US Politics: Don't Manchin the war...

[Fragile Bird]

I’m surprised no one has mentioned that that surprise visit to the hospital that Trump made a couple of years ago (2019?), that had everyone in the press speculating something bad was happening because it was so secret, and which the WH kept saying was just routine, was for a Trump getting a colonoscopy.

Trump wanted it kept secret so that he wouldn’t be “the butt of late-night jokes”.

[DireWolfSpirit]

58 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Trump wanted it kept secret so that he wouldn’t be “the butt of late-night jokes”.

Or alternatively they are selling Donald the Dicktator merchandise over at Etsy.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/492504822/donald-the-dicktator-vinyl-anti-trump?ref=lx_share

[Leofric]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

I’m surprised no one has mentioned that that surprise visit to the hospital that Trump made a couple of years ago (2019?), that had everyone in the press speculating something bad was happening because it was so secret, and which the WH kept saying was just routine, was for a Trump getting a colonoscopy.

Trump wanted it kept secret so that he wouldn’t be “the butt of late-night jokes”.

The other reason they stated that Trump wanted it kept secret was that he was going to be anesthetized during the procedure, and that Pence should have been notified that he was acting-President while Trump was incapacitated, but Trump didn't want t give Pence that power for even a few hours.     

[Kalbear]

I thought this was a good article on the weirdness Sinema is portraying and what dems should and shouldn't do about it - which in this case is not reward bullshit grandstanding and bad faith negotiations and kill both things no matter what. This would, IMO, doom Biden's presidency and give us 4 more years  of Trump, but I also get where he's coming from.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/kill-the-bill-2

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

49 minutes ago, Kaligator said:

I thought this was a good article on the weirdness Sinema is portraying and what dems should and shouldn't do about it - which in this case is not reward bullshit grandstanding and bad faith negotiations and kill both things no matter what. This would, IMO, doom Biden's presidency and give us 4 more years  of Trump, but I also get where he's coming from.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/kill-the-bill-2

His underlying reasoning is wrong. Citing how Democrats negotiated with Bush would make since if this was an interparty fight, but that's not the case. Applying the same tactics to an intraparty fight likely ends in complete disaster for everyone if it blows up, and that's becoming increasingly likely by the day. 

[Gorn]

23 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

His underlying reasoning is wrong. Citing how Democrats negotiated with Bush would make since if this was an interparty fight, but that's not the case. Applying the same tactics to an intraparty fight likely ends in complete disaster for everyone if it blows up, and that's becoming increasingly likely by the day. 

Only if you consider winning elections to be an end goal in itself, and not the means of accomplishing other goals.

For example, I consider passing legislation to fight climate change to be far more important then the result of 2024 US elections. And this is a time-critical issue that cannot simply be punted into some future election cycle with a potentially larger Senate majority. It needs to be passed now. Today. Shit, it should have been passed twenty years ago.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

42 minutes ago, Gorn said:

Only if you consider winning elections to be an end goal in itself, and not the means of accomplishing other goals.

For example, I consider passing legislation to fight climate change to be far more important then the result of 2024 US elections. And this is a time-critical issue that cannot simply be punted into some future election cycle with a potentially larger Senate majority. It needs to be passed now. Today. Shit, it should have been passed twenty years ago.

I agree that combating climate change has to be a top priority, but that’s not what the article was arguing. It was making the case that progressives should be willing to sink the infrastructure bill if they don’t get what they want and that it’s worth it to get nothing instead of just the standalone bill to prove a point. It says nothing on how to get said climate change legislation passed, and logically it’s fair to assume that such an action would result in nothing getting passed and the total loss of power.  

[Gorn]

4 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I agree that combating climate change has to be a top priority, but that’s not what the article was arguing. It was making the case that progressives should be willing to sink the infrastructure bill if they don’t get what they want and that it’s worth it to get nothing instead of just the standalone bill to prove a point. It says nothing on how to get said climate change legislation passed, and logically it’s fair to assume that such an action would result in nothing getting passed and the total loss of power.  

The logic of mutually assured destruction depends on actually following through with the "destruction" part, even if it gains you nothing in itself.

