In her latest column in the Washington Post Catherine Rampell provides some advice to the Democrats that sounds good superficially:
Democrats have a few options for paring down their plan. They could decide to prioritize which programs they most want and leave some others on the cutting-room floor. They could also keep most everything that’s already in their current plan but execute an across-the-board haircut, so each individual program is smaller.
That is: They can decide to pass fewer new programs, at full funding levels; or a lot more programs on the cheap (or with early expiration dates, etc.). I support the former: Do fewer things, better; not more things, poorly.
but in practice is completely unreasonable. The reason: their majority is terribly, terribly weak. They don’t hold a majority in the Senate at all—it’s tied 50:50. In the House their caucus outnumbers the Republicans by just 8 votes.
A rule of thumb in party politics is that very narrow majorities empower the most extreme members of their respective caucuses. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing in the Congress today. Bernie Sanders, who isn’t a Democrat at all but caucuses with them, is the effective leader of the Democratic caucus there while the House is being whipsawed between the progressives and the moderates.
Neither can they afford to alienate their donors by increasing their taxes or by abandoning their pet projects. Consequently, their only path forward is to do the opposite of what Ms. Rampell is advising, try to appease everybody, and accept the risk not only that they’ll appease nobody but that nothing they’re trying to do will actually be accomplished.
Meanwhile, I’m hearing a lot of complaints about how undemocratic it all is. More on that in a later post.
I was amused with Bernie Sanders novel take on Dennis Hastert’s concept of a “majority of the majority”.
“2 senators cannot be allowed to defeat what 48 senators and 210 House members want. We must stand with the working families of our country. We must combat climate change. We must delay passing the Infrastructure Bill until we pass a strong Reconciliation Bill.”
On just plain politics; I am surprised Schumer/Biden did not work harder to lure a defector from the Republican caucus. Not Susan Collins who has bad blood with Schumer; but Murkowski has a terrible relationship with the Alaskan Republican party, is up for reelection in 22, and is likely to be primaried…. back when Biden’s rating was in the 50’s, being an “independent Republican” must have been tempting.
I was amused with Bernie Sanders novel take on Dennis Hastert’s concept of a “majority of the majorityâ€.
“2 senators cannot be allowed to defeat what 48 senators and 210 House members want. We must stand with the working families of our country. We must combat climate change. We must delay passing the Infrastructure Bill until we pass a strong Reconciliation Bill.â€
On a more practical level; I am surprised Schumer/Biden did not work harder to lure a defector from the Republican caucus. Not Susan Collins who has bad blood with Schumer; but Murkowski has a terrible relationship with the Alaskan Republican party…. back when Biden’s rating was in the 50’s, being an “independent Republican†must have been tempting.
Sen. Sanders likes minority rule which is what he is describing just fine as long as he’s in the minority that rules.
As I’ve pointed out before a majority of an extremely narrow majority is not necessarily itself a majority but that does seem to be the definition of democracy that’s being used.