Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation? Mixed results!

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malchior
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Not gross at all. A million dollars to stomp on policy that'll essentially transfer as much as a half billion from the taxpayers to the filthy -- stress on the filthy -- rich seems like a good investment. I think odds are rising significantly that she switches parties as she gets closer to primary season.



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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Kraken wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:38 pm Reconciliation can be done once a year (unless the parliamentarian gives you a freebie, as she did for the debt ceiling), right?
Yes, but IIUC, Republicans didn't use their last one from last term, which the Democrats used for the last Covid bill, so I *think* that Democrats can have one more reconciliation before the midterms.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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It's gross that she's all in on fundraising 4 years from her next election campaign.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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The Biden Agenda probably never had a chance.

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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Zarathud wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 2:06 am And you’ll have a Congress full up with fascists.
And that'll make it easier to Nuremburg em.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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The filibuster is the new liberum veto.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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BI
Senator Joe Manchin raised over $400,000 from donors in the energy industry in the third quarter, including some from donors that normally give to Republicans, according to his latest filing with the Federal Election Commission.
...
Manchin raised $1.6 million in the third quarter, with over $400,000 coming from the oil and gas industry, according to his FEC filing. Manchin is not up for reelection until 2024.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

Post by Smoove_B »

This seems to get to the heart of it:


Manchin always insisted his primary issue with the reconciliation package was the overall cost. This allowed him to avoid talking about the actual substance of the bill. But it wasn’t true. We now learn one of his red lines is the clean energy standard, a provision that isn’t very expensive ($150B), but would go a long way to transitioning the country away from fossil fuels. Manchin could probably have gotten just about anything for West Virginia coal workers, who will not be working very long in the coal industry regardless. But he apparently isn’t interested. he only group that could not be made whole is the fossil fuel industry itself and people, like Manchin and his family, who profit from fossil fuel extraction.You can use a lot of words to describe this behavior but “moderate” is not a good choice. This is a radical decision to put very specific economic interests ahead of the health of the planet.
It almost feels like there should be a really easy way to see how much of Manchin's finances (his own direct and his family) are connected to fossil fuel extraction. I mean, that would certainly disprove this potential critical component to what's happening right now. Not just money raised, but actual investments.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Funny how the disclosures don't really tell the whole story clearly, right?

The Guardian did some digging. Prepare to be shocked but the guy in charge of the Energy committee in the Senate is a coal Baron. Because it's all a grift.
well for defusing the climate emergency, given Manchin’s longstanding opposition to ambitious climate action.

It turns out that the Senator wielding this awesome power – America’s climate decider-in-chief, one might call him – has a massive climate conflict of interest. Joe Manchin, investigative journalism has revealed, is a modern-day coal baron.

Financial records detailed by reporter Alex Kotch for the Center for Media and Democracy and published in the Guardian show that Manchin makes roughly half a million dollars a year in dividends from millions of dollars of coal company stock he owns. The stock is held in Enersystems, Inc, a company Manchin started in 1988 and later gave to his son, Joseph, to run.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

Post by Smoove_B »

It kinda feels like this is only going to end one way at this point, right? Plutocracy / Oligarchy 2024.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Just checking in to see how the Democrats are doing on getting their agenda passed...
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Smoove_B wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 10:47 pm It kinda feels like this is only going to end one way at this point, right? Plutocracy / Oligarchy 2024.
We’ve been a plutocracy for years (decades+?)already. Kinda goes hand in hand with capitalism I guess.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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malchior wrote: Sat Oct 16, 2021 10:41 pm Funny how the disclosures don't really tell the whole story clearly, right?

The Guardian did some digging. Prepare to be shocked but the guy in charge of the Energy committee in the Senate is a coal Baron. Because it's all a grift.
well for defusing the climate emergency, given Manchin’s longstanding opposition to ambitious climate action.

It turns out that the Senator wielding this awesome power – America’s climate decider-in-chief, one might call him – has a massive climate conflict of interest. Joe Manchin, investigative journalism has revealed, is a modern-day coal baron.

