Thread by @ChadPergram

1) The Hitchhiker’s Guide To What Manchin’s Formal Decision to Oppose BBB Means

2) Here are some key points about the formal announcement Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) made today on Fox News Sunday with Bret Baier regarding his formal opposition to the social spending bill.

3) As I have noted, the Democrats’ legislative eyes were bigger than their parliamentary stomach. They were trying to pass this massive bill with the narrowest of margins in the House and Senate.

4) Democrats, despite what the polling says about individual programs in the bill, lacked the legislative mandate to approve a bill of this magnitude.

They needed EVERYTHING to line up. And finally something didn’t in the person of Joe Manchin.

5) This came down to the math, the math, the math. The parliamentary math didn’t align on this one.

6) Frankly, Democrats already threaded the needle on their other big bills this year: the partisan, $1.9 trillion COVID bill in March and passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill in the summer and fall.

The social spending bill may have been a bridge too far.

7) There will now be an internecine fight in the Democratic party with progressives not only torching Manchin - but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Both gave progressives in their caucuses a lot of leeway.

8) But that move inordinately raised expectations. The two leaders truly didn’t temper this very well.

This could amplify talk about a need for new leadership.

9) Don’t forget that Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) rolled Pelosi earlier this fall. Jayapal threatened to withhold progressive votes for the infrastructure bill.

10) It turns out that Jayapal held the cards that time and Pelosi didn’t - even though there was an accord later to pass the bill in the House.

The progressive base will be apoplectic. They argued they may not turn out in the midterms if Democrats didn’t deliver on this bill.

11) That said, you cannot alter Congressional physics. It was always a struggle to pass this bill in the first place - no matter what the base wanted.

12) Is it possible Democrats could now break the bill up into smaller, more palatable portions. Of course. But who knows what would pass there.

13) Legislation is like wine. Only ever so often does the legislative weather cooperate in such harmony that lawmakers can make a big, muscular legislative Bordeaux. That’s what happened with Obamacare in 2010 and tax reform in 2017. But good legislative weather is often elusive.

14) That’s why lawmakers are left to make table wine most years - if they have a vintage at all.

As to the issue about just putting the bill on the floor and letting it fail:

That is a political hornet’s nest.

15) Putting this bill on the floor via budget reconciliation (which sidesteps a filibuster…remember Democrats chose this option because they lacked 60 votes to clear a filibuster)..

16) ...would subject vulnerable Democratic senators facing competitive races in 2022 to take tough votes on weaponized-GOP amendments during a budget vote-a-rama.

Liberal Democrats may relish the opportunity for Manchin to vote on the record against the bill.

17) But such a tactic would ignite a firestorm among different factions of Democrats. The only side which would prevail in this battle are Republicans.

18) They would achieve their goal of getting Democrats to vote - on the record - on a bunch of controversial items they don’t want to touch. This is only amplified by the fact that the bill is going nowhere as is.

19) Then, there is the problem of moderate House Democrats who walked the plank and voted yes on a bill which died in the Senate. These moderate Democrats are on the record now and the NRCC will boomerang this vote against vulnerable, moderate Democrats.

20) This could also escalate the rate of retirements by House Democrats.

A similar scenario unfolded in 2009. Pelosi pushed a vote on the controversial “cap and trade” climate bill.

21) The House passed the bill (even with some GOP votes). But the measure never saw the light of day in the Senate.

These moderate Democrats are likely to be beside themselves.

22) There could even be some activists who will push for Democrats to throw Manchin out of the party or strip him of his committee chairmanship. Such an approach may have had legs in 2008 when some Democrats wanted to bounce Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) from the party

23) Any move to make Manchin too uncomfortable could mean that the Senate flips in mid-stream to GOP control.

That’s what happened in the 50/50 Senate of 2001. Republicans leaned too much on Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-VT). Jeffords abandoned the GOP & flipped control to the Dems

24) Democrats will need to handle Manchin with kid gloves. What frustrates the left is the fact that the party is more progressive than moderate - and they can’t approve this ambitious agenda.

25) Liberals control the politics in the party. But as long as Manchin is around, moderates can dictate the policy. And, with basically a split Congress, perhaps it isn’t a surprise that the big bill which passed was something in the middle: a bipartisan infrastructure plan.