Bernie Sanders, Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, Chris Van Hollen, and Jeff Merkley were the only Senate Dems who stood their ground against Mitch McConnell today to try to get a vote on $2000 checks. They were joined by 5 Republicans.
Every other Dem surrendered.
Leverage is such a funny thing--here one moment, gone the next because Democrats are too chickenshit to hold up billions of dollars for war to ensure the American people get $2,000 checks in the middle of a pandemic-depression.
McConnell now says the House bill to increase stimulus checks to $2000 has "no realistic path to quickly pass the Senate" and is demanding a full repeal of CDA Sec 230 and an investigation into non-existent voter fraud.
Who could have seen this coming?!
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Neoliberalism is the disease and the persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic is the symptom.
Over four decades, we defunded our public sector based on an ideology that dictates government is best when small, only acting through private intermediaries.
When COVID hit, we lacked the public health infrastructure and ideological footing to do what we needed to contain it.
The answers to COVID are obvious: national health care, lockdown, rent/mortgage payment/debt forgiveness, universal monthly relief, supply deliveries, housing vouchers for the homeless.
But this kind of government intervention is utterly unthinkable under neoliberalism.
As this lefty debate has evolved, it's inevitably broken down to its roots--one faction wants to burn the party down bc things are moving too slow, one sees a way to build power within it, another is open to anything new that works.
But all ultimately share the same frustrations
Ultimately, this blow-up was somewhat inevitable after 2020 with Sanders failing to win the primary twice. A whole lot of people put their hopes in a revolution only to be stymied.
And now to be shut out of power entirely...well, yeah. Inevitable.
It is easy to be completely negative about this moment, but there are positive signs for the future: progressive ideas are popular and will continue to gain steam. Progressive numbers in the House are growing and the demographics favor a continuation of that trend.
Biden’s selection of Neera Tanden to head OMB is an early test for progressives in their dealings with the incoming administration. Tanden is vocally anti M4a and UBI and tied to Wall St and theocratic regimes, she backed SS cuts when it counted, and she hates the left.
There’s two options:
1) Join Republican senators in blocking her appointment and risk being labeled obstructionist.
2) Confirm her and try to work with a Biden administration that has already, by virtue of her nomination, shown its complete disregard for you.
Option 1 is scary and there will be a lot of handwringing in the press, but as the Obama administration showed with its deficit reduction focus 2 years after the economic meltdown, Democrats cave to that kind of pressure.