Financial records detailed by reporter Alex Kotch for the Center for Media and Democracy and published in the Guardian show that Manchin makes roughly half a million dollars a year in dividends from millions of dollars of coal company stock he owns. The stock is held in Enersystems, Inc, a company Manchin started in 1988 and later gave to his son, Joseph, to run.
This isn't new news; it's been talked about for a while on the inter-webs. It's no secret that Manchin originally made his fortunes in the energy business and subsequently kept it in the family. Manchin's moral corruption has been in evidence for years and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Do a google search on Heather Manchin Bresch. The two key scenarios are her mystery Master’s Degree, which by appearances her father may have played some role in as Governor of WV, and her stint as the CEO of Mylan, a pharmaceutical company, which manufactured the Epi-Pen and jacked prices by 500% as well as being charged with conspiring with Pfizer to orchestrate a monopoly. My only real surprise in regards to Manchin is how ignorant are the people of WV to keep electing this guy in to office. When I think about true blue-collar states with, roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty sort of folks, I think of the Pittsburgh steel mills, Detroit auto workers and Appalachian coal miners. Manchin is the diametric opposite of any of those traits and anyone with an ounce of sense (or irony) should have opened their eyes when Manchin recently was photographed/videoed speaking to his constituents from atop the deck of his yacht. I’ve been saying it for 5 years now, this country deserves what comes, the politicians are not the root of the problem, it’s the people who keep putting them in to office.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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The Democrats just need to take their wins where they can find them. Pass the infrastructure bill, pass whatever Manchin and Sinema let them on "Build Back Better", and call it victory, and then go out and run on it. They never had a big enough margin in the Senate to pass everything that progressives wanted to do. It may be frustrating but that's reality and no amount of wishing, cajoling or condemning is going to remove Manchin and Sinema from office or change their minds (Bernie Sanders editorial in a West Va paper not withstanding). Get some wins - all this whining and hand wringing is looking bad and makes people think they don't know what they are doing and can't run the country. They're floundering and not inspiring confidence, which is what the country needs right now. Get whatever wins you can get, and make sure people know that you did these things, not the Republicans.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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I view most progressives in the dem party as having the same shortcomings as the current GOP: an inability to negotiate. They want what they want and they won't discuss it any further. As such, they do more harm than good, even if I agree with many of their wants.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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hepcat wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:58 am I view most progressives in the dem party as having the same shortcomings as the current GOP: an inability to negotiate. They want what they want and they won't discuss it any further. As such, they do more harm than good, even if I agree with many of their wants.
This was usually right but it appears to be a backwards accounting in this case. Biden ran on this agenda. Manchin/Sinema and a small group in the House were the ones who forced the cleave between BBB and the infrastructure bill. Manchin/Sinema then went on to pass their infrastructure bill and then proceeded to delay the BBB agenda. It looks intentional at this point.

Frankly I still don't understand anyone who has followed this closely and thinks the progressives haven't been negotiating the whole time. They aren't just saying no. They have all along the ones constantly compromising (they accepted a smaller BBB size and the two-track to begin with). They've been in the driver's seat negotiating against themselves with Manchin and Sinema. Those two have gotten away with not negotiating in good faith in this case. I mean what are the progressives saying no to? Sinema won't tell anyone what she will accept. Meanwhile she is stuffing her campaign coffers with Chamber/GOP donor money. How does that add up to the progressives being the problem here?

At some point the progressives drew a line in the sand and said, 'Enough'. I'm not even a fan of this BBB agenda in whole but there are pieces in there that are vital to any chance for the Democrats to stave off GOP led autocracy. They need to inspire people that the United States can still have hope in a better future. They recognize that the US is in decline and if all we can still do is pass what used to be routine infrastructure bills that don't actually solve any of our pressing problems...well people aren't going to be inspired by that.
Grifman wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:16 amPass the infrastructure bill, pass whatever Manchin and Sinema let them on "Build Back Better", and call it victory, and then go out and run on it.
It's mid-October and Manchin/Sinema have been dragging this out since late spring/early summer and no one can say with any certainty what Machin/Sinema want still. This isn't a progressives problem. This is a Joe Manchin/Kristen Sinema problem.
Last edited by malchior on Mon Oct 18, 2021 1:03 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Oh, I definitely am not a fan of Machin and Sinema. I was just noting what I believed to be the case with progressives after Grifman mentioned that group in his post.

