“It’s a little too quiet” - US Politics February 2021

idk i think he’s actually kinda right about that one, at least in the minds of the voters, who don’t wanna hear that arcane procedure (filibuster, budget reconciliation, parliamentarian) stopped a broadly popular policy

there are obvious reasons for why the procedure is stopping the relevant actors from acting, but it’s a weak excuse, and everyone knows that these procedures would never stop republicans from doing whatever they wanted

Until the Vermont governor's heel turn when Bernie dies, there isn't a mechanism for McConnell to actually obstruct. He doesn't have 60 votes to overrule Harris if she overruled the parliamentarian, he doesn't have a way to protect the filibuster to keep them from 50+1ing their platform going forward - its maintenance is the choice of the Democrats.

McConnell can make a lot of noise, but that's it. (And yes, this requires party discipline for 2-4 Democrats - but that's what you have to try at some point if you actually want to enact the most progressive platform in the country's history.)

if the trump tax bill and all the major major major changes it made to existing law could be done through reconciliation, then i think it's super cowardly and dumb (considering voodoo's post re voters perceptions) for them to just shrug and say "sorry, we couldn't do this basic thing."

honestly, i tend to avoid politics and these threads because our government is so much of this, it feels pointless.

Tweets that have aged like raw milk

Y’all almost had Cynthia Nixon. This is why experience matters.

— Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) March 17, 2020

tester open to filibuster reform?

ICYMI, Sen. @JonTester laid out a path to filibuster reform on @RealTimers last night:

“It’s being abused to the max & it’s no longer about getting bipartisan groups of senators together to pass a piece of legislation together. Now it’s used to stonewall, it’s used to stop.” 1/

— Stephen Spaulding (@SteveESpaulding) February 27, 2021

Everyone recognizes that the relief bill is the only realistic chance to pass the $15 minimum wage.

Realistic chance, yes, but never a likely one. It was a long shot to start with, and the parliamentarian made it harder. It's a testament to the remarkable success of the $15-an-hour movement that that has even become a major party talking point. That took a ton of work and organization, maybe the most effective labor organizing in a generation. But having the first minimum wage increase in more than a decade also double it is a huge political leap.

It would be great! I'm 100 percent for it. I just didn't expect it to actually happen, even though I'll be happily surprised if it does. The most likely scenario to me seemed to be some back and forth negotiation that would land somewhere north of $10. AND peg to inflation, that's more important than the exact number that gets set, I think. That negotiation can either be with Republicans, if enough of them see political risk in opposing a wage increase. Or, per Tester above, maybe with Democrats willing to do some kind of filibuster reform to get it passed. (Or the latter being used as a threat to get the former to come to terms.)

But, you know, this is how all this stuff works, and also kind of the only way it can. All big bills have complicated maneuvering and negotiations going on around them. Nothing just gets rammed through, especially not now.

A $10 minimum wage in 2025 would be an embarrassment and complete failure, when Democrats - with a small amount of political will given the popularity of the relief bill, Joe Biden, and minimum wage increase itself - could make it $15.

Voters love it when, without any actual opposition defeating you, you fail to deliver on a platform plank from the last two elections.

What do you get out of this?

without any actual opposition defeating you

There's always opposition. From the other party, from your own party, from industry groups, labor groups, there's always going to be opposition from somewhere. Getting a bill passed is hard! Republicans failed to pass plenty of things when they had majorities too. And the Democrats barely have a majority.

I mean, you can keep being shocked and outraged by politics going on in Washington, D.C., if you want.

https://newrepublic.com/article/161504/democrats-blocking-15-minimum-wage

Opposition inside your own party isn’t opposition - it’s failure. Manchin or Sinema or whomever torpedoing Joe Biden’s campaign promises is a loss for the Democrats without anyone to blame when you’re trying to get the single mom working at Dollar Tree to show up and vote for you.

What do I get from this? I get to talk about how the party that is the only non-fascist option on the ballot is wholly inadequate to the task at hand. I know that negativity harshes your mellow jaymc and you want to find the bright side of the Democrats but why would anyone want to be nice about a party where this is one of the leading lights?

