Daily Archives: January 3, 2022

Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks to reporters before boarding his campaign plane at Duluth International Airport in Duluth, Minn., on Sep. 18, 2020.

Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

If politics worked the way we learn about it in school, Biden and his party would have seized this fleeting opportunity to pass his popular agenda and cement and expand their power.

Instead, after a strong start with the American Rescue Plan, passed in March, the Democrats have puttered forward, slowly losing momentumand now appearing at a standstill. Here are all the things they could have done this year, in theory, but did not.

Its true that Democrats hold the Senate with the slimmest margin possible, needing the votes of all 50 Democratic senators including semi-quasi-Democrats like West Virginias Joe Manchin to pass anything.

But normal people will rightfully never accept this as an excuse if theyre even aware of it, which many likely are not. Since Bidens inauguration, his approval rating has fallen from 57 percent to 43 percent. Even among Democrats, its gone down from 98 percent to 78 percent.

Democratic voters might have maintained enthusiasm if the partys leaders had explained that they actually had a plan one to use all the power they now have to improve peoples lives and to get more power to do more in the future. Instead, their only plan appears to be to come up with as many excuses as possible for their sluggish drift to nowhere.

This dynamic is the same as when Barack Obama took office in 2009. He had the greatest grassroots army ever assembled in U.S. political history, one extremely eager to keep fighting. Instead, Obama essentially told them to go home, stay out of his hair, and let him handle things from there. The Democratic Party then spent the next eight years quietly collapsing into dust across America.

Biden did not have the same energy behind him as a person. But there was certainly lots of energy to be mobilized to keep Donald Trump from returning to the White House, via bold action that Americans would feel in their everyday lives. The Democrats have not done this.

One potential explanation for this is what can be called The Iron Law of Institutions i.e., that people within institutions like the Democratic Party are primarily interested in maintaining power inside the institution, rather than the institutions overall success. Any steps to expand the partys power would require bringing in new constituencies, which would in turn lead to some current constituencies losing their status.

This phenomenon could be seen clearly in the 1972 election. George McGovern won the Democratic nomination by taking advantage of new ruleswhich had madethe process much more small-d democratic; he sought out donors and voters from the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, the youth movement, and more. The old guard of the Democratic Party did not like this at all. During the period between the convention and the election, they were given to saying that McGovern was gonna lose because were gonna make sure hes gonna lose. After McGovern did lose badly, his campaign gave their list of 600,000 volunteers and small donors to the Democratic National Committee, then run by the Robert Strauss, a right-wing powerbroker from Texas. The DNC promptly threw the list away.

Whatever the reason for Democratic stasis, its perplexing: Even if they dont care about making things better for Americans, you might think theyd be interested in self-preservation. Biden, for instance, will probably beimpeached if Republicans take back the House in the 2022 midterm elections. But this has not produced enough motivation for the Democrats to seriously try to make any of thefollowing things happen.

Presidents have enormous unilateral power, if they choose to use it. Biden doesnt need Congress to cancel student debt (as a candidate he called for forgiveness of a minimum of $10,000/person); make marijuana effectively legal (Bidens lack of action has frustrated even some Republicans); or force drug companies to lower prices (as issue Democrats have purportedly supported for 30 years). Biden has done none of these things, although he has utilizedexecutive orders in some areas.

Activists attend a rally about voting rights and ending the filibuster near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 3, 2021.

Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

There is no future for Democrats, or democracy, if the GOP succeeds in its ever-more strenuous efforts to undermine the meaningfulness of the ballot. There are three main things Democrats must do to prevent this, but havent.

First, they have to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. In 2013, the Supreme Court killed the most significant part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires that jurisdictions that have engaged in discrimination get permission from the federal government beforechanging their voting laws. The JLVRAA would restore preclearance.

Second, they have to pass theFreedom to Vote Act,which has eight cosponsors in the Senate, including Manchin. The bill incorporates many provisions of the now-deadFor the People Act, and would prevent partisan gerrymandering, purges of voter rolls, restrictions on ballot access, and more.

