Please, everybody, get a message to President Biden, any way you can, to give Manchin and Sinema an ultimatum: vote for the $3.5 trillion infrastructure, or get out of the Democratic Party.
The President is the de facto head of the Democrats. He has the power to do this. It’s what Trump does to faithless Republicans, except in his case, it’s faithfulness to him that he demands. Tell Manchin and Sinema they can run as Republicans if they want to face a couple of Trump supporters in the primaries, or Independents if they think they can win with table-scrap votes. (I doubt the Green Party will take Sinema back.) Tell them they will get no funding from the Democratic Party, and if they try to run with D’s next to their names, their campaigns will be sued for fraud.
I don’t know if this has ever been done in American history, but it should be an interesting court case. It’s worth a try because it’s the only leverage the President has over those two. Trump already exiles Republicans who aren’t faithful enough (to him). Two can play at that game.
Yes, in the short run, it will throw the Senate back to the Republicans, however, it’s apparent that the president isn’t going to get anything out of this Senate anyway. Mitch McConnell couldn’t do much more harm if he ran the Senate himself.
It’ll create a problem with President Biden’s appointments, but it’ss one he already has. Hardly any of his appointments have even received hearings. The solution there is to tear another page out of the old Trump playbook: appoint acting department heads. Make all of those acting appointments to the left of Bernie Sanders, and the Republicans will crack their teeth and have coronaries. That should persuade Mitch McConnell to take the Senate’s “advise and consent” commission more seriously.
If the SCOTUS overrules it, give the acting chairs different titles and make them part of the executive office of the president, doing the same jobs.
Now this suggestion likely won’t work, but it’s a good joke anyway: the president might even appoint acting judges and justices, pending a vote from the Senate. Tell Chief Justice John Roberts that he and his SCOTUS friends look overworked, and send them four acting associate justices.
This will stir things up. The only thing I could see going wrong with this is that other “moderate” Senators might not support it and might also threaten to leave the party. But that risk is worth it now. If this infrastructure package doesn’t pass, it’s the end of Biden’s presidency, the end for the Democrats, the beginning of a Trump dictatorship, and probably is the end of the world. Banishment from the party hasn’t been done before, but its the only bit of leverage over those two punks that the president definitely has.
It will also have the added advantage of showing that the President and the Democratic Party do stand for something. That’s critical. Because the progressives killing this bill will be much more of a demonstration of weakness than of principle. The GOP and moderates will laugh as the progressives kill their baby.