McConnell thinks he is pretty tough and crafty.
Hell, he’s not even close to being the cagiest, toughest, slimiest guy to be a Senate leader. Here is what the real master, Lyndon Johnson, would do in McConnell’s place.
1. In a secret backdoor deal, he would make whatever promises are necessary to get Manchin to switch parties, or to become an independent and caucus with the GOP.
2. It would be important NOT to announce the move until the time is right.
3. He would then give in to Democrats on eliminating the filibuster. They would be easily duped into doing so, thinking they had won a great victory.
4. Manchin would then officially switch parties and begin caucusing with the GOP.
5. Checkmate.
At that point, McConnell, possessed by Lyndon’s ghost, would have control of the Senate with the votes necessary to pass anything his heart desires, because with the filibuster gone, all Senate votes would require only 51 votes. That may not do much while the Democrats control the House, but he would also have the ability to reject all of Biden’s judicial nominations. He would also have the ability to take over the chairmanship of all committees, effectively suppressing many facets of the Senate investigations into Trump and January 6th.
Could reincarnated Lyndon find a way to coerce or persuade Manchin to change teams? You bet. How about chairmanship of any committees he likes, and all the money he wants for his next re-election campaign from conservative super-PACs. And those are only the carrots. If he failed with those alone, the ever-ruthless Lyndon would bring out the sticks.
McConnell tough? Lyndon, wherever he is, presumably looking up from the lowest rings of hell, is laughing at Mitch and calling him a pussy, as Trump did today! Lyndon and Trump were a lot alike – egomaniacs, megalomaniacs, narcissists … dicks. Of course, as the other American Pie kids said to Stifler:
Yup, at least Lyndon was OUR dick.
Still a bunch of complaining about the January 6th block party? I’d be down for a January 6th every single weekend if only De Blasio would get the homeless crackhead off my block before he craps in the street again. Or maybe wipe out all of the gang members killing innocent people in Chicago every week. Or perhaps enforce the nations laws at the border. I’d even chip in for beer.
I’m not sure that McConnell wants control of the Senate without the Republicans also having control of at least the House.
With control of both, McConnell could pass popular Republican legislation (if there is anything left in the Republican agenda that is popular) and either get Biden to sign it or force Biden to veto it.
While I appreciate the ability of McConnell to block judges and control the committees, he’s likely more interested in a longer term strategy. Most independents and ‘progressives’ who vote Democratic either don’t know, don’t understand or care about the details of the filibuster. All they know or care about is whether the Democrats can get legislation passed. With the filibuster, McConnell can be in opposition by stealth.
Were the Republicans to control the Senate, that would mean that McConnell/the Republicans hold a branch of government and so would be seen as at least partly responsible for making the government work. In opposition, he can pretend that the filibuster doesn’t exist and can simply tell voters that the Democrats are to blame if/when nothing is accomplished, and he can use this to get the Republicans back in the majority in both the House and the Senate in the midterms.
All McConnell needs is to prevent any embarrassing investigations and to block all judicial nominations and liberal legislation. It would be a holding action until the mid-terms, when they are almost certain to take control of both houses.
(Mid-terms of a first-term president usually produce a shift, and Biden’s current approval rating bodes ill for the donkey team.)
The best thing that ever happened to Bill Clinton (with his pants on at least) was the GOP take over of Congress. He was forced to move to the political center and that led to his reelection. The way things look right now, it seems very likely the GOP will recapture both houses in 2024. But I am not so sure. The party out of power usually gains seats, but the GOP is defending twice as many Senate seats as the Democrats. But I think a bigger factor is likely to be abortion.
The abortion issue has generally favored the GOP as single issue voters for whom abortion is the issue are more likely to be pro-life. But that is likely to change if the Supreme Court overturns Roe and Casey this term. I think that is likely to happen. I don’t think Roberts would have been a 5th vote to overturn Roe because he wouldn’t want the public opinion of the Supreme Court to take that hit. I think concern over that opinion is what led him to concoct his ridiculous rational (really a tax?) for upholding Obama Care. But with Amy Coney Barrett I think there are 5 votes to overturn Roe and Casey without Roberts, which paradoxically will probably lead him to be a 6th vote (to lend the decision a sliver more legitimacy). The ruling in the Dobbs case will most likely be released near the end of June, a little more than 4 months before the midterms. Actually with early voting it is really less than 4 months. I think the GOP is likely to take a significant hit with lots of pro-choice voters previously confident the right was protected suddenly considering the issue to be much more important.