I'm happy to be proven wrong though if that's not the case.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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hepcat wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 10:19 am Oh, I definitely am not a fan of Machin and Sinema. I was just noting what I believed to be the case with progressives after Grifman mentioned that group in his post.
I get it. That's the old CW. It completely is at odds with the facts. That it still persists is a real problem because it is just not accurate.
I'm happy to be proven wrong though if that's not the case.
Greg Sargent has some really good pieces deconstructing this progressive's are the problem. Partially linking here but the idea that the progressives haven't been negotiating needs to be killed with fire. Are they being 100% realistic? Of course not but they've been compromising the whole year and have had it with the corruption in the Senate.

Washington Post
One of the strangest story lines about the battle over President Biden’s agenda is the notion that progressives won’t accept “reality.” But if this saga tells us anything, it’s that we need a wholesale rethink of what counts as “realism” in our politics these days.

The progressive demand for $3.5 trillion in spending on the Build Back Better reconciliation bill is regularly depicted as ideologically wild-eyed intransigence. By contrast, centrists’ insistence on keeping that spending way down is treated as a kind of realistically grounded — and thus immovable — object around which everything else must orbit.

The deep perversity of this is illustrated by the news that Biden is frustrated with two of these centrists, Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). Politico has a new report on a conference call between Biden and House progressives that illuminates this dynamic.

On the call, Biden told progressives that the reconciliation bill will have to come down to about $2 trillion. But he also detailed how difficult dealing with Manchin and Sinema has been:

“It was a blunt conversation,” said one House Democrat who was in the meeting. Biden is “getting more and more frustrated.”
The source familiar with the discussion added that Biden said things like, “‘I hear your frustration. You don’t have to talk to them as much as I have to talk to them’ — but then using it as a dash of realism to get progressives to come down, like, ‘This is as far as these folks will go.’”
I can confirm more. Progressives on the call were not told that Manchin and Sinema had actually agreed to that $2 trillion, just that the White House believed this was roughly what would pass muster, an aide to a House Democrat confirms to me.

What’s more, the aide says, much of the call consisted of progressives talking about various ways the price tag might come down. Similarly, NBC’s Leigh Ann Caldwell reports that on the call, progressives essentially said they’d take what Biden can get.

So Manchin and Sinema are still not detailing how much spending they can accept, or what they want sacrificed from the reconciliation bill. Meanwhile, progressives are signaling a willingness to make sacrifices to win Manchin and Sinema, and talking pragmatically about how to accomplish this, without even knowing what that will take.

Tell me who the true realists and pragmatists are in this scenario again?

We don’t know what specific sacrifices will ultimately be made. But the debate has centered on a choice: either jettison some core priorities to retain robust commitments on fewer of them, or keep most of them in scaled-down form.

So it’s unclear which priorities — slowing the planet’s warming, tax reform to rebalance our out-of-whack political economy, investments in child care, health care and paid leave to empower millions struggling economically — will remain, or at what level of ambition.

We know Manchin wants around $1.5 trillion in spending while imposing additional means-testing on the bill’s welfare benefits and making it friendlier to fossil fuel interests. We know Sinema also wants less spending.

Their positions do harbor actual judgments about our national future: Manchin apparently sees deficits and inflation as more serious long-term threats than climate change, and thinks welfare benefits going to the undeserving require us to make those programs less generous and universal. Sinema appears reflexively suspicious of government spending and seems to think higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations will have net negative effects.

These are bad arguments. As writers including Paul Krugman and Eric Levitz have detailed, the actual ambition of these proposals is, if anything, fairly modest, relative to the scale of our global-warming and political-economic challenges. Jonathan Cohn has demonstrated just how transformative provisions such as the expanded child tax credit, larger health-care subsidies and paid leave could be for the everyday lives of millions.

But beyond this, the point is that Manchin and Sinema have imposed a level of abstraction and generality on this debate that has made real argument over concrete trade-offs much harder.

