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26 Jan, 5 tweets, 2 min read
This is Manchin's ultimate trump card against any pressure Dems might bring to bear on him. He really does have the sole power to throw control of the Senate back to Republicans.

Jim Jeffords did this during our last 50-50 Senate in '01, flipping R to D

Jeffords ditched the GOP in '01 because he was unhappy with how the Bush Admin was treating him.

Another hugely consequential R to D Senate switch, Specter in '09, occurred because of pressure from the right. Specter's switch gave Dems 60 votes and allowed Obamacare to pass
Oh I certainly don't think he's anywhere close to doing it. But that's in part because Dem leaders have done well tending to his interests. And they're not doing stuff like threatening his gavel or using hardball tactics on him like some on here want

Jeffords's switch was to a large extent for personal reasons — he was pissed off with how the Bush Admin had treated him. He didn't even end up running again.

Specter's switch was for political reasons — Toomey looked likely to beat him in the primary, he wanted another term
Dem leaders have handled the personal relationship with Manchin well. But his political needs in WV are.. tougher to meet. He'll be 76 when he's next up, is said not to enjoy the Senate. Not sure if he'll run, but he's certainly acting like he wants the option (constantly on Fox)

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Andrew Prokop Profile picture
25 Jan
Senate Dems were never going to just kill the filibuster as part of an aggressive power grab to open the year. If they're going to do it (and I don't know if they will), they need a pretext.

So the real question is what will happen months down the road.
The question is: what is something that Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema, and Joe Biden all really, really want to become law, for which Republican obstruction would be outrageous enough to justify nuking the filibuster? Does such a thing exist?
It is possible they find such a thing. It is also possible that Manchin, Sinema, and yes, Biden, are more comfortable seeing the vast majority of liberal priorities bottled up by the filibuster. That there's nothing they want so badly as to change the rules to get it.
Read 6 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
22 Jan
Schumer on Senate floor re: organizing resolution: "Leader McConnell’s proposal is unacceptable and it won’t be accepted. And the Republican leader knew that when he first proposed it."
Schumer said all he wants is the same agreement for the last 50-50 Senate in '01, and that McConnell's making an "extraneous demand" to put "constraints on the majority."

Says in addition to higher-profile nuclear option uses McConnell used it last Congress to speed nominations
McConnell argues that "there wasn't a need" in 2001 to reaffirm the basic rules, because it was "safely assumed" that no majority would break them.

That assumption was not so safe — Republican senators became fixated on the idea just two years later.

adn.com/nation-world/a…
Read 4 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
21 Jan
There's a lot that's smart about this @ezraklein column but the assumed connection between passing a lot of progressive policies and subsequent electoral success does not seem evident to me

nytimes.com/2021/01/21/opi…
For instance Bill Clinton was least popular when he was trying to pass his health care bill, most popular when Republicans controlled Congress, the economy was good, and not much was happening policywise.

GOP governors in blue states w/ Dem legislatures are incredibly popular
Obviously policies that help people are worth pursuing because... they help people!

But the idea that electoral success will likely follow, and that the only thing holding Dems back from success is their inability to pass more stuff, smacks of wishful thinking to me.
Read 6 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
21 Jan
This is all correct but added context is that in Q lore "What a beautiful black sky" is a Michael Flynn-specific reference.

(The backstory is complicated but it's based off a misreading of a passage in former deputy FBI director Andy McCabe's book.)

theguardian.com/us-news/2021/j…
Basically, McCabe wrote about how placidly Flynn seemed to misstate facts in his FBI interview, according to his agents. He used the figurative language that it was *as if* Flynn kept staring outside on a normal day and remarking on the beautiful black sky.
A Fox reporter with poor reading comprehension wrote up the book saying McCabe said Flynn *actually made* the "beautiful black sky" comment. He did not, it was an analogy.

Given Q lore on the storm, obsession with secret messages + Flynn, here we are

foxnews.com/politics/mccab…
Read 5 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
20 Jan
With the exception of the budget reconciliation process, bills in the Senate will need at least 10 Republican votes to overcome the filibuster.
How can Democrats get 10 Republican Senate votes? There are basically three ways. (1) Try to pick them off individually (quite difficult, 10's a lot). (2) Put up bills Republicans will simply want to vote for (or be hesitant to block). (3) Cut a deal with McConnell
Whether any of these are achievable depends on the issue.

In 2009, Obama and Democrats managed to pick off 3 Senate Rs to get the stimulus past a filibuster (Snowe, Collins, Specter).

But Dems' majority then was much bigger, they had 58. Much harder to pull that off with 50
Read 4 tweets
Andrew Prokop Profile picture
14 Jan
"Elites" get a bad rap lately but the reality is that if Republican elites purely represented their voters’ wishes, the post-election period would've been a whole lot uglier as the GOP “fought” for Trump at every level (certifications, electors, more support for Cong. challenge)
The reason most didn’t is because most of those GOP elites still have an epistemic understanding of the election results that is on some level based in reality — that there was no widespread fraud and that Trump is lying constantly about this.
So whether it was swing state governors or state officials, state legislature leaders, Barr, McConnell, Pence, they largely averted their eyes when asked to actually *do* anything to change the results.

Because of this shared factual understanding that Trump's case is BS
Read 7 tweets

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