As a Republican, I worry about how the Dobbs decision will affect the GOP. But I am also pro-life, so I have to say the protection of unborn life is a higher priority for me than electing a bunch of Trump apologists. I think Liz Cheney would probably agree with me there. It does pose a bit of a dilemma for political partisans with strong opinions on abortion. Do you root for the Dobbs decision that will agree with your abortion opinion? Or the one that will deliver control of Congress?
1.I think the Biden’s approval ratings at this point are fairly meaningless due to Republicans killing themselves and the economy with Covid in order to keep the economy weak to hurt Biden. I think that the Infrastructure and reconciliation legislation are also stalled is hurting Biden’s approval as well. If those things are successfully addressed, the Covid via the increasing vaccine mandates, and the legislation through Democratic compromise, then Biden’s approval ratings will increase, and maybe significantly.
2.In regards to the legislation, the Democrats have also shot themselves in the foot in both 1993 and in 2010 with the deficit reduction package and with Obamacare respectively, as the Democratic legislators themselves both times expressed significant disappointment with what they had accomplished, rather than arguing to independents and to their voters how significant these accomplishments were. In Bob Woodward’s book ‘The Agenda’ he quotes James Carville as arguing to Clinton something like “I grew up poor, but my daddy always said ‘we have the best. We live in the best house, we have the best car, we wear the best clothes.’ We can’t go out before the American people and say ‘this deal is awful, but it was all we could accomplish, we need to tell the American people this is the best deal that is going to reduce the deficit, reduce interest rates and lead to millions of jobs.’
So, whether any reconciliation package that passes is for $1.5 trillion, $1.9-2.1 trillion or $3.5 trillion, it would be very wise for the Democrats to focus on what’s in the package rather than what’s left out, as well as promote the $800 billion total in new infrastructure spending (which is somewhere around 100 times more than ‘the great negotiator’ Donald Trump achieved.)
3.In regards to 2022, I don’t think it should be forgotten that in both 1994 and 2010 that Democrats had the House, the Senate and the Presidency, while the Republicans had the filibuster (in 2009-2010, the Democrats briefly had 60 Senators. In 2009 the Republicans delayed Al Franken from being declared elected for several months, then Teddy Kennedy died and was eventually replaced by Republican Scott Brown who won the Senate election, only before the Massachusetts special election in 2009 and in the final few months before the 2010 midterms when Arlen Spector (re)joined the Democrats did they have 60 seats.
I’m a historian who believes that history isn’t destiny, that there is no reason the Republicans need retake the House and the Senate in 2022 just because most of the time historically the party not holding the Presidency gains in the midterms elections. I think the public is much more polarized now. I think it would be, as I said previously, much more difficult for the Republicans to retake Congress if they held the Senate and were expected to be part of making government work. I suspect that Senator Mitch Palpatine feels the same way, which would explain why he isn’t trying to get either Manchin or Sinema to caucus with the Republicans.
As the final historical note on 2009-2010: Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman who caucused with the Democrats but was by the time elected under the ticket of Connecticut for Lieberman, at times joined the Republicans in the filibuster of Obamacare, and succeeded in getting the ‘public option’ removed from it. (It’s hard to believe there wasn’t one person in Connecticut who advised Lieberman that the banner ‘Lieberman for Connecticut’ wouldn’t have been better than Connecticut for Lieberman.)
Other than tax cuts for the rich, what has Mitch McConnell ever done? He’s always against something, and doesn’t ever appear to be for anything.
Which of course is pretty much the Republican part in a nutshell.
He got three Republican Justices on the Supreme Court and he blocked an Obama Supreme Court nominee.