[Fez]

52 minutes ago, Gorn said:

Only if you consider winning elections to be an end goal in itself, and not the means of accomplishing other goals.

For example, I consider passing legislation to fight climate change to be far more important then the result of 2024 US elections. And this is a time-critical issue that cannot simply be punted into some future election cycle with a potentially larger Senate majority. It needs to be passed now. Today. Shit, it should have been passed twenty years ago.

The problem is, almost any climate change legislation passed now would in large part be reversed by a Republican trifecta in 2025, if they have one. And that applies to almost any issue; Republicans succeeded in reversing a huge amount of government activity during the Trump years. Even stuff like the ACA, which wasn't outright repealed, was significantly parred back in some key ways.

Which is why, to my mind, the key first step is for Democrats to secure a durable Congressional majority; because only then can pass major legislation that lasts. Pretty much every bill and proposal being considered right now I only look at through the lens of how does this affect the midterms. Because none of it will matter anymore the moment the current Republican party takes power again.

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Kaligator said:

I thought this was a good article on the weirdness Sinema is portraying and what dems should and shouldn't do about it - which in this case is not reward bullshit grandstanding and bad faith negotiations and kill both things no matter what.

Well, the argument explicitly wasn't "kill both things no matter what," it was "if it’s the BIF and nothing else, kill the BIF."  I particularly agree with this:

Quote

If the upshot of the Biden presidency is that Democrats delivered the votes for Kyrsten Sinema’s infrastructure bill vanity project and got nothing else it will be profoundly self-discrediting for the Democratic party in addition to being a disaster for the climate future and much else. Democrats and the White House need to be ready to kill the infrastructure bill.

I agree that just passing the infrastructure bill would be worse electorally than passing neither.  In a polarized era, you bank on your base, not on the relatively minuscule number of voters in the middle that may or may not swing the other way.

As for anything that happens in the next two weeks "dooming" 2024, that's rather silly.  2022?  Almost certainly, but no one can confidently say what the political landscape will look like in three years.

[DMC]

Also, it's quite striking  that in the past week, really only over the past 24 hours, Sinema has been cast as the villain in negotiations while Manchin is the reasonable one throughout political media.  Whomever Manchin's publicist is deserves a raise.

[Fez]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

Also, it's quite striking  that in the past week, really only over the past 24 hours, Sinema has been cast as the villain in negotiations while Manchin is the reasonable one throughout political media.  Whomever Manchin's publicist is deserves a raise.

From the quotes from various Congress folks, I don't think that's just a media perception. It sounds like Manchin does want some sort of deal, just likely quite a bit smaller than the current proposal. Whereas its entirely unclear if Sinema wants a bill to pass at all; including whether she actually cares if the infrastructure bill passes.

Ro Khanna straight up said they don't have a two senator problem, they have a one senator problem.

[DMC]

True, the Khanna quote is driving a lot of the coverage.  Thing is, from all the reports I've read, they're both still refusing to even specify what they actually want, which is the fundamental problem.

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, DMC said:

As for anything that happens in the next two weeks "dooming" 2024, that's rather silly.  2022?  Almost certainly, but no one can confidently say what the political landscape will look like in three years.

Sure! If you like, I'd assign a medium confidence.

Biden's term so far has not been particularly good. He did not do a great job from a optics perspective with Afghanistan. He has not done a great job with covid. His approval is not particularly good, and per your metrics (approval at 40-45%) at this point he should be concerned with getting re-elected.

If he also cannot deliver any major legislation he wanted now, his opportunity to do so is likely gone. It is more likely he loses at least majority control of one of the branches in 2022, and we all know he'll get nothing to tout as a victory between then and the election. 

That trajectory - of already having low approval and then failing to get more done - is not going to give him any favors, and if he can't get anything done now, he'll actually be worse than what Trump did. Add to that pissing off his base some, pissing off the opposition, a far more difficult voting landscape in 2024 and (if he can't pass anything) a good chance of another recession, and I don't see it looking good for him. 

The only way I think that he can turn things around is with these bills. Now, it's certainly possible that in the next few years some external threat that unifies the US comes to pass, but I wouldn't bet on that, nor would I bet that even external threats would unify the country - things like Covid didn't, so would a war? 

