What we are seeing right now is a semi-coordinated, semi-spontaneous revolt on the left to the latest compromises in the Senate health care reform bill. We can talk about the wisdom and possible efficacy of this revolt, but the administration has to deal with the left they have, not the left that they might wish to have (to use some Rumsfeldian logic). What the administration is facing is a consequence of the left having to eat too much shit on a whole host of issues from military commissions, a failure to root out and punish the crimes and practices of the Bush administration, the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, a too-friendly bailout of Wall Street, and now a health care bill that bears little resemblance to what Obama promised us in the campaign.
Obama can’t pass anything that doesn’t have unanimous support in the Democratic caucus because of the ruthless obstruction and opposition of the Republican Party. This forces him to govern to the center and make all his compromises with centrist Democrats and/or the two still-existing centrist Republicans in the Senate. The Republican obstruction empowers people like Joe Lieberman. It actually gives veto power to every single senator, but the only way to make up for a defecting Democrat is to win over Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins. So, if Bernie Sanders or Roland Burris revolt, he has to move the bill further to the right in response.
The left is immensely frustrated with this situation and inclined to blame the administration, but this is a simple logic tree. Obama cannot push the progressive position on pretty much anything if the centrists refuse to go along. Compounding the problem, progressives don’t really know how to influence centrists. They tend to insult them, call them whores, attack their families, and generally question their morals. Over time, this sets up the situation we saw with Lieberman where he switched positions on a Medicare buy-in proposal simply because the measure was pleasing to people who have been demonizing him for over three years. Rather than persuade the Ben Nelsons and Blanche Lincolns of the Senate, progressive tactics make them even more inclined to reject anything they perceive to be coming from the left.
It’s quite possible that the health care bill we’re looking at right now is worse than it would have been if ads and insults weren’t hurled at the people who have control over what will be in the bill. It reminds me of the campaign against General David Petraeus. Rather than educating the public about what was anticipated to be misleading testimony before Congress, MoveOn.org would up being censored by Congress, and the anti-war movement never recovered. That didn’t mean that MoveOn was wrong on the merits, only that they had a tin-ear and pursued self-defeating strategies.
But, if I have learned anything in my years of political activism, it’s that the left will act like the left, the right will act like the right, and that this is something it is foolish to ignore. You can’t plead, beg, or reason with people who are just wired to act the way they do. You have to know that if you make the left eat shit that they will react in predictable ways. They’ll get demoralized. They’ll blame you and your motives and your morals, even if your actions are basically dictated by the makeup and behavior of Congress.
The Obama administration can’t satisfy the left legislatively, but they need to recognize the need to satisfy us whenever and wherever they can. That means that the administration needs to throw bones to the left in appointments, and executive decisions that don’t require congressional approval. It means that they need to show more respect for what people are trying to do to assist them. It means that they need to show more fight.
Otherwise, they are going to run into a wall of opposition on the left and the right. Look at this:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that it’s up to President Barack Obama to persuade reluctant Democrats to fund his Afghanistan troop buildup — his most important foreign policy initiative — because she has no plans to do so herself.
Pelosi’s reluctance to lobby for an Afghan surge appropriation reflects the deep divisions within the Democratic Party over Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan.
This isn’t much different from the position the left is now taking on health care. The SEIU, Howard Dean, Keith Olbermann, Bernie Sanders and many bloggers are arguing that the health care bill should be defeated. Imagine that. Some of Obama’s best allies are now fighting on the side of Tom Coburn to kill the president’s number one priority.
That’s just what people on the left do. We splinter. The Republicans stick together no matter how disastrous their course. We fly apart and attack each other. You can’t change a leopard’s spots, but you can take account of its teeth. If the Obama administration wants to avoid a disastrous meltdown in the big-tent Democratic Party, they need to do a much better job figuring out how to give the left some victories. We’ve eaten too much shit, and now you have a big problem.
yesterday we were “ungrateful”. now it’s because we had to “eat too much shit”.
the left has been eating shit for a long time before Mr. Obama came along: Mr. Clinton sure had us eating great piles of doo-doo.
i agree with the premise (the left has eaten too much shit), but there’s a petulance here that we should eat a little more shit just to give a the president and party a win on the health care bill, even though the bill is rotten.
i don’t want to pass something that, so far as I can see, will really hurt middle class families (most of who are actually “working poor”) just to give someone who has given me shit to eat can say “hooray, we won.”
that’s just me.
If you just walk down your street, you’ll come across one person after another that this bill will help to get health insurance that they don’t currently have. But let’s assume that there are other people who will be worse off under this legislation. What the left should be doing is fighting for certain clearly defined provisions in the Conference Committee, not trying to keep the bill from getting there.
I think that’s what’s going on right now.
SEIU is saying fix it in conference or kill it.
by the way, something needs to be made clear: “insurance” doesn’t equal “coverage”. Insurers deny coverage all the time.
that’s one of the reasons i’m so upset about this: i didn’t vote for “health insurance reform”. i voted for “health care reform”. the minute I started noticing the campaign changed that middle word, i knew the game was up.
Kos has quite a bit on the Massachusetts model. depressing stuff. My low-income friends in Massachusetts hate it. Long lines, long waits, expensive. Most of them don’t even go to the doctor, same as when they didn’t have insurance.
BTW, for those of you who didn’t really understand or agree with my argument about not letting the PO get stripped out prior to Conference, look at this (emphasis mine):
That is exactly what I wanted to avoid.
Then take names and in 2010 say these people wouldn’t give Americans decent healthcare. A Democrat who acts like a Republican is, well, like a Republican.
I don’t see how any of this is a liberal problem. If healthcare is a left-right issue, the vast majority of Americans are to the left of the Senate. But it’s not left-right. It’s top-bottom. And the people who toil for those at the top (the insurance companies) be they Republican or Democrat, are serving Americans.
1) No, the bill would have looked exactly like this even if the liberals had nominated Joe and Nelson for sainthood. Kicking the DFH has been the sure, beltway approved way to become a “centrist” since before the two of us were born. “Moderates” cannot allow the hippies to win in any way shape or form. Doing so would not be centrist, it would be pandering, and so on. They hate lefties, Booman, have for decades.
2)There will be no substantial changes in conference. The Senate bill is what we are going to get, for good or ill, becasue nelson and Lieberman will kill it otherwise. Actually, the question now is whether Nelson kills it over the Stupak amendment which looks to be a pretty good bet. Arguing to pass this bill and then try and change it in conference shows a lack of appreciation for just how much Nelson and Lieberman want to be King.