I am a progressive Democrat.

But I'm friends with Republicans. I frequent businesses owned by Republicans. I root for sports teams full of Republicans.

I've devoted my life to politics, but I'm careful to not let my politics consume me.

— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 28, 2021

But the reality is that Senate Democrats don’t have 50 votes for broadly and significantly raising the minimum wage, either directly or through some hastily jury-rigged tax scheme. Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin would have killed the increase even if the parliamentarian had approved it and would have killed it even if Kamala Harris had been willing to override the parliamentarian to include it in the reconciliation package. If the $15 wage is resurrected in a regular bill, their opposition to eliminating the legislative filibuster will kill it before the two of them have a chance to kill the proposal on substance in an up or down vote. Some have argued all this absolves the Democratic Party as a whole of responsibility for the proposal’s fate. But as long as Sinema and Manchin remain in opposition to it, it will be plainly and literally true that a $15 minimum wage increase is being blocked by Democrats.

What’s Joe Biden’s role in all this? Well, he’s the president of the United States. And one of the perks of being the president of the United States is the platform the position offers him for communicating with voters—most of whom support raising the minimum wage, and some of whom live in Arizona and West Virginia.

and it goes on from there.

bleak but afaict correct article

https://newrepublic.com/article/161504/democrats-blocking-15-minimum-wage

Opposition inside your own party isn’t opposition - it’s failure.

Oh come on. The two parties are massive coalitions of disparate interests. That's what you get in a two-party system. There aren't many issues where there isn't some internal divide. And they can't afford to lose a single vote. I'm not saying they're doing this well, we'll see what the outcome is. But I never expected a $15 wage to pass, because it seemed like a huge political lift. A significant wage hike of any kind — and a 50 percent increase would be significant, even if it's not enough — will be both a political win and a big help to a lot of people. If you're going to turn up your nose at raising the minimum wage by 50 percent, then I think you're just going to be disappointed by politics always.

If they fail to raise it at all, or don't get it at least into double digits, then I think you can fairly call them utter failures.

Democrats are a coalition of disparate interests because it suits the party's leadership and donors to not attempt to enforce any kind of party discipline.

All of that is irrelevant, though. You ran in 2016 and 2020 on $15 an hour. Republicans cannot stop you from doing it. When you have to explain to the people who voted for you, who donated to you, who knocked on doors for you, why you didn't live up to your promise, what do you say? "Well, another Democrat stopped us." Aw shucks.

The excuse of Republican obstruction does not exist, all failures have to be owned - just like 2010.

milo, what are your thoughts on LBJ? (not sarcastic, genuinely curious)

We could do with more nut-cutting in the Senate these days

Milo if you read legislative history of pretty much any major bill in history you're going to find the same things over and over. Always negotiation and dissent, within parties, between parties, between different interest groups, this is literally politics. Yes, it sucks in lots of ways. It always has. But it is possible to get things done. It's often (usually) not everything you want, especially not all at one time. There isn't a bill that's ever been passed, including the ones we think of as milestones, that didn't leave some people disappointed at not going far enough, or going too far, or both. That doesn't mean you don't push for the best bill you can get. But it does mean that just pushing for it doesn't guarantee it will happen.

Why should we expect anything to “get done” ever again

Roasting in hell if there is one.

Despite being a bastard and a racist, I think he had real feeling for the poor. As a politician I think his ego (desire to be a great man etc.) and the way it pushed him to use the bully pulpit (or simply bullying) is a personality component most major Democrats have been largely missing since him. The lesson taken from the eventual undoing of the War on Poverty and others parts of the Great Society should always be 'go universal whenever possible.'

I have no idea how (aside from never getting deeper into Vietnam) he as the Democrat he was could overcome the racist voter backlash that began in '66 and steamrolled from there into Nixon and Reagan. A few more years of entrenchment/a second term might have made a big difference in stalling the neoliberal turn.

There is not a deep and unavoidable history of "negotiation and dissent" within a party in pursuing a major campaign promise. There is a recent history of it (Obamacare) but that was a complete disaster.