Don’t fool yourself that the Republicans don’t want anything, it’s just that the main things they want can’t be filibustered: Supreme Court Justices, more tax cuts for the rich, and maybe more spending on the military and less spending on social programs (Republicans who have grown up since Satan Ronnie don’t seem to be as interested in large military spending or gutting social spending.)
However, the main purpose of the Supreme Court would be to bring back a neo-feudalist state controlled by Republicans, the wealthy genuine elite and the mega churches, which mirrors the feudalist societies in Western Europe controlled by the Sovereign, the elite land owning Lords and Nobles and the Church.
Part of this is through overturning Roe v Wade via the Supreme Court and then filibustering any attempt to get a law guaranteeing abortion at the federal level passed (although Republicans couldn’t prevent abortions at the state level) and part of it is through things like the Supreme Court overturning the so-called ‘Administrative State.’ That is especially something the neo-feudalist/fascist Federalist Society has wanted for 40 years now.
Getting rid of the filibuster only helps the majority party if that party also controls the House of Representatives and the White House. The filibuster is only a way to stop a law from passing (or previously) a nomination from being confirmed. At most it can be used as a bargaining chip to get something the minority wants. Of course that presumes both sides are willing to bargain. If McConnel had the majority he could stop any and all judicial nominations and control all committees. Those committees could then investigate anything the GOP wanted investigated. For instance, they could investigate Hunter Biden’s art sales.
I doubt Manchin would be willing to switch, absent some incredible provocation on the part of the Democrats. If Manchin was interested on switching he would have done it a long time ago.
I have to disagree about how effective LBJ would be in today’s senate. The majority leader has a lot of power in the Senate, but not as much as they used to. Let’s say McConnell wants to get Sinema to switch. In 1960, LBJ could probably promise a defector they wouldn’t face a serious primary opponent. The political parties use to serve a vetting role. But if Sinema did switch, there would be lots of idiots in her first GOP primary that would rather vote for the most extreme candidate over the most electable. Joe Manchin would probably win a GOP primary, but that’s not certain. Personally, I think the diminishing power of party bosses (I find it weird to be saying this) is a bad thing. There is no way Donald Trump could have won the GOP primary on the 1960’s or 1970’s.
I think McConnell agreed to extend the debt ceiling until December because he was afraid that Schumer was more likely to let the U.S. default and blame Republicans than he was to use the Dem’s last chance at budget reconciliation this year to extend the limit. I think McConnell is figuring granting the extension makes the GOP look a little more reasonable to independents and that putting it off to December gives the Dems time to agree on human infrastructure. That way a reconciliation bill can pass their wish list and raise the ceiling. If they haven’t agreed by then they might as well raise the debt ceiling and try to pass their wish list next year.
Well, if I were a reincarnated LBJ, I would remind Sinema and Manchin what happened to JFK after he pissed Lyndon off.
I don’t understand why, in a democracy, a minority in the legislature should have the ability to thwart the will of the majority. I can understand why they would WANT it, but I don’t understand why it is good for democracy for them to have it.
The problem is that the Senate, by allocating a fixed number of seats per state, is already undemocratic. The filibuster makes it even MORE undemocratic. It cannot be the right answer.
This has been especially a problem with Republicans since Obama, but going back to 1994 with Bill Clinton. Prior to the 1994 midterms, Bob Dole claimed that Clinton no longer had a mandate, and used that argument to filibuster everything in the Senate.
After the 1994 midterms, there were a number of areas where President Clinton and the Republican Congress were able to come to agreement, especially where they could more or less trade off with each other. So, the Republican welfare reform, which also was sort of part of Bill Clinton’s agenda, with the Democratic S-Chip, Medicare expansion for children.
After the 1996 election, there were areas of agreement as the Democrats as a whole shifted to the right on economics which allowed for things like the repeal of Glass-Steagall. I personally think that Glass-Steagall was overly mythologized after the 2008 financial meltdown, but the Democrats shifting to the right on economics in that era was part of what became known as the ‘Washington Consensus’ and has since gone back to the much vaguer and broader term of ‘neoliberalism,’ and that did allow for a number of mostly Republican policies that President Clinton and many Democrats at that time supported to pass through Congress.