Even if true, there is no reason to fight to kill the bill prior to Conference. If it doesn’t improve, fight to kill it then.
My understanding of the argument is that if you kill the Senate bill, the House bill becomes the easiest route to a quick reconciliation process. I don;t know if I agree with that, or even if I want the bill killed — there are a ton of unanswered questions right now — but thats the gist of the strategy as I understand it.
whether the bill fails in the Senate pre or post-conference isn’t going to change anything regarding a possible reconciliation process.
at least in conference we have a little bit of leverage. Right now, we have none.
I disagree.
We don’t have any leverage in conference whatsoever because we still need 60 votes in the Senate. ONLY reconciliation gives us leverage because you no longer need 60 senators. If you wait to conference to kill it, then you really do have to start over as opposed to just picking up the House bill and dumping on the Senate.
If this was just a matter of tactics, then reconciliation would be a no brainer. But we cannot get the insurance regulations, the exchanges, and maybe not the mandate without regular order, so I don;t see reconciliation as viable unless and until they either lower the subsidies, further gut the regulations, raise the caps and out of pocket limits, or demand Stupak. Or we could pass a buy in for Medicare for anyone through reconciliation and the House, which I doubt we can do at this point.
Right. I’d like to know how many shouting “kill the bill” already HAVE health care. I suspect it’s a huge majority of them.
Yes I do and I want to keep it. So does my union (APWU) who are also saying “kill the bill”. Making us all equally desperate is not the Change I voted for. I voted for everyone having AT LEAST what I have.
Look at your Seldes quote, Lisa. What’s left of health reform in the Senate is a bill to guarantee insurance company profits. The only change I see is more money going from the pockets of working people to the heads of insurance companies.
Pass the damn bill and do the Medicare buy-in provision under budget rec. later.
And I’m one who believes the Dean, et. al., kill-the-bill stance will assure the conservaDems vote for it. (If Howard Dean hates it, it must be good).
Of course Lieberman could flip again just to keep up his spite campaign.
I write all this as someone who is about to lose her health insurance when her husband retires. And I am uninsurable at any price due to PEC.
Shalom.
This behind the scenes crap by Obama and the Administration has to end. The Clinton people around Obama were so risk aversive from past experience that it ended up deflating their allies. I will fight for the administration tooth and nail but how can I convince anyone to fight along with me when I have nothing to point that Obama is fighting with us. Supporters truly believed that Obama would have this Health Care debate with all the stake holders live on TV. The Administration just shrugged it off and had some half ass excuse while cutting deals with Big Pharma, Doctors, etc behind close doors.
I can argue Loserman, Blue Dogs, filibuster, GOP obstruction, lobbyists, Fox News, etc. are the things holding up real change but this is a hard sell when the President is not making these boogey man known. The absence of this fight has turned liberals on one another. For example, I am not mad at Harkin, Rockafeller, Brown, because I know that they gave it their all and worked their ass off.
Can any follower of this Health Care debate say the same about the President? I really wish that I could but I honestly can not.
The Administration must change this perception or the foot soldiers in these legislative battles will not be able to fully fight.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/12/no_fight.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=
feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Talking-Points-Memo+%28Talking+Points+Memo%3A+by+Joshua+Micah+Marshall
%29
Booman: You make fair points about the splintering of the left (as if we were really unified in the first place?), but there’s something I want to point out. Your implied admonition that we on the left should have just trusted the Obama Admin to wrangle the centrists, that we should have been nice to the centrists despite the fact that they were talking about gutting reform, has a fatal flaw:
You’re asking us to “just trust” Obama and his administration. We should trust them to find the right way to work with the centrists, and we should follow the Administration’s lead. Trust them that, at the last minute, provisions will be added in reconciliation that will tip this bill from the “does more harm” to the “does more good” category. Trust them that they are honest and serious about REAL reform.
I think it’s unreasonable to expect the left to “just trust” this administration. For all the reasons you enumerated (we’ve, indeed, eaten too much shit), we DON’T trust Obama and Co much less the Congress, so we make our voices heard when we come across something we feel is injurious to the reform we voted for.
Wasn’t that the whole lesson of the Bush years? Never “just trust” the President and the Administration.
I’m 28 years old. My political awakening occurred during the previous stretch of Republican obstructionism in the 90s. My whole life, I have watched spineless Democrats cave in to the Right (whether the Right has been in power or not), and cave in to big corporate interests. Why should I “trust” these people Booman? Why should I wait quietly and patiently and assume they’ll do the right thing? They haven’t earned that trust, and they aren’t earning it now.
As a last note, Axelrod is starting to get insulting. His defense this morning completely ignores the stark possibility that mandated care will cause serious financial distress to already struggling families. That’s a real concern, and something worth opposing. Your points about unity are well-taken, but I think there’s a question of when unity is appropriate. Unity requires trust.
If I could wave a magic wand, I’d sprinkle some magic pixie dust on the left to that they had a better appreciation of the battlefield and didn’t drop artillery on their own troops. Part of my point is that the left is not going to trust you to do the right thing particularly when doing the right thing isn’t even on the list of possibilities. But, the left could certainly do a better job of doing smart advocacy. There isn’t any reason to demonize your allies for dealing with a very imperfect set of choices. If you are trying to cajole someone to help you out, you don’t really advance your cause by going after their wife. So, this is really a piece of advice for the president and (less so) lefty activists. I don’t expect lefty activists to change their behavior. But the administration can change theirs to take our wiring into account.
The “Progressive” left is broadcasting a single message every day: Democrats are weak, corrupt, back-stabbing, cowards not manly men like Republicans. That this is the same message the right broadcasts seems to be something too subtle for our genius self-appointed spokespeople to appreciate.
Democrats feed at the same Corporate K Street trough as GOP, right or wrong? The perception that Republicans are tough and Democrats are weak is complete bullshit but sometimes the Democrats in power play right into that misleading stereotype by how they govern. FISA Sell out to Telecoms, No Torture Investigations, Caving on Fox News, Never Stopping the Funding of Wars, No Single Payer proposals to start from, Banks running place, and on and on. Not that I agree with them always but the people bitching do have some merit. The left needs a common political enemy to attack in order to unite and stop shooting each other but only the ones in power can truly lead us to who that is.
You make a fair point, but let’s play “what if?”
What if the Democrats ARE the way you describe them? The Right broadcasts that for their own reasons, as a bludgeon. But our “genius self-appointed spokespeople” often broadcast that same message as a release of frustration, as a refusal to accept shitty representation. Similar message, broadcast for very different reasons.