You're writing this as if the $15 minimum wage was just a tossed off idea rather than a headline in the Democratic platform for five years now - and one of the key pieces used to keep Berniecrats in line. ("Most progressive Presidential platform ever.") The party can't win without them, as it can't win without Black and Latinx voters (who are, as workers, twice as likely to make poverty wages as white voters) showing up and voting 88% and 70% for Democrats.

What's the sales pitch for a left-winger to vote for a centrist Democrat if the right-wing Democrat ultimately still decides policy?

If they can't do this, how are they getting the PRO Act through the filibuster? How are they getting the public option through Joe Manchin's daughter if that gets to be a reconciliation bill?

You also left out that this negotiation isn't actually happening. Joe Biden isn't on TV demanding $15 an hour or calling out Manchin or offering him flying cars exclusive to West Virginia. They shrugged and went "oh well." That's a political loser.

as white workers*

Would hope that every Dem package would be the most progressive yet by default since they're fighting a party of repression. But yeah they're bound to be a broad church as one would hope the GOP to be though I think they're shedding the elements that don't condone their nastier traits. Would think you would have otherwise been stuck with both being broad churches until such s time you reformed the political infrastructure to allow a 3rd party as something other than a wasted vote.

Do wonder what would come in to replace a Manchin if he were voted out. A much more negative GOP vote that would make things even more difficult? Sinema seems to be a bit different and would hopefully be replaced by somebody from the party she should be voting with?

They’re not ‘bound to be a broad church,’ that’s just the pseudo-realism of Americans who’ve had that politics imagination stunted.

This isn’t 1958, stitching together Black voters in Chicago and racist voters in Biloxi. Democratic voters are rather uniformly to the left of the party as constituted in the halls of power, as are Americans in general.

It’s a regular bit now to say Democrats in general or certain ones don’t bear responsibility for the right of the party - but as the center has argued against the left repeatedly, the parties are national. A Podunk Democrat doesn’t get the local boy pass like he did back in the day, he’s lumped in with Pelosi or AOC, with BLM and ‘defund the police.’ The flip of this is that relatively good Democrats get to share in responsibility for what a Manchin does. “I wanted to raise you out of poverty” is empty messaging when the party doesn’t do it.

Ro Khanna can make hundreds of very good and true Tweets about the insanity and immorality of Congress not raising the minimum wage while refusing to assert oversight on the bombs we rain down in Syria - but as long as his party continues to ensure that the bombs and continued immiseration win... who cares? How does he matter?

It will be the failure to raise the minimum wage and the failure to get relief checks out fast enough that will sink Dems in 2022, based on what I'm reading from both shitposting memelords and political strategists.

Much of what's gone on in this thread in the past 12 hours just drives home what I was getting at yesterday. No one cares about senate procedure, they want their checks and higher wages, and these ghoulish rich assholes with political power keep fucking that up...so much so that it seems to be purposeful.

You guys are right, politics is simple and anything less than doubling the minimum wage in a 50-50 Senate can be nothing more nor less than a failure of will. If Joe Biden just doesn’t believe hard enough, Tinkerbell will die. Probably mean old Trump hid the pixie dust somewhere in the White House and bumbling’ Joe just can’t find it.

(should say Bumblin’ Joe, obv)

guys the secret passcode for getting milo to shut up is this sequence of words “yes, joe biden should absolutely be publicly demanding £15/hr” and it has the additional benefit of being true

an incoming president with popular policies demanding certain things is a big part of “how the sausage gets made” too

I get to talk about how the party that is the only non-fascist option on the ballot is wholly inadequate to the task at hand.

OK, but why? What's compelling you to do this?

I’m trying to be a little more zen about how badly the democrats are shitting the bed out of the gate.

I’m a rich middle age cishet white man with no children and who will most likely die before the worst of catastrophic climate change affects the wealthy first world.