With President Obama, the Republicans basically filibustered everything they could.
To steal a line from Jonah Goldberg, majority rule simply means that 51% of the people have the right to piss in the cornflakes of the other 49%. Our government is set up as a Republic with majority rule along with protections for the rights of (political) minorities. For instance, the Bill of Rights is basically a list of things that majorities are not allowed to do. The filibuster is not part of the Constitution, but has been part of Senate rules since 1806. I see nothing wrong with the idea of requiring a supermajority to enact significant change. As I wrote the other day, no matter how annoying the filibuster is when you are in the majority, you will be glad to have it when you inevitably find yourself in the minority again. But that said, I think the current rule makes filibusters too easy. It used to be a filibuster lasted only so long as a senator or senators could keep speaking. I wouldn’t mind seeing that part brought back. Or at least I wouldn’t mind that if there weren’t a large number of Democrats in favor of packing the Supreme Court. That is the best argument for keeping the current filibuster that I have heard.
Yes, the political minority always sees the virtures of requiring a supermajority for the majority to get its way. That is particularly true when that minority represents the interest of people who are always going to be a political minority nationwide, like the slaveowners of the South in 1860 or the very, very wealthy who have been the real constituency of the Republican Party since about 1980.
And relying on some legal mechanism to defeat the majority is something that is simply contrary to democracy. A party which is confident of its ability to appeal to a majority should never be in favor of it.
And finally, wow – Jonah Goldberg is not a fan of majority rule? Why am I not surprised? Oh, yes, it’s because he writes books with titles like “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left”, or “The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas”, or “Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics is Destroying American Democracy”.
He seems to be a purveyor of the exactly the kind of intellectual dishonesty that allowed the Republican Party to embrace Trump and become his obedient servant.
You seem to keep viewing the pre-Trump past of the GOP through rose-colored glasses, and dreaming of a future for it that the GOP has rejected with its every act for the past 25+ years.
Oh, and you don’t want the Supreme Court packed…now that the GOP has packed it. I thought you were better than this.
These are an example of the ‘civility Democrats’ I mentioned earlier, though this one has just 30 twitter followers. This is in response to Chris Silly-Za, criticizing Schumer’s angry speech to Senator Mitch Palpatine.
Melanie Saint James
@MelanieSaintJa1
·
12h
Very poor timing on his part. He spoke his internal feelings out loud, at a time when a grateful THANK YOU, would have gone a long ways. I agree with Manchin on almost nothing, but I do agree with him that at the very least we need to show some civility to one another.
Sinema is more likely to switch parties…
Works the same either way. In fact, it works better with Sinema, because she would be easier to influence. She could suddenly and dramatically get elevated in status and prestige by some big committee assignments.
Manchin is already pretty happy with his status.
But Lyndon would break him, one way or another.
You forgot step 6:
Make Schumer watch whilst he pisses in the sink.
LBJ never passed on an opportunity to show who had the bigger dick.
Almost perfect!
Although it would be much more effective if he went down to the National Archives museum and made Schumer watch him pissing on the Constitution, because Lyndon’s dick was not only metaphorically and perhaps physically bigger than any politician’s, it was also bigger than America.
Manchin will never switch parties. He’ll retire first. I know, I know never say never. According to most political pundits paying attn it’s a non starter. He would have already done it if it was gonna happen.
But yes, LBJ was a ball breaker getting many southern yahoo Dem bigots like Richard Russell to vote for civil rights and the voting rights act of ’64/’65. Yielding back the balance of my time …
Lyndon broke everyone, one way or another. It wasn’t wise to cross him.
But you’re right. Lyndon is dead. In the real world, McConnell probably isn’t tough enough to pull it off.
As for Manchin, he doesn’t have to switch parties. He only needs to leave the Democratic Party and become an independent. He can then caucus with either party, as he chooses, making him the single most powerful man in America, since he alone would determine who is the majority leader, who controls the committees, and who can approve or deny Biden’s appointments.