In the rough, by enormous effort we have a great victory in which we replace what has to be described as a fascist/theocracy in the making with a well intentioned but politically weak centrist government that is way too much aligned with corporate interests. One could say: great start, now let’s see what combination of incremental reforms and structural changes we can get from this. Or one could say: we’re weak and defeated and betrayed. I guess it depends on what next move you have in mind.
I share your desire to see the Left better educated about the terrain of the ‘battlefield.’ To the average American, nay, to the vast majority of Americans, the jungle gym of procedural hurdles and waypoints is an endless menagerie obscuring any real understanding of where things currently stand, what can reasonably be hoped for, and what possible outcomes are likely to arise from the in-the-moment, day-to-day pronouncements that flow, like sewage after hard rain, from Washington.
To this vast, uninitiated majority, it looks like REAL reform got thrown under the bus by the Obama Administration to appease a bunch of Centrist assholes who don’t really represent the hopes or interests of many people in this country.
I’m grateful for your blog, where I have learned it’s actually much more complicated than that. Your knowledge of procedure and nuance is refreshing and illuminating. But please remain patient with the Left, especially Progressives.
We have been traumatized by decades of antagonistic government, the total dissolution of any sense of the government’s credibility (generally and individually), and the staunch fight AGAINST progress by those whose power and profit are threatened by it. We have not been educated well enough about our own system to emerge from the Byzantine thicket of Congressional machination with any real sense of where we are.
Even those of us who do get a sense of the terrain still have to contend with the sophisticated, intentionally misleading message machine Congress and Executive have become. Those self-serving obfuscations are, as you know, then filtered yet again by the media (mainstream and otherwise), compromised by its own self-serving dual loyalties.
It’s a miracle that anyone on the Left (or in the country in general, for that matter) has any idea what’s going on at all. Until the people of this country are better educated about our own system, blame will be misdirected and artillery will continue to fall willy-nilly, on “our” troops and the “enemy.”
And the divide-and-conquer game continues. We are convinced that the Right is our enemy, and they are convinced we are theirs. But, as is increasingly clear, borderline fascist corporate interests and the corrupt, enabling politicians that fight for them are the TRUE enemy of both Left and Right in this country. And that’s where the rounds should be landing.
I’m rereading this, and I don’t want it to be misinterpreted. My last line about rounds was merely a continuation of the artillery metaphor for the political epithets and dissent speech lobbed against people or ideas that are the subject of disagreement. I realize the whole last paragraph took on an unintendedly ominous tone! Living and learning.
I found Axelrod particularly offensive too.
“It’s quite possible that the health care bill we’re looking at right now is worse than it would have been if ads and insults weren’t hurled at the people who have control over what will be in the bill”. Are you kidding me? Joe Lieberman is morally and ethically challenged and it’s the left’s fault for pointing that out? Both Nelson’s, Baucus, Landrieu, Conrad and a bunch of others are corporate shills who do their master’s bidding and it’s the left that’s the problem? “Obama cannot push the progressive position on pretty much anything if the centrists refuse to go along” Really? He seems to have no trouble pushing the centrists position and insisting the progressives go along, over and over again.
The problem revealed itself yesterday when Gibbs referred to Dean’s position as irrational. Gibbs called him out- the man who did the most to set the stage for Obama’s election. A man who has been treated like dirt by this Administration but who has never insulted any of them. Dean has worked his heart out for health care reform and left the pettiness to others. And this is how he is rewarded. He makes a cogent arguement to make the bill better to get real reform and he’s being irrational? Oh those nasty lefties, why can’t they be reasonable?
Read Glenn Greenwald from yesterday about the White House as helpless victim. He nails it. In this post, you are perpetuating that myth.
I don’t know how much plainer it could be than the medicare buy-in. Lieberman actually admitted that he switched his position on that after seeing that the left liked it. That’s evidence that he isn’t just taking some ideological stance in favor of the insurance industry. He’s reacting to his critics and looking to screw them.
As for Howard Dean, he’s working to kill the bill, so he’s going to get criticized by the administration. I agree that Dean has been treated shabbily by the administration, but disrespecting him yesterday isn’t on the list of sins.
Are you really saying that because Lieberman is an amoral dick who will vote the opposite of what any liberal senator or congressman wants just to stick it to them, the left should keep quiet as a strategic move, to get his vote? Please tell me you’re not saying that.
Why isn’t disrespecting Dean yesterday not on the list of sins? Actually, for a lot of people I know who have been waffling about Obama, that moved them away from the Administration. They thought it was petty. Gibbs could have said, “we disagree with Howard Dean and we want to meet with him to talk about his concerns”. That would have been a respectful way to handle it. As you point out in the original post, “It means that they (the administration) need to show more respect for what people are trying to do to assist them”. On that we do agree.
What I’m saying is that we don’t help persuade people like Lieberman or Lincoln or Ben Nelson with the tactics we’ve been using.
On Gibbs, I agree that he should have been more diplomatic.
As i posted downthread, i don’t think the left can effectively yield “carrots” with these conservatives rather than “sticks.” If landreau’s chief of staff wants to call markos and say will you fundraise for me if I don’t obstruct the president’s agenda, I think he would have played ball. Obama has an arsenal of carrots at his disposal with these senators and I don’t think he used them effectively (i know you disagree). If there’s a tactical failure, it lies with the Obama and his Staff and Reid and his staff. Unless of course you are a cynic and think this is exactly what Obama/Axelrod wanted.
Booman isn’t the cynic. I’m the cynic and I think that’s exactly what Obama wanted, a toothless bill that increases industry profits while giving him something to declare victory on.
We can persuade Lieberman et al with millions of dollars. Like the insurance companies do.
And quite honestly, the Big Tent of the Democrats includes a lot of whore for corporations that might as well have been Republican for all the good they do.
Mandates without cost restraint, without public alternaties, is guaranteed excess profits for insurance companies. Let it die.
Let’s see — you want us to show more respect for corrupt scum like Lieberman, but it’s OK to call Dean irrational? It’s somehow our fault that Lieberman is a psychopathic personality? Maybe you need a vacation or something.
Actually, I think Dean’s comments have been overstated and misrepresented in the blogosphere and, for that matter, in the WSJ. He isn’t saying kill the bill – he’s saying make it stronger or ELSE kill the bill. That is an important distinction.
