Okay, so we lost that 60th seat in the Senate.
Guess what? The world isn’t about to end, and Barack Obama is still the President of the United States.
I want to try to make the case that this puts more pressure on the GOP. They can’t just say no anymore. With 60 votes in the Democratic caucus, the Republicans were able to use the filibuster to force the Dems to bargain to get all 60 to agree. Well, that’s no more. Even if all 57 Dems and the two indies agree, the GOP can still kill a cloture motion.
More on why this isn't the end of the world after the jump...
Now, the White House and the Democrats in Congress need to go forward with a truly progressive agenda. We still have a popular President. In fact, as I was going over this diary, a tweet from Nate at 538 says that Rasmussen's poll in Massachusetts today gives a 53% to 38% approval rating to the President.
The issues need to be meat and potatoes- jobs, health care, jobs, immigration, jobs,...get the idea? The solutions need to as broad and simple as possible. If they are able to pass a health care bill in the coming days, great. But when it comes time for the "fix" to the Senate bill, they need to go all out for a Medicare for All option. Everyone understands Medicare, we know it’s incredibly popular.
Make the GOP kill it.
With their 41st votes they can do just that. I want to see them stand there and tell us why Medicare sucks. Let them tell tens of millions you can have health insurance. See, until now, the only party that could kill any legislation was the Democratic/Sanders/Lieberman group. The Republicans were able to just sit around and watch us bargain away the best parts of reform to the Blue Dogs and Lieberman.
I use health care as the issue here. But if climate change or immigration had been the issue the past year, the exact same thing would have happened.
The same tactics have been used by the GOP when they controlled the White House and/or pieces or the whole Congress. They marketed their agenda incredibly well, make the Dems either vote with them out of fear or kill it and take the blame.
The other thing that needs to happen concerns us more directly. There are far too many on the left that get all pissed off when they don’t get everything. We saw that on this site as the health care bill changed and changed. If I were a right wing lurker, I would have sat back, laughed and loved it. Look at the tea party nuts. Yes, they’re nuts and they’re being taken advantage by corporate interests. Yet, they get to demonstrations and get media coverage.
Where the hell were our demonstrations? The left has always been able to turn out huge demonstrations- against war, for a woman's right to choose, etc. We helped to turn out crowds in the Presidential campaign that were unprecedented. Two million people braved the cold and went to DC for the inauguration.
And then we all went home.
Yes, we blog and we call our reps and write letters, but that isn’t enough. That doesn’t get coverage on television. I find it amazing that no one on the left or in the center could put together a march on the Capitol that put at least a couple hundred thousand people on the Mall. I was always ready to hop on Amtrak for such a march.
There is plenty of blame to go around for all the stuff going on or not going on. But blaming anyone or any group doesn’t do a thing except play into the hands of the opposition.
Instead, we need to band together like we did in 2008 and push the agenda we voted for. We need to make it simple. We need to market it so much better. Health care reform is very popular, but the bill has become so big and confusing to the average person, now they hate it. Add to the deals made to get those 60 votes. How many average people who know about Ben Nelson’s deal for Nebraska know that it has been removed from the bill?
We have massive issues before us and the GOP wants nothing more than failure but no blame. Now, they have to take the blame.
In the meantime, a line from Franklin Roosevelt’s first inaugural, "This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper."
Always remember that. We survived eight years of Bush, we can survive this without breaking a sweat- if we see the positive side of things.