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

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

We are 10 years past $15 being a sort of ok min wage

but hey stonks go up so

xxxpost I haven't seen anyone arguing against it or saying that it shouldn't happen. I feel like 'of course the minimum wage needs to be raised way the hell up' is a common starting point for non-sociopaths so I don't know who milo's arguing with on that count.

There is a difference between '$10-11/hr may be all we can get because everything is fucked' and '$10-11/hr is a minimum wage hike I find acceptable'

The middle you left out is what I take issue with - '$11 an hour is all you should have ever expected because $15 was a negotiating ploy.'

I haven't said anyone is an opponent of $15 an hour, I haven't called anyone a liar, nothing of the sort.

I take issue with "that's just politics, duh" platitudes and excuses for the failures.

And I take issue with the ILX left punching shifts of 'how can you disagree that he represents the most progressive platform ever/will be the most progressive president since FDR' to 'we knew to never expect Biden to actually care about the progressive platform.'

There go those strawmen again.

Who on this board wasn't disappointed that Biden became the democratic nominee? Who?

there is no bottom

I don't know, I haven't said a word about anyone's personal fandom or disappointment. That's your strawman.

What I was told, though, for the last half of last year, was that I shouldn't talk shit about Joe Biden because of the most progressive platform and that he himself had no political beliefs but was a bellwether for the party who followed the lead of its masses - and that shifted into the first two months of this year being that he had learned the lessons of 2010 and would act decisively to improve.

And now the posts I take issue with are things like 'people who believed Biden when he said $2000 were dumb' and 'you never should have expected commitment to the campaign promises he ran on.'

i'm going to try to get a bunch of people whose family members died of Covid to stand in a large group together and yell at ted cruz

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

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Sunday, February 28, 2021 6:19 AM (three hours ago)

tracer otm

I don’t think $15 an hour was a “negotiating ploy,” I think it’s what the Democrats (even Biden) want in general. But not ALL of them want it, because not ALL of congressional Democrats want all the same things and when you have a 50-50 split that becomes a problem. If we had a 55-45 split and they still couldn’t do it, that would be a different situation. But the difference between a 50-50 Senate and a 55-45 Senate, combined with a president whose commitment on the issue falls short of the more impassioned progressives in the party, is part of the facts-on-the-ground. And those facts are, to be clear, considerably better than they could have been if either Georgia race had gone differently. But they’re still what they are.

And so if the $15 wage — ALWAYS a high political hurdle — becomes out of reach, then $15 becomes the de facto opening position for what comes next, which means the end result is most likely something less than that. Which was always the most likely scenario with these particular facts.

there is no center

milo, I think you're misreading hopes as predictions. Lots of people want/wanted to believe this administration would usher in unprecedentedly progressive reforms, but lots of people have also paid attention to Biden's decades-long career and have tempered their expectations accordingly. I genuinely don't recall anyone saying Biden would definitely become nu-FDR but feel free to cite some posts to the contrary.

Also: yes, joe biden should absolutely be publicly demanding $15/hr.

But not ALL of them want it, because not ALL of congressional Democrats want all the same things

I would think that all congressional Democrats want to be re-elected?

I don’t think $15 an hour was a “negotiating ploy,” I think it’s what the Democrats (even Biden) want in general

I have no doubt that if Biden could wave a wand and create a $15 minimum wage he'd do it. But also, I don't think he's nearly as committed to it as a lot of more progressive Democrats. Both of those things can be true.

And also, none of this is unusual! Or specific to hapless or craven Democrats. Presidents and governors of both parties with governing majorities fail to get things passed all the time.

I would think that all congressional Democrats want to be re-elected?

Of course they do. So the degree to which someone like Manchin or Sinema isn't on the frontlines for $15 an hour tells you something about how they're doing the political math for their particular seats. Maybe they're doing that math wrong, I don't know, I don't live in West Virginia or Arizona and I don't know how much or little pressure they're getting on this in either direction. (To that end, one useful thing to do obviously would be for progressive groups in those states to really activate and light up their phonelines, and hopefully that's happening.)