I’m still not sure it’s the right battle to be fighting – I don’t want to kill anything until I see the final product. But I do think Dean’s comments were overstated, and the White House reacted poorly, and will suffer because of it.
suejazz writes:
“Are you kidding me? Joe Lieberman is morally and ethically challenged and it’s the left’s fault for pointing that out?” — That’s not what Booman is saying. It’s a given that Lieberman is morally and ethically challenged. We all know that. The problem is, strategically how best to deal with this fact, along with the fact that centrists hold inordinate power in the Senate. I think what Booman is saying is that the way the Left reacts is counterproductive. Whether it “ought” to be or not, experience shows that it is. But he goes further. Given that it is the nature of the Left to react that way, the Administration’s strategy is also counterproductive and self-defeating, because they don’t take enough account of their own base. Shorter Booman: To get what you want, you must be radically empirical. You must base strategy on the way things are, not the way they ought to be. Because the only way of moving toward what ought to be is to actually pass your bills through Congress. — I apologize to Booman in advance if I am misinterpreting him, but you surely are.
that’s fairly accurate.
The strategy then should not be to bend to Lieberman et al because they want a health reform bill that serves the interests of the insurance companies. Lieberman is worthless.
So what you do is call Lieberman in, ask him why he should lose his chairmanship and any seniority in a party in which he no longer belongs, and then cut him loose because that it Lieberman’s reality.
The others, the Bayhs, the Nelsons, maybe you don’t boot them out, but you let it be known that they are on thin ice.
Of course, that’s what you would do if you had a liberal President and liberal leadership. But you don’t.
Read this:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/12/0082740
This problem is that Republicans represent the corporations and get votes by scaring and angering white people. Democrats have since the thirties represented working people. When the Democrats so baldly represent corporations they make themselves obsolete. The Republicans will always represent the corporations too, but if the Democrats prove themselves worthless to the rest of us then they guarantee a lot of people staying home on election night in 2010.
Interestingly, Axelrod did just let Nelson know that he’s treading on thin ice.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/17/david-axelrod-knocks-sen_n_396615.html
And I think that’s what labor is doing as well.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/17/trumka-senate-bill-as-is_n_396542.html
Surely these are also meant as wakeup calls to Lieberman.
It ain’t the president’s job to boot senators out. It’s the Senate majority’s job. If Obama went in there and tried to do it we’d be hearing screams about the imperial presidency, the unitary executive from the right and the strange lefty/teabagger hybrids of the Sirota kind.
As to Nelson, Lincoln, et al, I have to disagree. Any senator who filibusters against core Democratic Party bills needs to know they will be expelled from the caucus and all its privileges, no questions asked. Of course we’ll hear whining from them and the “news” yappers about not letting them vote their consciences, blablabla, but that’s bullshit. They can vote however they want on the bill without sanctions. All they have to do is let it come to a vote. That’s what caucuses are for. If you can’t do that, you’re not a member.
Well it might just be that Lieberman is dissembling and his decision to scuttle the medicare buy-in has nothing to do with his reaction to any criticism of him and has everything to do with what he personally wants. He would then be using criticism of him as an excuse for playing the poor victim. Even if there wasn’t such criticism he might well have taken the same decision anyway. It also seems that people have been feeding him arguments. This argument has been served to him on a silver platter by clever-too-much-by-half media chitchatters and bloggers. Lieberman must and does accept responsibility for his own actions. These are positive decisions on his part and are not imposed on him by anyone. It is not the fault of anyone except Lieberman. Have our congressional politics really descended into a schoolyard brawl? Answer—yes. And where is Mr. O. in all of this? There’s the rub, indeed.
You have a good point.
The “left” consists of many groups that have very different ideas. Who the administration needs to keep happy is the labor left and the african-american left. They should blow off the A-Blog Left as a fundamentally right wing dis-organization.
They’ve always blown off the A-List blogosphere. And I’ve never blamed them for it. I’d blow them off, too, because they aren’t really this administration’s allies. Never were. Obama mainly benefitted from the fact that the A-Listers were generally anti-DLC/Clinton, but they were never believers in Obama’s campaign and resented the OFA from the very beginning.
Obama mainly benefitted from the fact that the A-Listers were generally anti-DLC/Clinton, but they were never believers in Obama’s campaign and resented the OFA from the very beginning.
And this goes back to your point about shit sandwichs. Obama once(or was it twice) tried to bullshit people on DailyKos and got called out for it. And what outreach did he do on the campaign? Little, if at all, right? People, like myself(who canvassed and did other work) supported him because we hoped he’d be different. I knew that he wouldn’t enact everything he campaigned on. I was hoping he’d be better than the DLC’ers. But that’s just what he is. He’ll deny it I am sure, but that’s who he is more comfortable with(just look at his love for Pete Peterson).
Why do you care who OBama is comfortable with?
So if labor is ready to bail on this because the INCREASED health insurance costs are going to hurt working families, then who is Obama kowtowing to? I don’t think is the African American left if you’re talking about working families and the black middle class. And, no, I don’t think Obama is kowtowing to poor blacks, although plenty of them need some kind of coverage.
No, if there is any kowtowing being done, it’s to the same constituency that Lieberman is kowtowing to. (Hint: Hartford.)
While I disagree with some minor parts of this post, I think the logic holds: the left is inherently fractured, and maintaining unity requires more than President Obama has done.
We can debate who is “right” or “wrong” about their own efforts that may end up hurting the Party and the President, but the reality is still the same: love us or hate us, the base must be respected and tended to. Because without us, you lose power (and none of us wants that).
I am deeply troubled that mandating people in their 20’s, who are a large part of Obama/Dem base now, to buy shitty insurance when they are healthy is an electoral disaster for the foundation that we were trying to build. This age group is smart enough to know that GOP is awful but high unemployment and heavy student loans will be dragging their views of those in power down.
Making Insurance companies keep some of this age group on their parents’ Insurance is crucial.
Several points:
As far as I’m concerned, the ‘shittiest’ insurance you can get is not having any at all, because it means you end up with no health care.
Mandates: as far as I know, in the rest of the world mandates go along with public options and/or nonprofit-only providers. There is no place where mandates force people to buy from profiteering insurance companies that are protected from anti-trust laws and are essentially free from all other oversight, so that those they rob have no legal recourse except to drop out of the market.
You seem to assume that whatever insurance is available will also be affordable. You’re right that nobody knows for sure, but it’s a reasonable bet that it won’t be.
“You seem to assume that whatever insurance is available will also be affordable. You’re right that nobody knows for sure, but it’s a reasonable bet that it won’t be.”
