Quote of the week
Aaron Rodgers: "I'm a critical thinker!"
Dems need to pass Build Back Better
What happens now that Biden’s infrastructure bill has passed if his social-spending package falls by the wayside?
My answer #1: We’re going to have a lot more cold, hungry, and homeless families sleeping under beautifully-painted and repaired bridges.
#2: Trumpies and Trump-lites may very well roll into Congress and the White House in ‘22 & ‘24.
But calm down Dems. There’s no need to panic. Neither of those things needs to happen. Don’t mourn. Just organize please, and use your muscle and mobilize your base to push through Build Back Better. Pretend you’re Lyndon Johnson kicking some of your fellow Democrats’ butts to get that Voting Rights Act passed in ‘65.
Some good points are made here in today’s Sun-Times by Rachel Hinton.
Hinton says the weekend passage of the long-delayed infrastructure bill provided some optimism as Illinois Democrats prepare for the midterm election cycle. To make her point, Hinton gets the word from someone I know. Joanna Klonsky, a longtime Democratic strategist who says:
The passage of the infrastructure bill “absolutely” offsets the losses Democrats saw last week by showing President Joe Biden and the party “can deliver by passing infrastructure” — but she said they now must pass the rest of Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda as well.
For Klonsky, what’s important is what happens next.
“Voters’ top concern in this moment is the rising cost of living. By fulfilling their promise and passing Build Back Better, they can lower the costs of health care, prescription drugs, childcare and utility bills. … That will benefit Illinois Democrats up and down the ballot in big ways.”
I’ll go with that.
In other words, the real challenge for Democrats as we draw closer to the mid-term elections and as the Virginia debacle fades in the rearview mirror, is whether leadership can unify the party enough to bring direct relief to a battered class of working and poor people. By direct relief, I don’t just mean spending $10B on new EV charging stations. I mean the deliverables in the human infrastructure package which is now being held hostage by Republicans.
No Virginia. You are not yet a trend
The reasons for the loss in VA (and that’s all it was — a single loss unless you want to count the victory in N.J. as a loss) are being greatly overspun in the media. Terry McAuliffe didn't lose because he drifted too far left. He lost mainly because he was a crappy candidate, disliked widely, with a poor track record (think Hillary Clinton in 2016). He ran as a corporate Democrat, indistinguishable on most issues from his Trump-lite opponent Glenn Youngkin.
That was especially true on education, writes Jennifer Berkshire in The Nation. Birkshire grabbed this telling quote from McAuliffe as evidence. “In Virginia, we put corporate partners first.”
“Republicans won by creating a fake bogeyman and telling suburban voters they will defeat it,” The Daily Beast’s Wajahat Ali tweeted on Tuesday night. “Dems didn’t come out with a counter message. And there it is. Hats off to the depraved cynicism and villainy and race baiting. It worked in Virginia like we said it would.”
It’s important to keep in mind that McAuliffe’s loss stands out in contrast to a host of progressives and Black mayors who won victories in cities across the country. First there’s Michelle Wu who will become the first woman and the first Asian-American mayor of Boston when she’s sworn into office on Tuesday, Nov. 16. Wu, who grew up in Chicago (yay!) ran on a progressive platform, pledging to be aggressive in pursuit of climate change, rent control, and a fare-free public transportation system, among other initiatives.
Black candidates in Pittsburgh, Kansas City and St. Petersburg, Fla., also rose to victory last week, making history as the cities' first Black mayors.
My Last Point…
It’s about the six progressives who voted NO last week on Biden’s $1.2T infrastructure bill, even while knowing that the stripped-down would pass with the help of 13 Republicans and that their votes would not risk passage.
Here are the six House Democrats who broke from their party to vote against the bill:
Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York
Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York
Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota
Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts
Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan
Lots of party centrists are spitting explatives in the press over the NO votes. But I implicitly trust the motives of AOC and the Squad and know that their decision was made from a good place. They are trying to be a voice in Congress for the voiceless and disempowered even if it means attracting the wrath of Pelosi. So far, their base has stuck with them at election time.
Progressives, including AOC and the squad and Congressman Chuy Garcia, had been promising right up until a day before the vote, to vote no, unless both bills were voted on as a package.
Chuy and Rep. PramilaJayapal, a leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, were able to agree on a last-minute deal with Pelosi that allowed progressives to vote yes. It also created space so that the 6 could make their protest vote. Biden got his watered-down Infrastructure Bill passed with Republican help and a pinky promise to progressives to get something done on Build Back Better by next week.
Chuy Garcia voted yes. Here’s how he justified it:
Here’s a tweet from Rev. William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign:
But both bills — infrastructure and Build Back Better — should have been voted on at the same time, as was promised. I do however trust @RepJayapal, and I respect those who voted no because they wanted both bills and refused to play the game.
So as of now, that’s pretty much where I’m at.
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