Beware the Ides of March -- U.S. Politics March 2021

yeah, that's the thing. we can have these conversations among friends and family and that's important too, but it'd be cool to see the people who are nominally supposed to be promoting and growing the Democratic party, would, you know, do that

The process is always bad and the outcome is always inadequate and those things are always worth pointing out. But politically it is also important to say (as Bernie did) LOOK AT ALL THIS GOOD STUFF WE'RE DOING. And to have that message be a lot louder than FUCK JOE BIDEN AND JOE MANCHIN THE DEMOCRATS HATE ALL POOR PEOPLE AND ARE TOTALLY USELESS.

Fortunately ilx has a smaller reach than most superPACs

Anyway I assume the Supreme Court will declare some component of this unconstitutional when Texas sues over not wanting their residents to receive rent relief or whatever

But politically it is also important to say (as Bernie did) LOOK AT ALL THIS GOOD STUFF WE'RE DOING.

It might be valuable for Bernie (Twitter followers: 15.7mn) to do that (just as likely it's completely irrelevant - winning team proclaims victory is not really man bites dog territory). It is not important, valuable or necessary for anyone who is not one of the most famous political figures in the country to do so, especially since they aren't actually part of the winning group.

*i, the sheeple, walking in and being my usual self*

but, who is the winning group?

The Democrats I guess

The politicians who ran on it, wrote it, amended it, voted for it the people actively involved in the process. It’s part of their job to trumpet their victories.

If you’re not looking to get re-elected in two to six years there’s absolutely no reason that it’s wrong to express disappointment that the bill was made worse than what was promised in January, worse than it was a week ago and fails to deliver on the best chance to accomplish a major promise, for no reason but the ego of a few obstructionist Democrats.

so you like the bill?

Could have been much better, doesn’t bode well for anything going forward with less leverage and the need for cloture.

lol Alfred

Lots of important and necessary valuable work going on itt ofc

The covid bill is going to help a lot of people but why does Steve Breyer still have a job, time to take up fishing or watercolors my dude

I bet the people who are about to get $1200 more a month for the next six months are just frothing with rage at those awful, worthless Democrats.

that's the next step: remind Breyer that he can read Thomas Mann and go for happy hour when he retires.

https://i.imgur.com/i7fdgfI.jpg

I bet the people who are about to get $1200 more a month for the next six months are just frothing with rage at those awful, worthless Democrats.

That's a good example of it getting worse. They were going to get $1600 more a month for the next seven months under Biden's proposal. The non-taxable $10k in benefits offsets ~$1k for most people so the bill wound up a couple of thousand worse for most people using UI - all because Joe Manchin loves drama. Is that an incorrect read on the outcome?

Yes, you stupid fuck, that's an incorrect read. The correct read is that if it was up to the Republicans nobody would be getting a fucking nickel, and now they're getting over seven thousand dollars. Shut the fuck up and fuck the fuck off for once. FP me for my tone on your way out if you like.

It wasn't up to the Republicans though.

It's really weird that you're raging out because I'm expressing disappointment that Joe Biden didn't get what he initially asked for primarily because of Joe Manchin.

But unperson it’s not up to the republicans it’s up to the democrats and they’re nickel and diming the American people because a couple of fucksticks have a hardon for deficit hawking and parliamentary procedure

This is probably the last bill that will pass the senate this congress so let’s hope it helps I guess.

Good on Bernie, who at least knows how to declare victory. Maybe some of his stans will get the message.

lol well I knew that was an unrealistic expectation.

Also, nobody was “going” to get $1,600, or anything in particular. You have to actually pass a bill to get anything. But I realize the messy and complicated parts of actually trying to govern a country of 330 million people who don’t agree on much of anything is too prosaic and grimy to contemplate.

tbf you basically dared us

People were “going” to get $1600 a month under Biden’s proposal, yes. Republicans had no way to stop that or make the number lower, only Democrats.

Their choice to do so made the bill slightly worse, as they negotiated against themselves to make the bill worse in other ways.

I apologize for my earlier post. I made the mistake of engaging with milo. It won't happen again.

This is just a more passive-aggressive version of jaymc’s stated dislike for pessimism because it bums him out. No one is making you stop thinking happy thoughts about whatever you want. No one hailing this as a grand victory was told to shut the fuck up.

beware the ídes of mairt (darraghmac) wrote this on thread Beware the Ides of March -- U.S. Politics March 2021 on board I Love Everything on 06-Mar-2021

You've bumbled in here offering up a convoluted fantasy to protect the dignity (and profit) of these many supposedly struggling small businesses that you're very non-specific about, because a four-year phase-in wasn't enough "relief to cushion" for a wage floor that has been frozen for more than a decade and losing value for multiple decades, because you once worked for a small business that had to move.

many risks associated with giving a minimum wage of 15$ to workers.
You cannot be this stupid.

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Saturday, 6 March 2021 00:05 (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Bookmarking this one the next time some bullshit artist comes all wide-eyed about poor downtrodden milo just making good firm arguments in the spirit of political cut n thrust

Nobody was “going” to get ANYTHING. The easiest and most likely thing is always for nothing to change. In politics and governing, getting anything done in the direction you want is a win. It may be a big win or a little win, depending on the circumstances. But a bill does not start out with the presumption that it is going to pass. And especially does not start out with the presumption that is going to pass exactly as presented. There is literally nothing in American legislative history that would lead you to think that.

Nobody was “going” to get ANYTHING. The easiest and most likely thing is always for nothing to change. In politics and governing, getting anything done in the direction you want is a win. It may be a big win or a little win, depending on the circumstances. But a bill does not start out with the presumption that it is going to pass. And especially does not start out with the presumption that is going to pass exactly as presented. There is literally nothing in American legislative history that would lead you to think that.