Um, actually you are wrong in my case. I’m low income, uninsured/uninsurable at any cost. Under any of the plans offered i’d be able to purchase subsidized insurance and the most I’d pay is a little over $100 a month. That is no easy money to come by, but it’s better than the alternative of not having seen a dr in 15 years save two visits to a free clinic.
The fact that the premiums are paid to a for-profit corporation irks, but even non-profits like Blue Cross are in some ways non-profit in name only.
The bottom line is this: every year a LOT of people die for no other reason than they either can’t get or can’t afford insurance. If this bill can save 40,000 lives a year, even if some percentage goes to profit, I’m fine because I have no desire to cut off my nose to spite my face. Or to say the same to the 45 million Americans that are in the same boat.
Given your situation I assume you’ve looked very carefully at affordability, so I stand corrected despite very different reads from other people. I don’t want to pry into your personal business, but have you figured the total cost/month under the current Senate proposal, including deductibles, copays, etc.? I’d like to hear more about what you know, because I’ve seen elsewhere that the no-preexist/no-rescission features of the bill are a sham. What’s your take?
Blue Cross, btw, is not non-profit in any sense. They were decades ago but sold their name to insurance companies fully as rapacious and dishonest as any other.
If the Obama administration wants to avoid a disastrous meltdown in the big-tent Democratic Party, they need to do a much better job figuring out how to give the left some victories. We’ve eaten too much shit, and now you have a big problem.
That’s been the problem from Day One. I’ve asked it before, but I’ll ask it again. What bone has Obama thrown the left besides Hilda Solis as Labor Sec.? Dawn Johnsen still hasn’t been confirmed. The Ledbetter Act? The only reason that was necessary is because of the broken Supreme Court we have. Do they get the wrong interpretation from those turnout numbers Kos commented on a few weeks ago? The ones that showed a demoralized base heading into next year.
Obama won Virginia in 2008. When the Dems run a faux Dem in 2009 they lose.
And when the whole party is seen as a faux Republican Party then turn out the lights, the party’s over.
There has been no sense that the White House has used it’s smarts or muscle on health care. Why let Baucus waste time with bipartisan fantasies? Where are the stories about carrots or sticks being used on wavering Democrats (or even a Republican or two)?
I consider myself a pragmatist, and I think BooMan and Kos are pragmatists too. Yet here were are, divided on the political ramifications of a mandate w/o some sort of cost containment or alternative (e.g. public plan or Medicare buy-in).
“The Obama administration can’t satisfy the left legislatively, but they need to recognize the need to satisfy us whenever and wherever they can. That means that the administration needs to throw bones to the left in appointments, and executive decisions that don’t require congressional approval.”
This. Above all this. I haven’t said it consistently I admit, but I have said it several times that I can understand the legislative problem but that Obama isn’t even TRYING to dogwhistle us. He’s not even trying to shift the “window” with rhetoric. He’s not even trying to appoint young liberal judges. He’s started from a pragmatic position where he is willing to compromise, that’s fine. It’s not crazy. The left is not as crazy as the right. We understand that Lieberman alone for instance can kill the Bill and we elected a lot of centrists.
But as you said, there was nothing symbolic to let us know Obama was “one of us” or hell, even aware of us. And so as you said, the left ate so much shit that they finally threw up all over elected Dems. At least sugar coat the shit. Why do you think Regan gave the rightists such hard ons? Yes he was a movement righty, but his actual policies were fairly mundane. But it was the words, the symbols the CODE that the right understood at once but that didn’t freak out the middle.
Obama hasn’t given us that. Sometimes the Congressional Dems do, but it’s pretty rare.
You must have been listening to a different set of speeches than I was. I don’t think the rhetoric is the problem. It’s the getting it done.
I’m curious: look at or recall Obama’s speeches. Would you be unhappy at all if his broad vision for the country came to pass?
Hey sorry, I didn’t mean to blank respond. Yeah it is the problem. Symbols and inside baseball is what I’m demanding, like judges. The public doesn’t care about judges but the base does. I am a law student. I’ve studied how the righty judges have perverted the justice system over the decades. How they are always constantly pushing. How Renquist opinions from the 70s are on the middle to far left of the court today.
I want young liberal judges rammed through the damn senate so we can seize the courts again. Instead I get technocratic centrists like that Hamilton guy from Indiana. Not terrible, but how are they going to start handing down decisions that start expanding protections for defendants and regular people who just want to get justice? You don’t even have a constitutional right now to be framed, for god’s sake.
That’s just one area. Tell me the public cares about judge confirmations? No matter what the right is going to scream about “radical leftist activist commie atheist jugdes.” No one is going to care. Give us judges that will bring us closer to justice.
On that I fully agree. The Dems continue to be far too scared of being called commies or radicals even though they will be no matter what they do. Unfortunately I don’t see any coherent pressure on specific nominations from the left, where they might actually have some influence. Do you?
“The SEIU, Howard Dean, Keith Olbermann, Bernie Sanders and many bloggers are arguing that the health care bill should be defeated. Imagine that. Some of Obama’s best allies are now fighting on the side of Tom Coburn to kill the president’s number one priority.”
Unless I’m missing something this is a seriously — even shamefully — misleading statement. Dean’s proposal is to give up on the Senate bill and get whatever can be salvaged from the House bill passed through budget reconciliation. Not so different from what you yourself advocated/predicted early on, Boo. His point is not to defeat health care but to get something better than we’re going to get out of the Senate. He is not saying just quit, he’s saying now it’s out time to play the kind of game Lieberman and the other Dem crooks are playing, but from the opposite side.
As to the Left, what is it supposed to be for, if not to call out the spoilers in our midst, to shine a light on the Dem Party’s doomed efforts to keep everybody, no matter how craven or corrupt, happy. To try and force the party and its leaders to stand for something.
I agree with your point about unreasonable attacks on Obama and even congressional leaders, but the Left is certainly not deficient in attacking the Right either — which cannot be said for the Democratic Party. If the Left has a problem it is that it’s too small and quiet, not that it’s too aggressive. And that it has no common principles that it can rally around, and so tends to waste its efforts on tactics, second-guessing, and inside-the-blogway snark instead of a broad vision for a progressive society.
I want to agree with Booman on this one. We gotta have some faith in the person who we elected to have a bigger picture in mind. We all commented during the election that he was playing chess while everyone else was playing checkers. Now the left thinks that they are better chess players than Obama?
