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Senate Democrats should come up with a plan for reforming the Senate. Keeping it the way it is, or going backwards as some want to do, is untenable. Any intelligent person or potential recruit can see that. There’s nothing appealing about letting McConnell eat your lunch all day.
This is step one. But even in the most optimistic scenarios Dems will have around 52 seats, meaning we need 8 or more from McConnell to get to 60 and pass anything. This is probably one reason why recruits think there’s no future for them in the Senste
Right now the pitch to potential recruits Senate is, let’s take back the majority! And then once we take back the majority, we get to... beg McConnell for 8 or more GOP votes to clear the 60 vote threshold!! Those votes will not be forthcoming for a couple reasons.
First, the remaining Republicans will be more conservative as a bloc than before. There aren’t many gettable votes to begin with, but taking back the majority almost certainly means taking Collins’ and Gardners’ seats. They’re what passes for gettable votes, and they’d be gone.
Second, Republicans saw that relentless obstruction worked to bring Obama down to Earth politically after his massive 2008 victory and two straight cycles of big Dem gains in Congress. There is simply no political incentive for them to change gears, and massive incentives not to.
Part of what’s silly about Biden’s idea that he’ll bring a new era of bipartisanship is: that’s the easiest promise for Republicans to make a president break. All they have to do is do nothing. And a candidate who made big promises of bipartisanship will have nothing to show.
If Dems are going to deliver change they need a plan not just for the change itself, but how to deliver it. Senate Dems and presidential candidates both need plans. Happy talk about bipartisanship is willfully delusional and, when you know it's not going to happen, dishonest.
If you think political pressure will compel Republicans to give Dems 8 or more votes in the Senate, remember that they denied a newly-elected, very popular President Obama all but 3 votes for the stimulus package *during* the great recession, within a month of his inauguration.
Two of those three senators, Snowe and Specter, are gone. The third, Collins, probably will be gone if Dems retake the majority. Since they left, the GOP caucus has gotten more conservative and they’ve witnessed the political benefits of McConnell’s obstruction.
A new wave of Senate bipartisanship in 2021 is just 👏 not 👏 happening 👏. And anyone who thinks they're going to wave a magic wand and make it happen is living in a fantasy world. Or, they know they're not going to be able to and are being dishonest with you.