Third, they must reform the Electoral Count Act of 1887, a badly written law that Trumps allies planned to use to keep him in office despite his loss of the election.

The Senate was designed by James Madison to, in his words, protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The filibuster was invented by accident in 1806 and has generally been used to protect the opulent and thwart the will of the majority even moreadamantlythan Madison envisioned.

The Democrats could eliminate or restrict the filibuster today if they wanted to. So far they havent wanted to.

Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff both won in the January 5 Georgia Senate runoff election by promising voters that if they won, eligible Americans would receive $2,000 in additional support during the pandemic. Biden promised it too, saying, Their election will put an end to the block in Washington that $2,000 stimulus check that money would go out the door immediately. Then both Warnock and Ossoff did win. Then it turned out $2,000 didnt mean $2,000,but rather $1,400, because Democrats were now counting $600 from a bill already passed in December 2020 under Trump. A Democratic politician even edited a Warnock ad to convert the $2,000 into $1,400. Psych!

There should be a national minimum wage of $15 an hour, Biden said in his first address to Congress in April. Then the Senate parliamentarian declared that raising the minimum wage could not pass via budget reconciliation and hence would need to overcome a filibuster. The Democrats could have ignored the parliamentarian or as both Democrats and Republicans have done to previous parliamentarians dismissed her. Instead theyve just given up, leaving the minimum wage at $7.25 about the same level in real terms as during the 1950s. (In fairness, Biden has issued an executive order increasing the minimum wage to $15 for federal contractors.)

The world desperately needs the U.S. to take action to decarbonize the American economy. Various measures to make this happen were in various versions of the Build Back Better bills. But with the BBB agenda on life support, its anyones guess whether there will be significant climate accomplishmentsduringthe Biden administration.

Signs sit on the ground as a small group of pro-abortion protesters gather outside a New York City courthouse as oral arguments begin over Mississippis controversial abortion law begin at the Supreme Court on Dec. 1, 2021.

Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Even if the Supreme Court overturnsRoe v. Wade, Congress possesses the power to prevent states from making it illegal. Of course, Texas has demonstrated how far the GOP will go to restrict abortion access even without a Roe decision. But Congress can also stop such state-level efforts. The House has passed such a bill, but it has no chance in the Senate.

Organized labor has always been the backbone of successful progressive politics, in the U.S. and around the world, and any progressive party would prioritize rejuvenating the labor movement. The decline of the U.S. middle class can be measured in the decline in unions: Almost 30 percent of the workforce was unionized in the 1950s. Its now barely 10 percent overall, and only 6 percent in the private sector. The Protect the Right to Organize Act would have made organizing unions much easier. (Some of the PRO Act was incorporatedinto a version of the Build Back Better bill, but again, its now unclear whether any BBB law will pass.)

The increase of the Child Tax Credit in the American Rescue Plan is estimated to have reduced child poverty in the U.S. by 40 percent. It is a moral and policy slam dunk and should be a political slam dunk actual, material support for family values, rather than cynical rhetoric. But the expansion will expire on January 1, 2022.

It shouldnt be beyond the capacity of the U.S. government to simply mail lots of high-quality masks and home Covid tests to everyone in the country, but apparently it is.

There are six justices on the Supreme Court appointed by GOP presidents. Yet only one of them, Clarence Thomas, was appointed by a Republican president who was first elected with a plurality of votes. (John Roberts and Samuel Alito were appointed by George W. Bush in his second term.)

The current courts makeup guarantees that any new Democratic initiatives will face a real prospect of being declared unconstitutional. This is so blatantly anti-democratic that it will inevitably lead to some kind of political explosion. The only way to defuse this would be to add members to the court appointed by Biden, plus some common-sense reforms that would lower the stakes of future appointments. Biden created a commission to study what to do about the court, the classic move when you plan to do nothing.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer testifies before the House Judiciary Committees Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on May 20, 2010.

Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

At the very least, Democrats could have exerted pressure in every way possible to encourageStephen Breyer to retire, so Biden could replace him with a younger justice. Breyer, now 83, has seen Ruth Bader Ginsburgs example right in front of him: She was diagnosed with two forms of cancer yet refused to step down during the Obama presidency, finally dying while Trump was president. Yet this seems to have made no impression on either Breyer or Democratic elites, who surely could influence him if they wanted to.

The disenfranchisement of Washington, D.C. residentsis an incredible, ongoing scandal yet it endures because ending it would lessen GOP power, and Democrats dont press the issue. With a population larger than that of Wyoming and Vermont, D.C. hasno representation in the Senate, and one representative in the House, whocan sometimes vote as long as it doesnt matter. D.C. residents clearly want statehood and should get it.

Meanwhile, more people live in Puerto Rico than 20 states. The most recent referendum on statehood there found a small majority does want to become a member of the union.

Biden has pumped the brakes on the U.S. use of drones, and he managed to withdraw from Afghanistan, something three previous presidents couldnt bring themselves to do. But beyond that, his foreign policy trundles onward down predictable paths. Hes spoken nice words about ending the Saudi war on Yemen, with little follow-up in reality. Remarkably, he did not move immediately to rejoin theIran nuclear deal negotiated by Obama and with the election of a new Iranian president in June, the window for that may have closed. His policy toward China bears a lot of similarities to that of Trumps.

Thanks to a drought, plus U.S. sanctions and a halt to much international aid after the Taliban takeover, tens of millions of Afghans face potentially life-threatening hunger this winter. Aid organizations say a million Afghan children could die. Its within the power of the Biden administration to greatly ameliorate this situation, but so far its largely paid lip serviceto any humanitarian concerns. Members of the Senate appear to share a bipartisan indifferenceto this looming catastrophe.

That brings us to 2022, which begins tomorrow. It is, of course, theoretically possible that the Democrats will take significant action on some of these issues in the coming year.But with rareexceptions, thats not how U.S. politics work. The biggest things happen in a presidents first year in office, or they dont happen at all.

See the rest here:

Everything Democrats Didn't Do in 2021 - The Intercept

After Barack ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaWill Biden's 2021 foreign policy failures reverberate in 2022? Voting rights: The safety pin that holds America together Eleven interesting races to watch in 2022 MOREs 2008 White House victory, Democrats believed they had created an unbreakable coalition of the ascendant voters, driven by increasing participation of minority groups and college-educated women. But recent left-wing economic and policy woes have brought about a demographic realignment that threatens to sink Democrats chances not just for 2022, but for the next several decades.

As President BidenJoe BidenKentucky governor declares state of emergency after powerful storm Seven most vulnerable governors facing reelection in 2022 At least 20 states to increase minimum wage starting Saturday MOREs approval ratings have tanked with nonwhite voters, the Democratic Party increasingly has become dominated by liberal white women who virtue-signal with suburban lawn signs and then henpeck people in supermarkets to pull their face masks up over their noses. Or, put more simply, the Democratic Party is at risk of becoming a party of Karens. Recent polling suggests that Hispanic and Black voters are abandoning the party many of these individuals are being harmed by thesurging inflation,anti-business COVID measures, and explodingcrimerates in urban areas brought about by a year of left-wing measures.

For more than a decade, Democrats worked to build a voting base composed of minorities and unmarried women. After Donald TrumpDonald TrumpOne in three Americans say violence against government sometimes justified: poll Seven most vulnerable governors facing reelection in 2022 Sunday shows preview: Omicron surge continues; anniversary of Jan. 6 attack approaches MOREs 2020 loss, it would appear the mission was being accomplished. White voters dropped from 81 percent of the electorate in 2000 to just 67 percent two decades later. Meanwhile, Biden carried a whopping 63 percent of single women in 2020.

However, poor public policy over the past year is already casting the idea of a continuing Democratic majority in doubt. Recent polling suggests that Hispanic and Black Americans are more likely to vote as individuals than as aggrieved racial blocs.