The reality is (at least to me) that the country is truly center-right in political leanings. There is only so far that anyone can push. On health care, I think that the administration knew all along that they didn’t have the votes for a public option, or anything robust, and are going to be pleased to move the ball down the field as much as they can.
The other part of this for me is about style of governance. Obama is, I believe, making these legislators do some legislating. I think he believes in the separation of powers. Anyone want to go back to a unitary executive who pushes through their agenda? Cause sometimes you won’t like that agenda (think: Patriot Act). Maybe the change has to be that Congress actually does the legislating and the executive sets the agenda in broad terms.
What the left could be doing here is rallying the troops to get more center-left people elected. Instead, they are falling prey to the “Waterloo” scenario DeMint put out there. The Republican’s stubborn solidarity and obstructionism is INTENDED to fracture the coalition of Obama supporters. Boy, did the left ever fall into their trap !!!
So my commitment is to work hard in 2010 to elect better congresspeople, not to sit home with my feelings hurt. If anything, this health care debate has taught me the importance of finding the right people to govern. Obama has exposed the shills and hypocrites.
The reality is (at least to me) that the country is truly center-right in political leanings.
For a thousand times, no it isn’t!!!!! Just because people identify themselves as conservative doesn’t mean they all prefer Republicans or Republican policy. When you actually poll positions on issues, the Democratic position polls very well. A lot better than the Republican one.
How can you say that? People have been prefering lefty poll positions for ever. But it never happens. That has got to me something is going on. That something is people just aren’t willing to risk what they have so they are conservative about it. Probably because our safety net sucks, but there it is.
People look at business as a good thing in this country. People like rich people in this country.
People look down on poor people because they are poor in this country.
Well, if we went into this healthcare debate with most Americans wanting things like a public option, then wouldn’t that suggest that Congress (and Obama) are to the right of the will of the people?
And why would that be? Partly, because people vote their fears and hates. That explains a lot of the Republicans’ base. And Republicans truly represent corporate interests. But also because all those “centrists” owe too much to Big Money to vote for the will of their constituents.
Stupak isn’t so stupid that he doesn’t know the laws around abortion. He’s just throwing another spanner in the works, and by raising abortion he raises the fears of people who would otherwise want healthcare. And Lieberman isn’t just a petulant little twerp. Forget the emotions. Follow the money.
Bottom line: Liberal can’t afford democracy and corporations can.
But the Senate most certainly is center-right, even at 60 seats.
Is it? Do you think single-payer, for example, would have had no chance minus the damn filibuster rules? If so, do you think a bill like the HELP one or something else with a strong public option is still center right?
Bernie Sanders said he had maybe five votes for his single-payer amendment. I think he was right. Maybe Harkin and Burris and possibly Franken? I can’t even get to five.
But Coburn made Sanders withdraw the amendment, so we’ll never know.
But Sanders was trying to amend something that was already sold as what defines HCR. If his version had started in that position, and there were no filibuster, I’d bet the farm he would have gotten far more votes. I recall a bunch of senators using the Sanders proposal’s inability to break a filibuster as a reason to vote against it, to clear the path for the “rational” bill.
Maybe he’d get seven votes.
“We gotta have some faith in the person who we elected to have a bigger picture in mind.”
It isn’t just Obama. That’s why people like Senator Brown will vote for this bill, even if it’s not optimum: because in the end it will help people and move things in the right direction.
This country is center-ambivalent, prone to being pulled in the direction of whoever shrieks the loudest. The right has the loudest megaphone so it seems like the country is center-right, but in reality it’s much more vested in the winner of American Idol and Biggest Loser than in any Senate or House contest, let alone the policies passed by their elected representatives. They can tell you with certainty who just got booted from Dancing With The Stars, though…
Ah by the way, hope you can communicate this (probably in less colorful terms) next WH conference call. You have to give the Blogosphere SOMETHING symbolic. Something that we can point to and say ‘this, this will shift the conversation in the country leftward’ in some way shape or form.
We’re just asking Obama to deliver what he campaigned on.
Again, Obama was asking for these Senators cloture vote, not their vote. IN the 200 year history of the Senate, those are two very different things. The GOP decided, out of survival, that the two were the same and the conservatives in our Senate were not disciplined for also taking that route. Obama’s “ask’ with these 5 was cloture and he had a lot of “carrots” and “sticks” to that cloture vote, much more than the left had at their disposal. We ran a few angry ads at these people and wrote some angy letters. Booman’s probably right that wasn’t too effective, the left/netroots need to focus on and invest more in organizing. But saying our tactics were counterproductive misses the much bigger picture that Obama’s tactics were a much bigger failure.
I do not remember one member of Administration ever once making that point about allowing an up or down vote on the President’s main legislative agenda. I do not know if it would be more effective in the end but it would have put the Centrists on the defensive and boxed them into a corner. Instead, they empowered them by not calling out their obstructionist threats earlier.
A simple “Do not vote on the bill but allow us to have the vote” would have been easy for public and media to understand. The Administration failed to make that a national media narrative and it would at least help for other fights in the Senate.
Threatening to obstruct the president’s agenda through cloture was an act of aggression against the president and against Reid. Why didn’t they fight back against them? At this point I’m disappointed in Obama not because he’s not some savior i hoped he would be, but that I thought he would be mildly competent at disciplining his caucus. I’m under no illusions- Obama is a center-left, moderate who’s most important goal is getting himself reelected in 2012. I just thought he and his team were competent enough to control their caucus. let them vote how they want- that’s democracy. But obstruction through cloture? those are weird senate rules that are changed frequently and which 95% of the population does not truly grasp or care about.
The netroots actually are pretty innovative in their strategies and they are relatively young so there’s a bit of trial and error here for sure. I don’t, however, think anything the netroots is trying here should be categorized as “same old story” as you seem to be doing here. But yes, I agree that the netroots tactically were ineffective at influencing those 5 conservatives (I don’t think we should call them “centrists”) in our caucus. But that’s because we don’t really exist on those 5 senators radar- we aren’t their constituents and we aren’t plugged into how they get elected or legislate. We thought, perhaps naively, that Obama would be our advocate with them, since there’s nothing the netroots is asking for that Obama didn’t campaign for. I thought Obama would be buying off Lieberman and the others with all sorts of goodies like legislative pork, favorable regulatory treatments, appointments for their friends supporters, etc. You seem to think (and are much more plugged in than I am) that Obama did all this and it didn’t work (I don’t, however, think Obama tried very hard at all). If that’s true, what could the netroots or other progressive institutions done to influence these centrists that Obama couldn’t do himself? Did he throw billions of stimulus funds, did he offer to make his employee, Tom Vilsack, their new best friend in the case of the senators from rural states? Did he threaten to hold back stimulus funds for being obstructionists or to tell Vilsack that those Senators are now persona non grata? Hard to be a senator from Nebraska when Vilsack won’t return your calls, isn’t it?