Progressives insist that the failure to deal with all these challenges poses more of a threat to our future than higher spending and high-end taxation do. But we cannot debate this, because we don’t really know which challenges Manchin and Sinema see as postponable for the foreseeable future.

And they can get away with this, in part because our discourse privileges fiscal conservatism and hostility to spending as somehow inherently realistic and hardheaded. But there is nothing realistic or hardheaded about any of this.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Currently, I'm putting much of the blame on moderates, but if the bipartisan bill falters because Progressives voted no, I'll be giving them plenty of blame, too.

(I think I've said this before, but if Republicans were smart, they'd back the bipartisan bill by enough that the progressives couldn't vote it down. Which would further divide the two sides, and almost make Republicans look good. Well, look less thoroughly evil.)
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Defiant wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 10:35 amWhich would further divide the two sides, and almost make Republicans look good. Well, look less thoroughly evil.)
Why would they do that? They are running, and WINNING on "evil".
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Grifman wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:16 amThey never had a big enough margin in the Senate to pass everything that progressives wanted to do. It may be frustrating but that's reality and no amount of wishing, cajoling or condemning is going to remove Manchin and Sinema from office or change their minds
A great point that bears repeating.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Zaxxon wrote: Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:36 pm I'm referring to the news today that the core climate pieces are likely out (they had already been greatly gutted). If that's true, the administration is a failure, full stop.
I meant to respond to this earlier. I'm on the same page. We'll have to see if they can do something in an alternative way but that $15B per year was too much when we still subsidize oil and gas to the tune of $20B a year is...extremely sad. It feels like Manchin was grown in a lab to represent the worst of the boomer excesses including burning down the planet and taking it all with him into the grave.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Carpet_pissr wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 12:36 pm
Grifman wrote: Mon Oct 18, 2021 9:16 amThey never had a big enough margin in the Senate to pass everything that progressives wanted to do. It may be frustrating but that's reality and no amount of wishing, cajoling or condemning is going to remove Manchin and Sinema from office or change their minds
A great point that bears repeating.
I agree but differ on the interpretation greatly. Instead of casting judgement on progressives which is unfair in this case, I'd step back and point at the Democrats who've been ineffective earning those majorities when they had a clear path to do so. Yes the Senate is broken and undemocratic but they still ignored the populism that was clearly rising.

Casting a wider view this whole fracas shows that when the system fails whatever way it almost inevitably will it'll maybe be deserved. Our political class became dysfunctional yet "we the people" formed tribes to excuse plain sight corruption, open racism, police violence, and more bad behaviors. Even with fountains of good sources of information the average American voter has no idea what is going on. They haven't risen to anything approaching the challenge to properly 'supervise' the politicians. Instead, it was waves of throw the bums out without introspection.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

Post by malchior »

This is a fun framing of the issue.

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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Tester speaks up.
Two Democratic senators on Tuesday expressed opposition to including a carbon tax in the massive social spending plan as Democrats scramble to make good on their pledge to combat climate change.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Tuesday poured cold water on the renewed chatter of including a carbon tax.

...

Sen. Jon Tester (Mont.), another red-state Democrat, said he also wasn’t supportive of a carbon tax.

“I’m not a big fan of the carbon tax. I just don’t think it works the way it was explained to me,” Tester said.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Soooo fucked.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

Post by malchior »

The climate change stuff is depressing but it's seems in everything it's bad. It's not promising that what we are hearing out of the discussion about what Manchin stands for. It is like boomer nostalgia from the 90s. Remember when we came together and solved welfare! He seems to think that sort of world view is still relevant.

It's rich especially since he has only worked for family businesses (who funded his startup in the 80s) his whole life. This is not a guy who ever pulled himself up by the bootstraps but he knows best how to do it. Luckily, he has all the power in the world to shape the agenda...and even then Sinema might still kibosh the whole thing. It's depressing all around. And I don't even want all these policies. I just wanted them to be show us they could do something that didn't remind us front and center that the rich rule everything. Mission unaccomplished.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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/. "She climbed backwards out her
\/ window into Outside Over There."
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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So my takeaway from all this is that there are three groups in Congress now.

