A return to one of my most unasked for features - the Speculatron, where I try to predict the political future with uncanny inaccuracy!
While Prime Minister Joe Manchin tries to rule us all from his houseboat, let's take a look at what the future may hold depending on the passing of the Build Back Better Bill, or some remnant thereof -
The entire 3.5 trillion-dollar passes intact
Yeah. As likely as a camel passing through the eye of a needle. It would be an amazingly transformative bill, leaving us much better off. Free community college, paid leave, extended child care credits and improved Medicare benefits, real and effective climate legislation, fairer tax rates, and on and on. Every American life would be substantially and visibly improved.
The 2022 political result of this joyous victory? Republicans narrowly take control of the House and the Senate.
Huh? What? Why? Because too many Americans are short-sighted and can't look past their own nose. The benefits will be quickly absorbed, but the negative reaction from Republicans, Trumpeteers, AND the media, both conservative AND mainstream, will drown out the effects of any progress.
A watered-down version of Build Back Better passes
Yeah, this will still have some good things, but it will be harder for most Americans to see in their everyday lives. Thanx and a hat's tip to Prime Minster Manchin and the wealthy donor's new BFF, quirky little Krysten Sinema.
I can't tell you at this point what will survive the great Manchin/Sinema Chew-Up, but the results will be decisively less effective than the original bill.
It's odd that the Progressives, who are increasing in number and legislative muscle, can still be stopped by two Corporate Democrats. But that's where we are. Just imagine the reverse, however. What if two Progressive US Senators stopped a bill filled with goodies and lard for the top 10%, designed by Corporate Democrats? The media would be up in arms! Joe Scarborough would be expectorating so much spittle his studio would be drowning in it!
The 2022 political result of this partial victory? Republicans decisively win control of the House and the Senate.
This one is easier to explain. There is historical precedent. Obama watered down the bill to get us out of the recession so much that the cost was slashed, and half was given to useless tax giveaways to the rich and mega-corporations in a desperate attempt to win over Republicans (an attempt that failed spectacularly).
While it did help us out of the recession, it did it in kind of a frog-boiling way. It was so slow that most people didn't connect it with the legislation that passed. They were easily persuaded that it had little effect on their lives. And in 2010, the Republicans received huge gains.
The Democrats have learned nothing, and this is the scenario most likely to be repeated.
No bill passes
The saddest thing to me about this scenario is that everyone will blame Joe Biden. Could he have negotiated better? Maybe, at the margins. But ultimately, the cake is baked. Even with reconciliation, even if the filibuster was eliminated, you are still stuck with the King of Coal Manchin and the Queen of the Lobbyists Sinema.
But the American people won't see it that way. Instead, they will see Biden as weak and ineffective and blame him entirely.
The 2022 political result of no bill passing? Republicans tromp with a merciless, unprecedented beat down.
Boy, aren't these conclusions sorry and sad! Okay, maybe there's some hope if we pass the whole thing (sadly, that ship has sailed), but even if Republicans take control, at least we'll have passed the whole thing. Moreover, we'll have laid the groundwork for a better future, one that will be difficult for the Republicans to reverse.
In a vain attempt to be a contrarian, here is the scenario that offers the most hope for Democrats in 2022 -
Manchin and Sinema join the Republican Party
Let people see what the full effects of letting the Trumpified Republicans run the Senate look like. It wouldn't be Democratic disarray that stopped things - it would be Republican intransigence. So we can blame government dysfunction on its true source - Republicans.
This would give Biden something to campaign against - a full-throated wail at the Do Nothing Senate. Give 'em Hell like Harry Truman did.
I would prefer this happen after the Build Back Better bill passes (in all its watered-down glory), but I'll take what I can get.
I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not trying to be a Purge-aholic. But, dang it, it's time. It's time for a Progressive takeover of the Democratic Party.
I don't know if this will work. There's a lot to fight - state voter suppression laws, gerrymandering, a media pretty much united against progressives. But there's also hope - most progressive solutions poll well when they're not swamped with party labels.
Here's to hope!
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