Biden, Team D and the Dimming Prospects of Getting Anything Meaningful Through the Senate

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

It’s kinda touching that Team D imagines it will get anything through the Senate with:

1. A nominal 50-50 split,

2. Joe Manchin and Kysten Sinema enjoying the power that having a line-item veto provides,

3. Que Mala Harris’s reluctance to do anything she thinks might jeopardize her chances at the presidency,

4. Crazy Uncle Joe still imagining Republicans are just about ready to put partisan differences aside and start to work with him,

5. C.U.J. still worrying more about the traditions of the Senate than the future of the country,

6. Inept leadership from “Minority Leader For Life” Chuck Boomer, who is already focusing on trying to hold the 14 Democratic seats in the Senate up in 2022 by not passing anything too radical,

7, Moscow Mitch McConnell understanding that delay is nearly as valuable as voting something down,

8. The Dread Pirate Roberts Court ready to nullify anything that does pass.

Team D is also under the assumption that hippies can be blown off as easily as they have been in the past. They imagine that everytone still believes that Biden, Nanci P and Boomer are playing eleventy-dimensional chess that will only be understood and appreciated in the long run.

They’re also sure that “If you guys don’t pipe down and stop whining, the Republicans will take control and it’ll be your fault!” will work as well as it has.

Also, they’re assuming the rise in turnout in both 2018 and 2020 is a trend that will continue– that it (a) wasn’t triggered solely by the feeling that the country needed to check Donald Trump and (b) won’t be depressed by Team D’s failure to deliver on promises.

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I’m not convinced that the majority of the current $1.9 Trillion bill will get through.

Team Biden is so eager to trumpet their success in winning the War On Covid that they’re not grasping the corresponding assumption that comes out of it:

If everything is peachy-keen and Joe Biden will have things back to normal any day now, then we simply don’t need to shovel two trillion dollars onto the debt. When we open for business again, the economy will come roaring back full steam.

Moscow Mitch has said, repeatedly over the years, that he is more than happy to tank the country as long as he believes he can stick Democrats with the blame. And he will have the following winning argument in 2022:

“Democrats control the White House and have majorities in both the Senate and the House– so I don’t know how anyone can blame Republicans for their failure to govern.”

Go ahead– explain how you failed. Blaming a Senate staffer who can be fired by the Majority Leader and overruled by the Vice-President will come off as a weak alibi.

People who have been asked to live on $600– and are about to be evicted (a lower court just ruled that an eviction moratorium is unconstitutional, and the DPRC will uphold it)– aren’t going to be in a mood to listen to explanations about the rules of the Senate.

The Republic party has had their uprising. Team D has been able to keep a lid on their dissidents, but that won’t happen indefinitely.

The minute it becomes clear that Joe Biden isn’t going to accomplish anything that provides significant value to the 99%, he’ll have a lot of angry people.

April 29th– the date Joe Biden will have been in office for 100 days– isn’t terribly far away.