(1) Administrative/violent radicals that are trying to subvert the system and dismantle democracy
(2) Progressives that want to drag us kicking and screaming into a nation that is doing what it can to minimize environmental impacts, promote social justice, elevate living conditions, provide health care for everyone, etc...
(3) Traditionalists that don't want anything to change and refuse to acknowledge/admit there are issues and won't support modification of any process or law that will in any way encourage or promote change.

The second group is fighting like hell but the third is actively stopping them from making progress. As #1 grows larger, their ability to actually destroy democracy and democratic institutions won't be held back by either.

Is that about right?
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Part of the problem, I think, is that the second group contains too many idealists who insist on perfection at the cost of good. They won't take compromise for an answer. They won't take improvement as a path to success. They want the ideal, and they want it now.

And so they get nothing.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

Post by Smoove_B »

Maybe, but my impression is that #1 and #3 aren't into compromise at all, especially #3 - they want nothing new; they want no change. #1 will only support agendas that undermine democracy.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

Post by Carpet_pissr »

Blackhawk wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:45 amthe second group … won't take compromise for an answer.
:pop:
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

Post by malchior »

Carpet_pissr wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 12:12 pm
Blackhawk wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:45 amthe second group … won't take compromise for an answer.
:pop:
Indeed
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

Post by Alefroth »

Blackhawk wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 11:45 am Part of the problem, I think, is that the second group contains too many idealists who insist on perfection at the cost of good. They won't take compromise for an answer. They won't take improvement as a path to success. They want the ideal, and they want it now.

And so they get nothing.
Part of the problem, I think, is the perception that group #2 isn't interested in, or capable of compromising.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but they are the only ones who have budged at all.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

Post by pr0ner »

Joe Manchin is making noise that he's ready to leave the Democratic party, so the official answer to the question posed in the OP's title is "yes".
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

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Yep. It also puts to rest a whole bunch of other questions. Manchin (if he takes this drastic egotist action) is individually taking us one step closer to whatever comes next - be it fascism, some paternalistic autocracy, politcal violence, or even civil war.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

Post by Smoove_B »

pr0ner wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 2:46 pm Joe Manchin is making noise that he's ready to leave the Democratic party, so the official answer to the question posed in the OP's title is "yes".
I guess after seeing how many millions Sinema raised from GOP donors, he needs to beat her to the punch or risk being made irrelevant.

More and more I am in the camp that believes he loves all this attention and once the GOP regains control, he's back to being useless (in terms of attracting money to influence his vote).

So yeah, our system is DoA.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

Post by El Guapo »

pr0ner wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 2:46 pm Joe Manchin is making noise that he's ready to leave the Democratic party, so the official answer to the question posed in the OP's title is "yes".
Source?
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

Post by Smoove_B »

El Guapo wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:08 pm Source?
Mother Jones
He told associates that he has a two-step plan for exiting the party. First, he would send a letter to Sen. Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, removing himself from the Democratic leadership of the Senate. (He is vice chair of the Senate Democrats’ policy and communications committee.) Manchin hopes that would send a signal. He would then wait and see if that move had any impact on the negotiations. After about a week, he said, he would change his voter registration from Democrat to independent.
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Re: Will the Democrats self-destruct on reconciliation?

Post by malchior »

Smoove_B wrote: Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:07 pmMore and more I am in the camp that believes he loves all this attention and once the GOP regains control, he's back to being useless (in terms of attracting money to influence his vote).
This is definitely part of it but having heard *way too much* out of mouth and reading his non-stop op eds it is also clear he believes his own bullshit. He is closer to Trump than we think. He has massive ethics problems, he is pretty ignorant on the policy front, he is cribbing off bad ideas that didn't work, and he is playing zero sum games. He is essentially a symptom of the bigger problem. We have a system in collapse and intentional/unintentional bad actors and incompetents reign here.
So yeah, our system is DoA.
Yep we're done. Even if he doesn't take his ball and go home this ill-timed sideshow act has done immense damage to the Democratic party, Biden, and the United States. Post-Trump all of that was fragile in the first place but he sure as shit has made it worse.
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