American Politics Makes A Whole Lot More Sense When You Understand That The Predicate Is The Ability To Say "No".
Also Known As: A Lukewarm Defense of Joe Manchin, Because He Deserves It.
Why Are We Talking About This?
Because democrats are throwing themselves into fits over Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin, who have signaled that they won’t vote for the Democrat’s 3.5 trillion “Infrastructure” bill, and they don’t want it tied to the debt ceiling bill (there’s another great post living in that topic as well). I’m not going to provide a whole lot of commentary on the bill itself. I have opinions on intergenerational debt, the kinds of taxation that is being planned, and the lies inherent in selling it (Trust me, a 1700% tax increase on vape cartridges is not only “taxing people earning over $400,000”), but I’m not going to comment much on that because frankly, that poor nag is being flogged into ribbons, and I try to provide some kind of unique twist on anything I talk about.
Let’s Get Some Background Information Out There.
Without making values judgements on anything, the Democrats have the barest of majorities in the Senate, 50% plus the tiebreaker, so they need all their people in line to do a party-line vote, and their party is deeply divided. The Progressive Democrats who are insisting on 3.5 trillion or bust are going to war with the Conservative Democrats, who have given various figures over the process, but seem to hover around 1.5 trillion.
Notably, when Joe Manchin was getting shat on particularly heavily last week, he dropped an online PDF of a document that described a basic understanding between him and the senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, that says very clearly, at the top: “Topline: $1.5 Trillion”, it required that all the spending from existing Covid legislation and the ARP was spent first, it needed to be “needs based” with “means testing” among other things, and ended with a caveat that Manchin did not agree to vote for any proposed legislation that failed any of the tests on that agreement. Best of all: This was signed by both Manchin and Schumer, so the Democrat’s insistence that the conversation never included a $1.5 trillion dollar price tag must come as a surprise to the senate majority leader, and Joe Manchin has functionally told them how hard they can make sweet, sweet love to themselves.
I want to present a theory, I don’t have information to back this up, but I have the impression that a large swathe of Democrats aren’t insane, but are cowards, and frightened to near death of their own party: Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema aren’t the only senators who have no interest in signing a 3.5 trillion dollar bill, but because Manchin and Sinema have announced that they won’t support this and are standing in the breach, they don’t actually have to stand up and open themselves up to the sheer amount of shit and abuse currently being levelled at the two “rogue” senators.
I also want to take a second on the idea that Manchin and Sinema have gone rogue. They haven’t. Their positions, particularly in the case of Manchin, aren’t new. They aren’t beholden to progressives, they aren’t beholden to the party, those senators are beholden to their electorates, which are in Arizona and West Virginia. And all the mewling in the world from New York and California isn’t going to change the fact that those states have a certain expectation, which their senators are probably embodying. And if the Democrats try to primary either with an actual progressive, even if they succeed in the primary, they then get a front seat as their candidate loses to the Republican. We are talking about West Virginia and Arizona, something that AOC, first of her name, grand marshal of the LARP #Resistance, just can’t seem to wrap her head around. There was no universe where they got the votes from AZ and WV, if they want to pass progressive bills, they need to elect more progressive senators in places that might actually elect them. Today, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WV) said that Manchin’s spending cap wouldn’t cover Democrat priorities. CNN referred to that as “throwing cold water” on Manchin’s spending cap. First off… What are you going to do about it, Pramila? Second… Good luck in 2022.
Finally, It’s worth noting that there are two “extremes” in this conversation who are holding up progress on the bill, but only one of them is taking shit right now. Kind of shows you where their priorities are.
I’ve Heard A Lot Of This Before, What’s New?
Like I said at the top, American Government theory is best understood as an exercise in giving the most people possible the ability to say no. The executive has the power of the veto, but not the power to write anything. The judiciary has the power to rule something unconstitutional, but not to amend the constitution. The legislature can write laws, but they have mandates they have to act within, and both of the bicameral parts of the legislature have to be in agreement.
All of those institutions have drastically different methods of appointment: The President is a single position elected for four years, with term limits, by the whole of America. The Judiciary is appointed for life by the president. The House is elected every two years and the composition attempts to be proportionate to the population. The Senate is elected in a set of three revolving classes every six years and the composition attempts to give states an equal seat at the table. That’s incredibly complicated, but not a mistake. The point isn’t to have a direct democracy, the point isn’t to have a legislature that reflects the whims of the populace in real time. The point isn’t to get a 50%+1 majority in a single election and push through sweeping changes. If that were the point, America wouldn’t have bicameral legislatures or state legislatures, America would just elect a temporary tyrant and take on the worst traits of Our-Turn-To-Eat politics.
The point was to give as many people as possible the ability to say no, because it isn’t good governance to completely revamp systems in a nation as large as America every second year when the other party manages to eke out a bare majority. If you are going to make fundamental changes, they ought to be uncontroversial enough to pass all those different bars: You need the assent of the current electorate, which comes from the House, you need the assent of the states, which comes from the Senate, you need the assent of the constitution, which comes from SCOTUS, and as a fail safe, you need the assent of the president. If at any time someone says no… The answer is no.
This stymies progressives. They want to make sweeping changes, and view the system as broken because it doesn’t lend itself to forwarding their views. But frankly, the moment their policies are enacted, they’re going to be the same people bunkering down behind these systems because all of a sudden their preferred policies will be the law of the land, and the systems will make them harder to overturn. At that point, they will not want 50%+1 to be enough to undo their policy.
Tie That Up For Us.
I don’t ascribe to the near worshipful tone that some American conservatives use with the founders. They were people, people have flaws. They were product of their times. They had some interesting ideas about women and minorities. But specifically on the topic of good governance, they at least understood the theory and put a whole lot of time and effort into creating something that was absolutely cutting edge for the time, and still holds up fairly well hundreds of years later. “The Founders Did It” isn’t in and of itself a dispositive reason to continue doing something, but if you’re going to change something the founders set up, you should probably have an understanding of why they did it, because they sure as heck did. And you should have something fully fleshed out with which to replace it, because you’re going to have an uphill battle, and your plan needs to be able to pass difficult muster.
And none of this is an accident. Currently, the Democrats won the White House, Senate and House by the barest of majorities, and they’re acting as if they were given a massive mandate for foundational change. They weren’t. I said earlier that 50%+1 wasn’t supposed to be good enough to make changes, but they don’t even have that.
So I have a couple of things to say to all these crying progressives sore that their precious progress is being held up by a “handful of Senators”:
First: This is exactly as intended, and healthy.
Second: Those senators don’t owe you shit unless you live in their states.
Third: There is more support, and bipartisan support at that, against your agenda than for it.
HT, you should move to the U.S. Please.