[Fez]

2 minutes ago, Kaligator said:

The only way I think that he can turn things around is with these bills. Now, it's certainly possible that in the next few years some external threat that unifies the US comes to pass, but I wouldn't bet on that, nor would I bet that even external threats would unify the country - things like Covid didn't, so would a war? 

I think the most important thing for Biden's re-election chances is how the economy is doing in 2024. If it's booming, I think he's got an excellent shot at re-election, regardless of anything else. If it's in a recession, he's in major trouble. Now I think the passage of these bills would have a major simulative effect and increases the odds of a boom economy then; but, if COVID is merely a background endemic issue by then, it's possible the economy will be cruising regardless of what happens now and he'll win anyway.

[DMC]

Just now, Kaligator said:

Sure! If you like, I'd assign a medium confidence.

Biden's term so far has not been particularly good.

I don't think anyone should have any confidence for predicting a presidency is "doomed" three years beforehand.  Clinton had a disastrous first year, and recovered.  Reagan took a hit in the 1982 midterms and his approval hit its nadir in January 1983 at 35% - only for him to win 49 states less than two years later.  And before you say "you can't compare the past to now," I'd argue voters have even shorter memories/things change faster these days compared to previous presidencies. 

[Fez]

Anyway, here's Manchin with another extremely vague statement about reconciliation:

 

[Kalbear]

9 minutes ago, Fez said:

I think the most important thing for Biden's re-election chances is how the economy is doing in 2024. If it's booming, I think he's got an excellent shot at re-election, regardless of anything else. If it's in a recession, he's in major trouble. Now I think the passage of these bills would have a major simulative effect and increases the odds of a boom economy then; but, if COVID is merely a background endemic issue by then, it's possible the economy will be cruising regardless of what happens now and he'll win anyway.

I think that there are going to be other factors than Covid that will cause some issues with the economy going forward. We still haven't dealt with the economic ramifications of the eviction cliff, we are still running into inflationary problems and major issues with supply chains that are not going to be easily solved for at least a couple years, natural disasters are going to continue to get worse and worse in the next few years. The notion of a major economic boom after covid becomes endemic is not a guarantee, at least not without major stimulus. 

10 minutes ago, DMC said:

I don't think anyone should have any confidence for predicting a presidency is "doomed" three years beforehand.  Clinton had a disastrous first year, and recovered.  Reagan took a hit in the 1982 midterms and his approval hit its nadir in January 1983 at 35% - only for him to win 49 states less than two years later.  And before you say "you can't compare the past to now," I'd argue voters have even shorter memories/things change faster these days compared to previous presidencies. 

I agree that people have shorter memories, but I'm not sure that the approval rating that Biden had was really indicative of high memories. My suspicion is that much like Trump, that's probably about as good as he gets, and short of providing a miracle or something really big people are just going to kind of dislike him because that's what we do now - partisans buoy him, the other side will always hate him, and most everyone else will hate whoever is in office in search of the next shiny toy.

Mostly, I take some value from this thread, which shows progressives shitting on Biden as fast as they're able to and being fine with Trump again. I don't see that changing unless those bills get passed. 

[DMC]

7 minutes ago, Kaligator said:

My suspicion is that much like Trump, that's probably about as good as he gets, and short of providing a miracle or something really big people are just going to kind of dislike him because that's what we do now - partisans buoy him, the other side will always hate him, and most everyone else will hate whoever is in office in search of the next shiny toy.

Mostly, I take some value from this thread, which shows progressives shitting on Biden as fast as they're able to and being fine with Trump again. I don't see that changing unless those bills get passed. 

Well, I definitely agree that Biden's support is relatively soft, which means he's more in danger of the bottom falling out than Trump or Obama.  That doesn't change the fact that the conditions he will be facing in 2024 are entirely unknown, which means predicting his presidency's "doom" three years out is necessarily premature.  

As for this thread providing insight, not sure how.  There were plenty of progressives shitting on Biden when he was riding high and I don't think most anyone is "fine with Trump again."

[Larry of the Lawn]

"Shitting on Biden"= pointing out all the things Biden has failed to do. 

I also have absolutely no idea how that equals being fine with Trump again.  That's a massive leap.