In February, nearly 70 percent of Hispanic voters supported Biden by November, that number had crashed to below 50 percent. In early polling for the 2022 midterms, Hispanic voters split 37-37 percent between the two major parties in their congressional preferences. There are many fingers that could be pointed at why, but two factors seem most significant. First, to borrow a phrase from James Carville, Its the economy, stupid. Record high stock prices and artificially low unemployment rates cant paper up rampant inflation, supply shortages and decreasing numbers of employees in the workforce. Among a population that owns their own businesses at parity rates with whites and whose average incomes are catching up with the majority population, the wider economy is more than an abstract concept. Second, the cancer of wokeness is downright anathema to Hispanic Americans. Forty percent find the phrase Latinx offensive and just 2 percent of the group actually uses the phrase.

The panic must be real for Democrats. Not only are migrs from socialism among Venezuelan and Cuban Americans increasingly voting Republican, so are Mexican Americans especially in South Texas. The disapproval rate for Biden among the group is higher than that among whites.

Among Black voters, Bidens approval had fallen from 85 percent to 67 percent by September and has continued to slide. The increasingly vapid demands of the urbane upper-middle class often harm the communities that liberals claim to help. NIMBYism drives up housing prices for minority residents. Defund the police rhetoric has led to major cuts in law enforcement in some cities, as violent crime soars and quality of life declines. Families in cities such as Chicago, which has experienced more murders in 2021 than any year since 1996, are forced to live with shootings that occur routinely in public areas in some cases, young children have been killed by flying bullets. Black Democrats are 20 percent more likely to support more police funding than their white counterparts.Large looting gangs rove San Francisco and Chicago. Poor policy and rampant handouts have created tent cities in former tourist areas such as Venice Beach, Calif. Homeless people and drug addicts fill subway cars in New York City. Philadelphias Kensington neighborhood is known for being a large, open-air drug market. Now, COVID-19 vaccine mandates have helped to destroy immigrant-owned businesses and may disproportionately affect Black residents. The issues most crucial to the new kingmakers of the Democratic Party are not only counter to the popular will of many nonwhite voters but may actively harm them.

If the Democratic Party no longer has Hispanic and Black voters as electoral locks, it is left with a diminishing constituency of its most consistent members: single, college-educated white women, who dominated last years social media slacktivism and protests. It is possible that this liberal woman demographic would be able to hold enough sway to choose Democrat nominees for the foreseeable future. And yet, party bigwigs must understand that as offensive as much of the electorate considered Donald Trump, morphing into the party of Karens who are more concerned about your carbon footprint than keeping your community safe, likely will further alienate Hispanic and Black voters.

The coming Second Great Awokening not only threatens the fabric of Americas history and future, but also threatens to rip apart the Democratic Party coalition. Voters of all races who support public safety, economic opportunity and a dose of sanity in politics may find a home in the Republican Party. For many, such a choice will be natural. For others, it will be because the new Democratic Party simply left them behind.

Kristin Tate is a libertarian writer whose latest book is How Do I Tax Thee? A Field Guide to the Great American Rip-Off. Follow her on Twitter @KristinBTate.

Go here to read the rest:

The party of 'Karens': The new Democratic Party alienates nonwhite voters | TheHill - The Hill

Recently ousted Democratic Nassau County (N.Y.) Executive Laura Curran told "Watters' World" on Saturday that her party is conveying weakness and faces a "bloodbath" in the 2022 midterms if it doesn't step up.

LAURA CURRAN: Unfortunately, my party, the Democratic Party, just conveys weakness right now. It almost feels like elder abuse with what's going on with President Biden. He has a hard time putting a sentence together. I think everyone gets nervous listening to him talk, he's going to mess up. What we need always, and especially now, is someone who exudes confidence and competence. Someone who sets a reassuring tone. And we're not getting that at the top right now, and unfortunately, I think your previous guest, Karl Rove, is absolutely right. I think it's going to be a bloodbath for the Democrats in the midterms.