Exactly. This is America. "Fuck you - you'll get nothing and like it" is ALWAYS the expected outcome.

No one hailing this as a grand victory was told to shut the fuck up.

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Saturday, March 6, 2021 1:40 PM (ten minutes ago)

Fuck off, aimless

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Friday, March 5, 2021 12:29 PM (yesterday)

rmde

Aggressively living out the centrist rally Twitter joke now. Better things aren’t possible and you’re an asshole for suggesting that they could be

Hmmm. I directly quote you telling me to fuck off and this magically transmutes into my calling you an asshole? rmde again

Frustrating as Manchin's last-minute trimming was, if you had told me last March that the a 50/50 Senate would send a a nearly $2 trillion relief bill that would cut child poverty in half to President Biden's desk I would have thought you were almost delusionally optimistic https://t.co/dynWm2V2G7

— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) March 6, 2021

xp Don't believe I addressed you today?

I bet the people who are about to get $1200 more a month for the next six months are just frothing with rage at those awful, worthless Democrats.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Saturday, March 6, 2021 2:43 PM

That's a good example of it getting worse. They were going to get $1600 more a month for the next seven months under Biden's proposal. The non-taxable $10k in benefits offsets ~$1k for most people so the bill wound up a couple of thousand worse for most people using UI - all because Joe Manchin loves drama. Is that an incorrect read on the outcome?

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Saturday, March 6, 2021 2:56 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's really weird that you're raging out because I'm expressing disappointment that Joe Biden didn't get what he initially asked for primarily because of Joe Manchin.

if i were the president of the united states and knew that joe manchin was who he is, you know what I'd do? make my proposal higher than I'd know Manchin would agree to, so that he would negotiate it back down to where I thought I could make the deal in the first place.

seriously - if you have centrist assholes like manchin and sinema, and you know you have zero GOP votes, than you're effectively just negotiating with the centrists. if it was widely foreseeable that manchin and sinema would probably choose to flex their newfound Centrist asshole political power - and it was - then you shouldn't be surprised to see that the final bill moved a bit toward them. how else were they going to get 50 votes?

Better things aren’t possible and you’re an asshole for suggesting that they could be

C'mon, nobody has said that. Better things are possible, and actually achievable, and this bill demonstrates that. It is way better than anything that would have come out of a second Trump term or a Republican-majority GOP, either or both of which were entirely possible outcomes of the election. As the Lemieux tweet says, this is a much better position than progressives had reason to expect just a few months ago.

You don't get everything you want, because almost nobody ever does, and especially not progressives in a system that is in all sorts of ways heavily tilted against progressive power and priorities. But also knowing how to recognize a win as a win and not as a calamitous capitulation is important to not driving yourself completely insane because the world isn't the way you want it to be.

milo’s not the one who seems driven insane today idk

"better things aren't possible" is often a legitimate default refrain against settling, thankful for what you get

Its also a tiresome default deployed when someone thinks they deserve a fucking biscuit every time they can imagine a nicer outcome than has arisen.

You dont get any fuckin biscuits for being able to imagine better things than the US setup milo, and you def dont get any biscuits for the cunts tone youve adopted to anyone interest in discussing the whys and wheres of "possible/likely" in us politics for the last year and more, ten hours a day

Save the tone of injured protest ffs

if i were the president of the united states and knew that joe manchin was who he is, you know what I'd do? make my proposal higher than I'd know Manchin would agree to, so that he would negotiate it back down to where I thought I could make the deal in the first place.

seriously - if you have centrist assholes like manchin and sinema, and you know you have zero GOP votes, than you're effectively just negotiating with the centrists. if it was widely foreseeable that manchin and sinema would probably choose to flex their newfound Centrist asshole political power - and it was - then you shouldn't be surprised to see that the final bill moved a bit toward them. how else were they going to get 50 votes?

Manchin started trying to tank it yesterday and held the whole affair up for almost an entire day because he's a messy bitch who lives for drama. It's very difficult to chalk that up to a planned negotiating position on Biden's part, I would think. He certainly seemed surprised by Manchin's last minute actions.

I don't know why any of this is supposed to make it impossible to compare the bill as proposed and as it existed even early this week (remember how deeper means testing was off the table and all the leftists were dummies for getting preemptively mad about it?) and the final outcome. All I said was it could have been better.

It's one thing if Joe Biden bargained with an opposition party to pass a bill that was less than hoped for but better than nothing - but that isn't the situation. The Democrats made their own bill worse all on their own. That simple fact is inherently disappointing.

Well, again, not to bring up the Way Things Have Always Been, but I don't know why you think intra-party negotiations are easier than inter-party negotiations. They never, ever have been.

I just don't know, in an era without pork, what executive tools Biden could've used to bend a Manchin or Sinema. They're assholes from red(dish) states.

Wedgies?

have you seen Manchin's ass

I suppose I can guess.

Wedgies?

― Canon in Deez (silby), Saturday, 6 March 2021 22:36 (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well its setting the sights higher than bootstraps tbf

xxxxp Even if that was true (it's really not - you're not going to see a government shutdown with a unified Democratic government for instance), so what? The initial offer was better - in pretty much every way - than the final result, all without a single Republican being able to obstruct. It wasn't all a some play acted negotiation, as Manchin started to fuck with them for fun yesterday.

The final product is more disappointing than what it could have been and the way it went down is disappointing for what it tells about the future of progressive legislative priorities.

Imagine what these bills would look like if the Republicans actually tried to negotiate in good faith, extremely compromised!

And that's the pie in the sky scenario