Well, here we are. We all know that Biden’s chances for success hinge on how he handles Mitch McConnell. And there are reasons for concern.
1st, we have the tiniest of advantages in Kamala’s holding of tie breaking powers. 2nd, Mitch McConnell is running the opposition. And we all know that Mitch is implacably evil.
I don’t know how much we will be able to get through Congress. Maybe not much. And I will not hold Biden and his lieutenants responsible for the despicable obstruction of the GOP.
I do, however, hold them responsible to do one thing:
Make these creeps pay steep political costs for their obstruction!
For decades, the Democratic Party has allowed the Thugs to do great damage without forcing them to answer to the people. The greatest example is the Obama Administration. You and I know what McConnell did to sabotage its agenda. The trouble is that the American People never knew it! Taking what it called the high road, that Administration kept taking blows on the chin and moving on, choosing not to raise holy hell over Mitch’s perfidy.
Here’s the thing. A political enterprise that acts in ways that hurts the people will pay a political price … if the people know about it. It has a sort of checkbook of political capital and it will not be able to afford to pay costs indefinitely. It cannot repeatedly hurt the people without losing power … unless they don’t know about it.
And, yeah, I know all about the Right Wing noise machine and its partisan polarization. I know that Trump spent 4 years defying the political laws of physics. But Biden is not Trump. He can’t keep endlessly rebuilding political capital with hate and lies. He can only do it by actually doing good things. Or by making damn sure the people know who stopped them.
The greatest asset he has (thank you Stacy, Raphael, and Jon) is the Senate agenda. This will allow Schumer to force votes on the floor of the Senate. As long as they didn’t have to actually vote, GOP Senators could get away with murder. Now, we can force them to vote about things that actually affect Americans’ lives. The beauty of such votes is the brutal choice GOP congress critters will face: oppose popular bills that address our national crises or stand up to their fanatical base. That SHOULD constitute an excruciating political dilemma.
Of course, Mitch’s hoods can filibuster and do all manner of other procedural evil. And they will. When they do …
We better damn well hear about it! We better hear press conferences and the President himself speaking up and demanding that the press tell people what the creeps did. The press never gives us a break and the R W Media machine is damn loud. Well, we better push back hard and loud and incessantly. We better DEMAND that the American people hear about what’s happening.
So what are the odds? I dunno from nuffink. I think it’s an auspicious moment. Americans have had stark visions of the radical extremism of this bunch of villains and they are mired in a deadly pandemic and economic collapse. There is political capital to be won there, and the GOP is probably facing their greatest ideological challenge in decades. I think there is probably enough of a slice of independents to, if they begin to value what we offer them, can tip the balance and shove the GOP into the abyss. The hooligans have less political capital today than they have since, probably, the Clinton Administration.
Still, it may not be enough. Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi may come up short. GOP obstruction is so freaking deep. And if they do come up short, I won’t blame them …
As long as they 1) aggressively put legislation on the floor for votes and 2) thunder continuously in media mics until the American people get very clear on what Mitch & Co. are doing and what it is costing them.
The GOP understands something our folks don’t. You can win political capital by losing Congressional votes. They turned the “big fucking deal” of the ACA into an enormous win for the side that lost the battle. Our side does not seem to get that. We can lose votes and still move the football forward … if we make sure people know who is responsible.
Make Mitch’s obstruction cost political capital. Nothing less is acceptable.