Dear Citizens and Elected Officials:
I do not write this post lightly, or without long consideration for choices that were months in the making, though clearly visible all along in their outlines, with me vainly hoping events would prevent the agony of further weighing — and final decision making.
However, I’ve now decided: the Progressive Caucus should stand their ground and not accept the dynamics the Speaker is offering: to vote alone for a woefully inadequate Infrastructure bill with only $500 billion in new spending; and the shaky linkage with a Build Back Better bill that is being emptied of content and shrinking in value by the day, with no assurance to Progressives that anything worth fighting for except illusions will be left after they capitulate on the Senate infrastructure compromise.
And this after Progressives have given ground on Senate Budget Committee Chairman Sanders original hopes for something closer to $7 trillion, on a $15 per hour Federal Minimum Wage (and believe me that’s now a low minimum) and no sign that anything more than a token Civilian Conservation Corps will survive ( and if it does it will be safely diluted along the lines of AmeriCorp programs), and an underfunded climate gesture that keeps the oil and gas flowing, and FERC unreformed to the needs of people and nature. Enough, and I haven’t covered the whole playing field, especially Medicare expansion on the ropes...
My hope is that the stalwarts of the left and their courage can be translated into a campaign in 2022 against the values and leadership of the moderate Democrats in Congress: the President himself, the Speaker, the House Majority Leader, the House Whip, the Senate President all proffering their retreat, retreat, retreat tactics and handing Senator Manchin the real leadership position — and veto power. And in this the left and its allies can say that they and not corporate American democrats are speaking to the needs of our vast majority of citizens — and can pay for meeting those needs without using the federal deficit as an all-purpose excuse. (see my essay from a few days ago here: www.dailykos.com/...)
Where we might come out under the current leadership’s guidance is simply unacceptable.
I fully concede that moderates in the party, especially House Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, handed Bernie Sanders’ Presidential campaign a rousing turn-about defeat in March of 2020 and stopped Elizabeth Warren as well, and the national campaign picture since then has been a mixed outcome in the struggle for the “soul of the party,” but as studious observers have pointed out, much of the program put forth by the President, borrowing heavily from the Green New Deal Resolution and the Sanders campaign — even as he denounced the originals — wins in the polls even in Manchin’s beleaguered home state of West Virginia, while his yacht rides at anchor in the Potomac.
So is the left or is it the corporates masquerading as Democrats which is the problem?
In the dynamics so far since March of 2020, the left has constantly retreated, the Manchin corporate democrats not an inch that I can see.
Despite the preaching of old Clinton hand John Podesta that failure to give the Manchins their way will be catastrophic for the Democratic Party in the mid-terms, it has really been the governance of this center-right corporate leaning Party — “Podesta’s baby” which has since 1976 helped bring American democracy to despair by leaving even we Medicare recipients with rotting teeth and no good private sector options, unless you consider paying $600-800 annually for benefits of $1500 a good deal. (See my little essay on it: www.dailykos.com/...)
The old New Deal Democrats, and maybe even Harry Truman would be running against that sell-out, and offering a new party that leaves K-Street as deserted as a Main Street in rural America, the region Larry Summers says we shouldn’t help with a regional plan.
So President Biden and Speaker Pelosi: “here’s the deal.” No deal from Progressives. We can’t back up any more and it will take a very different party and risk takers to pull the nation out of its “bi-partisan” death dive. You and your long track record — and the last two months have proved that for good.
Sadly,
Bill of Rights
Frostburg, MD
Postscript: What pushed me off the fence to make this decision were two articles I read today. Surprisingly, Paul Krugman’s article www.nytimes.com/… entitled “Biden Versus the Rip Van Winkle Caucus.” (though I would include Joe Biden in that caucus, never having been certain that he was fully sincere in what he has put on the table; knowing the dynamics to come would eviscerate its substance) and this from David Dayen over at the American Prospect: prospect.org/… with the not very subtle title “Pelosi tries to bulldoze Progressives on the Infrastructure Bill.”