Sausage for all

       The journey of the  Biden administration's Build Back Better plan to actually passing into law is looking suspiciously like the fight over Obamacare in 2008.   Both Obama and Biden mostly left the drafting of the legislation to their congressional allies, the former also encouraged a bipartisan approach to the health care bill.  

      The ACA was compromised nearly to death to satisfy Republicans who voted against it anyway.   This time around, the BBB legislation looks like it will be watered down to please Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.  Biden's bill may come through the process more intact than  Obama's, but the dilatory process and the Democrats' infighting may spell doom for the party in the 2022 midterms, just as it happened in 2010.   

      I don't think voters are turned off by legislative sausage making, especially if the final product has a positive impact on their lives.   In the case of Obamacare, many, if not most of the bill's provisions were set to kick in over a number of years.   This diluted public support at a crucial time for Democrats.  Hopefully the party learned its lesson and will have the benefits of the BBB flowing to voters in the run up to next year's elections.

They are ***holes, but they are our ***holes

       The giant sucking sound you hear is Joe Biden's agenda circling the bottom of the congressional toilet.   It also looks like two senators; Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are responsible for potentially flushing Biden's Build Back Better plan.

       At first blush, it seems to many that neither senator is serving the interests of the people who elected them.  Both states, West Virginia and Arizona, would greatly benefit from both the clean energy and human infrastructure aspects of the bill.  Manchin's state is among the poorest in the country and although coal is the titular king of the state's economy, in reality, coal has been declining as a share of West Virginia's economy since the Reagan era.   The fracking boom which has turned the state into an oil and gas producer mostly benefits interests outside the state.

      Giving him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps Manchin really feels workers in his state should be beholden to the vagaries of the market for their livings.   It is increasingly a Republican way of looking at the economy, but considering Trump won the state by nearly 40 points, you can at least see why Manchin is balking at Biden's bill.   A less charitable view is that, much like the former guy, Manchin is a narcissistic asshole who just likes to see his name in print.

       This brings us to the other narcissist in this morality play.  Kyrsten Sinema is an enigma.  A Green Party candidate in the 90's and early aughts, she is now a howlingly bad imitation of a reactionary Democrat with all the bad instincts of a Dixiecrat without the ideology to match.   In the end, Manchin will probably deal with the rest of his caucus.  It's an open question if Sinema is even  listening to anybody but the voices inside her head.

Can Democrats get it done

       It's hard not to be cynical about the chances of Democrats passing the Biden administration's Build Back Better bill anytime soon.   Even if centrists in the House wind up supporting a slimmed down bill, either Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema could torpedo the legislation in the Senate and there is very little majority leader, Chuck Schumer, can do about it.

     Let's face it, Manchin and Sinema are Republican Lite and if either thought they could get the GOP nomination for the Senate in their respective states, they would be caucusing with Moscow Mitch right now.   That, unfortunately, is the reality Democrats have to deal with.   The trick is getting something that improves Americans' everyday lives approved through reconciliation.   It won't be what progressives originally envisioned, but it will be something they can point to and exhort voters to elect more like minded Senators so we can finally overcome the inertia which continues to bedevil this Congress.

Take this job and...

      There has been much handwringing lately about the state of the job market.  Many small businesses cannot seem to hire enough workers, even when resorting to offer higher wages and signing bonuses.  This is after the pandemic benefits have mostly stopped across the country.   What is happening?

      Paul Krugman in the NYT applauds workers for avoiding the poorly paying, high stress jobs like those on offer from fulfillment warehouses like those run by Amazon.   Unlike the supply chain woes that should be cleared up as the pandemic wanes, worker dissatisfaction with low paying, no future jobs will be with us for the long term according to Krugman.   He is not sure why this reluctance to step back into the low wage, menial work rat race is so pronounced.   Perhaps it has to do with the pandemic sharpening the difference between the 1% and the rest of us.   It may not be an unalloyed blessing, but the unorganized revolt of those who do the dirty jobs for low wages and an uncertain future is a step in the right direction.

Of the Beatles and Captain Kirk

       The denizens of Morning Joseph took a few minutes off from their endless pontificating about the state of our politics to remind us of two icons of baby boomer culture.  Captain Kirk in the person of 90 year old William Shatner blasted off to a place where over 500 people have gone before.  Meanwhile, in less than a month, director Peter Jackson will present a 3 part history of the breakup of the Beatles and the making of the album "Let it Be".  

      Shatner's excellent adventure was definitely more relevant to the present, but the news media covered the early part of his post touchdown reflections, omitting his warning to all of us that we are destroying the thin skin of atmosphere which protects us.   As soon as the Captain began to expound on the existential crisis confronting the human race, Jeff Bezos steered the conversation back to Shatner's anodyne experience in the Blue Origin capsule with 3 other astronauts.   If the billionaires' space race has taught us nothing else, it has shown with present technology, space flight can be a literal amateur hour.   Now if only Shatner could have warbled a few notes of "Space Oddity"...

Is the death of democracy greatly exaggerated?

       With apologies to Mark Twain, the paraphrase of his famous quote is becoming increasingly relevant when applied to American democracy, at least by the left and right wing media.   It is hard to watch either Fox news or MSNBC without hearing a commentator opine we are losing democracy as we know it because of the machinations of either Democrats or Republicans, depending  on which network you are listening to.   The Divine Mrs. M and I imagine many liberals are becoming depressed by the steady drumbeat of doom.

     The emergence of radical right wing candidates for Secretaries of State in many swing states is one bell wether to watch .   These "true believers" in the Big Lie are telling us they will reverse any Democratic victories if elected.   I hope the citizens of red states take their statements seriously.   Nearly 80% of Republicans profess to believe tRump was the actual winner of the 2020 election.    That means you and I know or know of someone in our social circle who is delusional.

      Aside from working for the election of Democratic candidates and donating to the party, i think the continual debunking of these election myths is the main thing we can do between elections.

A heady blend

       Despite the many hot takes on the Democrats imminent doom in the mid term elections, the one that stands out is the usual blather about how the party has lost the white working class.   Somehow, the aforementioned, educationally challenged white men and women have become alienated from the Democrats "woke" agenda of police and immigration reform and actually doing something about income inequality.

     There is something attractive about this theory, especially if it dovetails with the agenda being pushed by the consultant class of the party.   Repudiate all liberal positions, or at least tailor your message to appeal to the gettable white voter.    What this prescription fails to account for is the increasing alienation of what has become  the new Democratic base;  working class people of color and highly educated millenial whites.  These people are turned off by a strategy which calls for the use of racist and sexist tropes to appeal to a voter who has already experienced the unleashed white nationalism of tRump and has responded by joining the cult that is today's Republican party.

     Racism, misogyny and white nationalism is a heady brew which especially appeals to poorly educated and/or white middle class voters who resent our rapidly developing multicultural society.   Trying to pry more than a small percentage of these people away from tRump and his minions is a fool's errand.  Tomorrow's Democratic party will primarily be dominated by people of color and women.   White men will represent a small percentage of the party's voters.   Mobilizing the true base of the party is the way to go next year and into the future.