To that end, one useful thing to do obviously would be for progressive groups in those states to really activate and light up their phonelines, and hopefully that's happening.

thank you, I agree.

that any one of these Ds think $15/hr is bad politics is baffling. Didn’t Bush Jr. hand out $300 checks to everyone early on in his first term to pass some tax cuts for the rich?

Bush signed the last minimum wage increase.

I’m not going to look it up but but I’d be shocked if 15/ hr doesn’t outperform Sinema, Manchin and even republicans in red states.

Any “political math” being done is explicitly to keep donor class from getting itchy

that and also out of fear from potential blowback over "inflation" "destroying small businesses" "exporting jobs to China" ... all the things that the Slate article milo posted a link to brought up.

but the thing is, if all your decisions are reactionary against the possible attack ads the opposition could run against you ... that just seems like no way to go about things.

^^ basically the D problem in a nutshell, one of their own making that mostly exists in their heads

it's one of those die on one's feet vs. living on one's knees, but it's not like the Democrats will literally die, they will just get jobs with corporations or large universities or something.

it’s hard for me to separate the strategic question of ‘should biden get kamala to ignore the parliamentarian and force the senate vote and risk having sinema and manchin (and possibly others) sink the bill in order to get $15 in through reconciliation using the leverage of the covid relief bill’ from the question of what’s in the hearts of dem leaders. like maybe they really hate 15$ and even though it’s hugely popular they genuinely don’t want to pass it. or maybe they’re risk averse and don’t want a big fight right off the bat that could empower manchin

xxxxp - the Arizona ballot measure from 2016 that has gotten their minimum wage above $12 won 58% of the vote

A WV poll on $15 found 63% in favor but it was from a fair wage group so ???

We're still only a month into Biden's presidency. The idea that he and the Democratic Party have failed, or demonstrated obvious rank incompetence, just because they haven't been able to get a minimum wage hike into an omnibus COVID relief bill seems premature.

Some people seem so eager to point to any road bumps as proof that their pessimistic predictions were correct, rather than momentary disappointments on a longer path of progress.

Also, I get that focusing on structural barriers can sometimes ignore the fact that party leaders have agency and can exert political will. But focusing so much on their individual failures and weaknesses too often ignores the genuinely difficult situational realities that have hemmed them in.

Who on this board wasn't disappointed that Biden became the democratic nominee? Who?

Dan S

I don’t think there is a situational reality keeping the most powerful man on the planet who just won the most votes in history from going on TV and demanding $15 an hour.

Any “political math” being done is explicitly to keep donor class from getting itchy

No kidding. The donor class is a fairly big part of the political math in our dumb corrupt system. Which is why we again/still/always need campaign reform and ideally get Citizens United overturned or reined in.

I don’t know if you guys have noticed this, but lots of things that pole well — like universal healthcare — don’t actually get enacted. And the only way to try to get them enacted is to go thru this dumb corrupt system. At least unless/until we can make it less dumb and corrupt. But nothing about a corporate Democrat president and 50 votes in the Senate makes a massive overhaul of our system likely in the short term. So if you want to pass a minimum wage increase in 2021, you have to deal with the system we have.

pole well, poll well

I don’t think there is a situational reality keeping the most powerful man on the planet who just won the most votes in history from going on TV and demanding $15 an hour.

― Joe Biden Stan Account (milo z), Sunday, February 28, 2021 12:57 PM (thirty-nine seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sure, I guess he could do that. And I'd be happy to see him do so. But I'm not convinced that that alone would persuade Joe Manchin to vote any differently.

It might if he said 'and Joe Manchin doesn't think you deserve $15/hr'

Maybe not, but the acquiescence is more than half the problem. If you’re not going to put Manchin or whomever on the spot on an overwhelmingly popular campaign promise, when? Is all that political capital dedicated to getting Neera Tanden a job?

it doesn't require a whole lot of effort ... like, as the president of the US, he doesn't have to do much to convince the news media to pay attention to him. Maybe he can pose with the dog or something while saying it. People like dogs.

Once again, I would encourage all of you to pick up the phone Monday morning to yell at your Senators to "pass the fucking bill already and oh by the way $15 minimum wage asshole", rather than making the same arguments on here forever.

PS abolish the filibuster