve of ultra-progressive fence sitters is not where the Democratic votes are coming from. The smart money is in appealing to moderates, which is a far larger group of voters in the US. Unfortunately for the left, Manchin and Sinema are who appeals to those voters.
I don’t understand the logic here.
Are you saying that by promoting a bill you know Manchin and/or Sinema will oppose, and thus not passing either the infrastructure bill or the reconciliation bill, more voters in states like PA and WI will vote for the Democrats and thus elect more Democratic Senators?
Because that seems completely backwards to me. Passing bills that have stuff in it your voters like is what makes them excited to vote for you (that or opposing something they really, really hate like Donald Trump).
But you also say “showing that Dems can actually do something” - so maybe you mean it is important to pass a bill, even if it’s significantly watered down? If so, I agree with that.
Get to a number and group of policies that Manchin/Sinema can agree to and then make the entire House delegation vote for it. If the progressives don’t go along then I’m not sure what else there is to do other than admit that the existing coalition isn’t large and robust enough to govern.
But Manchin and Sinema need the bipartisan infrastructure bill to support their narrative of moderates who get things done and aren’t beholden to either party. (I don’t buy that narrative, but it’s what they’re trying to sell, and it may well be what got them elected.) An ultimatum that the bipartisan bill will not pass unless a less-neutered BBB passes could indeed end up blowing up both bills, or it could bring Manchin & Sinema back to the negotiating table with something more than a pair of pinking shears to cut program after program from BBB.
Yes, this, I thought that was clear. As a pragmatic matter, passing the whole bill is now a non-starter, M&S have guaranteed that.
But the Dems need to be able to show some kind of improvement over the crap we’ve seen the last 5 years. Otherwise, what’s the point of electing them? So take what you can get, with plans to build on that. Run shitloads of propaganda touting the Democratic successes that make an actual difference to people, and hopefully you win enough new voters that next go around, you can win more.
But that’s the thing - it doesn’t require some “untapped reserve of ultra-progressive fence sitters”.
If you look at the polling about individual elements of these bills, they are overwhelmingly popular among citizens. Even in West Virginia, which is so conservative that most here despair of ever replacing Manchin, a majority of people support most of the bill.
“Radical socialist” BS aside, these bills, even in their most “progressive” forms, actually are moderate positions, and are actually supported by a lot of moderates, if they can get their heads out of the partisan politics cloud long enough to actually look at the bills.
This should be a winning hand for the Democrats, and it would be if they didn’t have M&S tearing up half the cards.
They will be marginalized if we have 3 more Democratic Senators.
Getting the bipartisan bill is more than “not even trying to win.” It’s a win. A modest one perhaps, but a win. Trump didn’t get it done during infrastructure week. A bigger win requires a bigger majority.
They HAVE shown some improvement over the crap of the Trump years. By simply no longer doing all the evil shit Trump was doing, the Democrats are doing much better. Replacing Joe Manchin with someone like Don Blankenship or Kyrsten Sinema with someone like Paul Gosar doesn’t show any kind of improvement. All that would show is that Democrats are rigid ideologues who would rather live in a fantasy world than deal with reality.
I don’t think there is an “or” here. I think it is very clear that Manchin and Sinema (Manchin in particular) have no incentive to budge much on BBB in order to ensure the bipartisan bill passes. Put another way, I don’t think they are more vulnerable if the bipartisan bill doesn’t pass. They voted for it, after all.
I do agree that there are so many popular things in BBB that they could use to shore up support in their states. And I think they will ultimately get to yes. Then it will be up to the progressive caucus to swallow hard and vote for it.
You’re allowed to try to do more than one thing at a time. Get the bill you can get, but also make it clear you’re done with these two senators.
When you’re in a fight for your life, don’t die with bullets still in your gun.
What’s so radical about dental and optical coverage in Medicare? Or child care, which encourages people to return to the workforce? Or four weeks paid leave? Or even free community college, when we already have public elementary and high school education?
People were told that Obamacare was socialism, but lots of people didn’t want to lose the Affordable Care Act once they had benefited from it. How much of moderate or independent opposition to BBB stems from the same kind of propaganda? The barbed tip of that propaganda being hammering the $3.5 trillion price tag when that’s over 10 years and annualized it’s less than the stimulus bills that Congress happily passed under Trump during the worst of covid.
Some of the components of BBB aimed at global climate change are arguably radical, but it’s a radical problem. Biden doesn’t strike me as particularly progressive looking at his pre-Presidency record, but he’s clearly taken climate change to heart – and intends to take it on with both hands – because he sees it as an existential issue.
I’m not a progressive, but if it was put to referendum I’d vote for BBB in a heartbeat. Note that many of the Dems who’ve supported BBB in Congress are not progressives, “Squad” members, or the like.
Are we in a fight for our lives? We’re getting a decent bill. We’ll trying to get a better one too. We’ll probably not get the better one right away. That’s hardly a Greek tragedy.
I hear what you’re both saying and agree. A 24 week paid child care leave should not be controversial as it equally benefits people regardless of party affiliation. But here’s the thing: there are many conservatives who see this strictly as a very left policy and cannot reconcile the potential benefits with the bitter urge to limit social progressive policies. It’s irrational but if Manchin can get them on board by throwing 24 weeks of paid leave under the bus, then that’s realpolitik.
Excellent analogy, but IMHO you have it backwards. Manchin and Sinema are bullets in the (admittedly flawed) gun we have. We either use them, or piss and moan about how we wish we had a better a gun. I know which side of that debate I’m on.
From Politico, it sure sounds like the progressive caucus is willing to go along with whatever Manchin and Sinema will sign up to:
Yeah, you are, because there are other bills that need to be passed, but which aren’t being passed because the Dems don’t have enough votes in the Senate to pass them. Electoral reform, anyone?
Infrastructure will always be there to be fixed, even if the cost goes up the longer you ignore it. At some point, a government that’s not Trumpian level insane will bite the bullet and do something about it.
But when large parts of your own society are actively undermining the democratic process, well, that’s something that really matters, and is time-sensitive. They only need to win once to destroy the current model of US democracy, and so you need to stop them now, not some vague time in the future. And doing enough to win votes in 2022 is the only way you can do that. And part of winning those votes is to show you’re willing to cut loose the members of your own party who are actively dragging you down.
It boggles my mind how many people in the US still seem to think it’s still all just politics as usual, after what we’ve seen this past two years.