LONG ISLAND COUNTY LEADER ON WHY HE WON'T ENFORCE MASK MANDATE: NOT NECESSARY

As a Democrat, I think it's really important to have a strong, two-party system. I think it's good for democracy. I don't think it should be one-party rule either way, but unfortunately it seems like we're giving the Republicans ammunition just to shoot us because we exude this weakness. People want to be reassured that government is there for them, not telling them what to do, but making sure the roads are in good shape, making sure the sewage is properly run, making sure that public safety is where it should be. That's what people are expecting. Unfortunately, my party is not delivering this right now.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEWBELOW:

Read more from the original source:

Ousted Democratic county executive warns her party faces 'bloodbath' in 2022, conveys 'weakness' - Fox News

After Joe Manchin killed President Bidens ambitious Build Back Better spending bill, some Senate Democrats have moved onto a plan to pass voting rights legislation by exempting the topic from the filibusters requirement of 60 votes. This is the wrong lesson to take from their legislative defeat, which actually shows why Democratic leaders have been wise to preserve the filibuster. Until maverick Democrats Joe Manchin and Krystin Sinema become reliable partisans, getting 50 votes for legislation will be almost as difficult as getting 60.

Democrats are rightfully frustrated by their inability to pass legislation. But their problems are rooted in the politics of 2020, not 1837, the year of the first Senate filibuster. Democrats cannot lose a single vote in the 50-50 Senate, yet Manchin and Sinema regularly break with the party on issues like rolling back the Trump tax cuts and letting Medicaid pay for abortion. They also disagree with each other on many issues, so concessions to one may further alienate the other.

Even without the filibuster, either Manchin or Sinema could still kill any voting rights bill. The same is true for codifying Roe v. Wade into law, universal background checks for gun buyers, and making it easier for workers to organize into a union. Indeed, given their actions so far, the chance of these bills getting 50 votes is almost zero.

George W. Bush faced a similar dynamic in the first two years of his presidency, with an evenly divided Senate that included liberal Republicans Lincoln Chaffee and Jim Jeffords. His domestic legislative agenda was limited to a tax cut that got 12 Democratic votes and an education bill co-sponsored by liberal icon Ted Kennedy.

Weakening the filibuster will not lead to transformative progressive legislation but a stronger Republican Party. Because every state gets two senators, the Senate favors less populous, rural states that are now Republican strongholds. Unless Democrats somehow reverse a decade of decline with white, non-college educated voters, Republicans will control the Senate most of the time. That means Democrats should preserve the filibuster at all costs, not out of devotion to 19th century legislative norms, but because it is in their political interest to preserve the power of the Senates minority party.

Many progressives want to ignore this grim reality. Some argue the filibuster doesnt check Republican majorities because Republicans only goals are confirming conservative apparatchiks as judges and cutting taxes which only require 50 votes under the rules of the Senate. This ignores the potent power of conservative legislation. Free from the 60-vote threshold, a Republican majority could pass a federal right to work law, a version of Texass de facto abortion ban, and allow nationwide unrestricted concealed carry of handguns. Without the filibuster, Democrats only response to far-right legislation will be sending angry Tweets and frantic fundraising emails while Mitch McConnell sends his agenda to a Republican president.

The other Democratic argument for strengthening the power of Senate majorities is that Republicans will eliminate the filibuster the moment it limits their agenda. Under this logic, Democrats should strike first. This ignores reality. While McConnell will use the 50-vote threshold if its handed to him, he has shown no appetite for creating it on his own. In 2016, while Donald Trump was president and Republicans had a 52-48 Senate majority, the legislative filibuster went untouched.

Democrats should not hand the Republicans the political equivalent of a loaded gun just because theyre rightfully frustrated by the constraints of a 50-50 Senate majority. Instead, Charles Schumer and President Biden should try to salvage as much of Build Back Better as they can. That could mean shrinking the bill to something Manchin can support or going bipartisan and embracing Mitt Romneys alternative plan for a child tax credit. Neither of these options will thrill progressives, but theyre certainly better than weakening the filibuster a year away from Republicans controlling at least one chamber of Congress.

Brian Jencunas is a Massachusetts-based political and government relations consultant.

Original post:

Jencunas: Democrats would be smart to protect the filibuster - Boston Herald