I’m sure if Mary Landreau’s Chief of Staff calls up Markos and says, hey if we vote for cloture will you guys let up and actually have our back for once, potentially on future fights down the road? I’m sure Markos would have gladly complied. But that call didn’t happen and its not going to happen.
I think Obama likes us out here flailing on the left because he thinks it helps him triangulate and “gvoern from the center.” That was a great political strategy during the Clinton years, but I think things are different now (the better demographics for democrats, the stench of failure of the bush years on all the GOP) and Obama is wrong to make this calculation.
I don’t know what they’re going to do.
Apparently, part of the reason the Medicare thing is gone too is that Reid wanted it all hush hush until CBO scored this and the hospitals and docs went to work to kill it; but the worries they had already were anticipated so a good deal died.
This thing looks like it’ll die every day. And Nelson and Lieberman and Lincoln don’t care; the bill dying helps them.
The White House has a massive problem on it’s hands. And the Christmas deadline, given Republican obstructionism, looks like a fantasy.
Yeah, I know, it’s really really complicated, it might not get everything, it’s no panacea, we can’t be sure what would come out of it… but I think it’s really time to reconsider it for POLITICAL reasons, if not policy reasons.
Josh Marshall just posted a letter from a reader that is, I think, spot on:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/12/no_fight.php#more?ref=fpblg
This whole thing has been a Democratic death-knell, not even so much for the policies as for the PROCESS. Most people respect principle and fight; they barely notice the details.
From this perspective, Harry Reid has not only been completely gelded by Joe Lieberman, but it’s been very public and humiliating. He is in deep political doo-doo, and if he doesn’t do something serious to establish his fighting credentials, he is not getting re-elected.
If he starts making serious overtures about reconciliation, he will improve his own standing and that of the party, for the reasons mentioned. On policy, I doubt we would do worse than we would trying to pass a bill under the regular order. Politically I believe it would look far better.
And as for holding fire until the conference report, I think everyone basically assumes that there is no way the bill is going to improve in conference relative to what we have now, once we’ve capitulated on everything already. If Lieberman and Nelson are willing to do this at present, they sure as hell will do it then. That’s the main rationale behind not waiting for the conference.
That is not true (except maybe for a few bloggers). The SEIU, Howard Dean, Keith Olberman, and Bernie Sanders have all been explicit that if the bill that goes forward has individual mandates and no means of controlling costs, it is the one that needs to be killed. And progressives in the Senate who are putting on their happy face (Harkin, for example) are arguing that the current “Grand Compromise” is not the end of the process. That the CBO report, conference with the House, and so on, could change the bill that comes up for final passage. Meanwhile, there are credible reports that the insurance industry is celebrating and Mary Landrieu is arguing that Obama never campaigned for a public option. And Gibbs unloads the “irrational” word at Howard Dean, a calculated ploy to discredit him by reference to the put up Dean Scream that scuttled his 2004 candidacy.
We splinter because there are so many interests (and so many lefts) represented under the big tent of Democrats and the big tent of “progressives”. And only a partial intersection of those two sets. Republican hold together because they have spent 30 years purging the party down to pretty much one point of view. If they are looking around at Lindsay Graham and even Jim DeMint as having “sacrificed conservative principles”, how long will Richard Lugar, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Lamar Alexander, and Orrin Hatch be around? It is easier for Mitch McConnell to keep his caucus together than it is for Harry Reid.
There might also be a difference in the way the two parties fund campaigns that retrains the divas on the Republican side to only the approved script.
Obama also needs to figure out a new strategic framework. Conservative and corporate interests have figured out the rope-a-dope strategy he used in the campaign and turned it against him on his legislative agenda. Instead of him holding the healthcare lobbyists on the ropes with his deal, he got pinned to the ropes.
As for ads, most of them aired in districts and states in which the sentiment for the public option was strong and the member of Congress was not following the public will. The second round of ads typically went to explaining why the member of Congress wasn’t following the public will; they were in hock to the very interests they were seeking to regulate. Voters have a legitimate right to know this because the compromising deals occur out of the reach of sunshine.
Finally other complaints of progressives about the Obama administration has to do with substituting Kabuki (or call it “the good old college try”) for results. Also, using progressives as a foil to prove your centrism (also called “Sister Souljahing”).
for the behavior of corrupt and/or narcissistic senators.
We’re demoralized because Obama and the Democratic platform is being thrown out the window by Democrats.
The villainization of the most succesful DNC chairman in the last 20 years speaks volumes about how far Obama has strayed in a mere matter of months.
I don’t know what bones Obama can throw us to rally the base. Recess appointments, enforcing breakthrough agreements at Copenhagen through the EPA under novel interpretations of existing laws, executive order repealing DA/DT?
… Dem platform being thrown out of the window.”
Can’t you just disagree with Kos, BTD, Welsh, etc. on the merits of supporting this bill?
There are a number of issues involved:
(a) whether the bill genuinely improves the state of medical care in America or not
(b) whether there is value in taking a hard line not only in this process but in other processes, so that the progressive caucus will be taken more seriously by centrists and the White House
(c) how much of the current state of affairs is dictated by circumstance and how much reflects Obama’s preferences
Perhaps, these questions are obvious to you. They aren’t to me. In fact, I don’t see how anyone can be so sure.
You are devoting more and more bandwidth to expressing contempt for other progressives…all while lamenting the divisive nature of progressives. See the irony?
Kos and others have written refutations of Nate’s 20 questions, and Nate has written a refutation of their refutations. Why not put your considerable expertise and energy into that debate?
My contempt is not reserved for progressives. In fact, this piece is aimed at the WH. You don’t blame the leopard for his spots, even if stripes are more attractive. I am interested in dealing with reality here, and progressives aren’t going to listen to my advice anymore than Joe Lieberman or Tom Coburn will.
I agree with your post, Booman. Obama may not be able to prevent the progressives eating shit on healthcare, so he needs to throw them a frickin’ bone or two in some other areas. Just to remind them that there was some benefit to voting for him, and to keep the caucus from splintering. Like, for instance, taking a progressive stance on global warming or other environmental issues
EPA announced it was going to regulate carbon.