If the Democratic Party wants to keep pampering people like me at the expense of the base that has to actually show up to vote to get them in office well gee all I can say is “thanks”

killing people in Syria for no real reason seems a little weird but I’m sure there’s Raytheon in my SEP IRA so *shrug*

OK, but why? What's compelling you to do this?

either that or the sweet sweet high of feeling morally superior

he's picking fights with people who basically agree with him on things (everyone itt agrees that the minimum wage is far too low) and responding to anyone who suggest there might be some actual politics happening with regurgitated podcast opinions

plenty of people on this board are capable of expressing leftist ideals and passionately defending them without being dickishly confrontational about it

I didn't realize that he partially addressed this on a different thread last night:

Do you ever get tired of arguing. Not saying it's good or bad, I'm just curious.

― pomenitul, Saturday, February 27, 2021 8:36 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

No, it's just words and shit. The only time I've gotten even partially annoyed are at the two or three old timers who rage out and try to get personal (with me or anyone else).

― Joe Biden Stan Account (milo z), Saturday, February 27, 2021 8:40 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

an incoming president with popular policies demanding certain things is a big part of “how the sausage gets made” too

True, but: A.) he is demanding it, he wanted it in the COVID bill; B.) we all know that Joe Biden's commitment to the more progressive planks of the platform is shaky, this is exactly why (presumably) nobody itt was at all enthusiastic about his candidacy; C.) even if Biden really wanted it, it would still be hard to do, Manchin and/or Sinema would most likely not have supported it even if Harris had overridden the parliamentarian; so D.) we were always most likely to end up negotiating for some amount other than $15.

"Likely" doesn't mean inevitable, there were possible constellations of things that might have gotten us there, but the cumulative things against it made that difficult. If you understand $15 as the aspiration, it is also basically the opening position for negotiations, and this is how politics works. We do not have a 60-vote majority in the Senate for a $15 minimum wage, or even a 50-vote-plus-Harris majority for it. We can all moan and curse about it all we want, but to be surprised by it or to think that this is some catastrophe rather simply by far the most likely path to a wage increase of some kind is just to not understand the political landscape we inhabit.

(cue another round of "I don't want to hear about politics in the politics thread")

no wonder better things aren't possible with such a boring and limited definition of politics

a boring and limited definition of politics

who's the president, again?

he's picking fights with people who basically agree with him on things (everyone itt agrees that the minimum wage is far too low) and

The Realistic Adults In The Room don’t actually seem to agree that much, really. The minimum wage is too low but if it doesn’t increase oh well and nothing could be done. C’est la vie. It’s probably more important that we continue getting Trump status updates or whatever than look at where Biden is taking us.

responding to anyone who suggest there might be some actual politics happening with regurgitated podcast opinions

Ah, yes, it is I picking fights.

plenty of people on this board are capable of expressing leftist ideals and passionately defending them without being dickishly confrontational about it

― little johnny juul (voodoo chili)

yep this, seriously milo STFU

If you understand $15 as the aspiration, it is also basically the opening position for negotiations, and this is how politics works.

What? This is just revisionism as excuse - the Fight for $15 sure as fuck doesn't consider itself an 'opening position' to get a $10 minimum wage in 5 years. The living wage movement has been active since the '90s and seeking a number higher than $11 for 15 years. The Democrats put $15 in their platform five years ago.

You've leaned hard on this "this is politics" "negotiations" line - but negotiations implies two sides giving things up to meet in the middle. That's not what has happened. No one gave up anything to get Democrats to punt on the best chance to fulfill their campaign promise.

milo, yr heart's in the right place and you clearly aren't stupid bit your inability to follow the thread of an argument is astounding. One key would be to stop it with all the goddamn strawmen (eg suggesting that anyone here has been at all 'oh well (shrugs)!' about a minimum wage hike not passing). I mean, I empathize, ADD's a bitch, but recognize yr limitations.

suggesting that anyone here has been at all 'oh well (shrugs)!' about a minimum wage hike not passing)

dude, there are plenty of posts on this thread that read like this imo ... maybe it's a demoralized 'oh well (shrugs)!' but idk ...

i will say it is definitely depressing it is to hear people basically say "welp, $10 is what we can get now..." when we know $15 is barely a living wage as is (as pointed out many times already) and straight-up unlivable in many areas

i don't know if $10 would be worth it even if they removed all the minimum wage exceptions