Folks just shrugged off this huge news.
I think the administration gets no credit for anything it does from the left blogsphere and the media has no intention of making news on the good accomplished: see the reporting on the stimulus.
The only hope the adminstration has IMO is passing a bill, folks liking the results, and not losing the House in ’10.
It’s the “folks liking the results” that is the source of debate.
Are folks going to like being mandated to buy insurance from companies exempt from antitrust legislation that have no regulations or competition to control premium costs?
The critics of the administration are saying that, “No folks will view that as the fulfillment of the teabaggers taxation without representation charge.” And throughout the campaign, Obama was opposed to mandates and emphasized that affordability was the key to universal coverage. Liebercare kills almost all of the affordability elements of the Senate bill. That is where the heat is coming from.
Those who say “Kill the bill” are really saying “Kill any bill with mandates that does not include means of controlling costs so that coverage is affordable.” Or “Kill the Liebercare bill”.
I think that’s the only “bone” I could swallow right now.
Kucinich said something on The Ed Show months ago that was clear as day because it was so on point:
Main Street looked to healthcare reform as THEIR bailout.
we ate shyt when nobody was charged for torture.
we’ve had to sit around watching the Evil One, not only in handcuffs, but listen to him and his demented spawn, castigate the President, and just insult everyone who actually believes in The Constitution.
Guantanamo is still open.
Then, we watched as Wall Street and the banks got BILLIONS – with no strings attached
While the car companies – who actually DO something for Main Street, with the degrees of jobs that the auto industry involves – got LOANS?
They LIED about not knowing about the first round of bonuses, and then we were fed some bullshyt line about ‘ contracts’, all the while they were willing without the blink of an eye to GUT the contracts of the Auto Workers – funny how THEIR contracts could be ‘renegotiated’ at the blink of an eye.
Of course, putting mofos in charge of the ‘bailout’, who had been KNEE DEEP in CAUSING this financial meltdown is also a not-so-small problem.
then, we had the Big Pharma BACKROOM DEAL.
while WE get the ‘ left of the left’ bullshyt insults.
When you see nobody eating shit BUT YOU?
Hell no.
as for Afghanistan, I cheer Nancy Pelosi. Folks weren’t against war because it was George Bush – they’re against war. And yeah, let him find the votes from folks who aren’t against it. Finding Obama money for Afghanistan should NOT be a priority on Pelosi’s desk.
forgot to add this;
it’s not just that, on healthcare, the left has had to eat shyt. it’s that they’ve been told to eat shyt on behalf of a bunch of corrupt, bought and paid for mofos.
they talk a good game about ‘ fiscal responsibility’, but, when it was shown, time and time again, that the option that SAVES THE MOST MONEY WAS THE PUBLIC OPTION, then suddenly, it wasn’t about ‘ fiscal responsibility’.
they are bought and paid for shills; and to see something you believe in, and to be told and repeatedly insulted that you should give into these mofos…
fuck that.
I agree.
But when everyone starts looking at things as top-bottom instead of left-right things are easier to see.
Reading that statement from Andy Stern, I don’t think he’s at all saying to kill the bill. He’s saying he doesn’t like the compromises that have been made, and that we need to continue to fight to improve things. Nowhere does he say the Senate bill should be killed, and, in fact, he takes care to mention positive aspects of the package.
Can somebody tell me where he says the bill should be rejected?
One thing Obama could do that would help is appoint a true progressive to the next Supe opening. Replacing Souter with Sotomayor moved the Court even further right. We need to start now deriving a list of acceptable nominees and bringing pressure to bear for progressives in the Senate to join the Republicans in filibustering another centrist. I think Holy Joe may have pissed off enough people for this to happen. Of course, Joe himself or another centrist could filibuster a liberal, but let them and let’s see Obama attack them for a change.
There’s really nothing to back your statement that the court has moved farther to the right after Sotomayor joined the court. In fact, she recently wrote an opinion challenging corporate personhood. None of the other members that you could consider moderate or liberal jurists have written anything like that.
The WSJ early in her confirmation process actually wrote a glowing piece about her.
However, she had a couple of good labor decisions and the corporate personhood opinion was interesting. She’s no Rosa Luxemburg, though.
Booman writes — “The SEIU, Howard Dean, Keith Olbermann, Bernie Sanders and many bloggers are arguing that the health care bill should be defeated.”
Are they? Read this carefully. They want it changed, not scrapped.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/17/seiu-urges-changes-in-sen_n_395411.html
As for Dean, after it’s gone viral around the world at least three times, apparently he did not say what he was reported to have said. he supports the bill.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=31422#comments
Sanders says, AS OF THIS POINT I’m not voting for the bill.
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/12/17/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5990091.shtml
They want changes. My sense is that the thing is still very much in play.
Awesome post, Booman. I would add that the filibuster, as I recall from many years ago when I was a C-SPAN addict, used to be used a lot less frequently than now. Senators were much more honorable and let the party in control do the business of the senate and only resorted to the filibuster on extreme cases. Maybe I’m remembering wrong, but that’s how I remember it. Now, it seems every bill has to have a supermajority of 60 and the legislation is written for that supermajority. Is that really how our founding fathers wanted it to work, I guess it’s time to go back and read the constitution again, it’s been a long time for me. I think the filibuster needs to go, or at least be modified. But doesn’t it take 67 votes to change a rule in the senate. We’re f-ed.
I’m not a leftist and I don’t appreciate the reference. I can clearly see that the insurance industry has been given a green light to keep on doing what the banking industry has been allowed to do… it is kind of anti-fascist not liberal or leftist
I keep falling out of this logic tree:
So when a conservative Democrat threatens to vote against cloture, they have to move the bill to the right to get their vote back. But if a liberal Democrat threatened to vote against cloture, they’d have to move the bill even further to the right to get a Repubican to vote for it. Am I getting that right?
That’s only true because there has not been any credible filibuster threat from the left, though, right? If there had been, then moving to the left drops you below 60, and moving to the right also drops you below 60. In other words, nothing gets you to 60. So you either give up, or you find a way to not need 60 votes.
Would it be fair to say that the assumption is that reconciliation was not a real option, because using it for any part of the bill would cause the conservative Democrats to vote against cloture on the parts that could not be passed using reconciliation (the insurance regulation changes, I believe, among other things)? And not being able to pass those parts was not an acceptable outcome?
And that blowing up the filibuster altogether was not an option because, for one, they didn’t want to, and two, they wouldn’t be able to get even 50 votes plus Biden to do it?