Originally published at: Cory Doctorow on how the Democrats can avoid getting creamed in the 2022 elections | Boing Boing
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from his performance so far i think biden has learned from the experience of 2010 and will not be content to take a “shellacking” in search of bipartisan legislation. he seems to have gone for it with his executive orders. manchin and sinema don’t seem to have learned so much, yet. i haven’t given up on joe manchin though, since he doesn’t come up for re-election until 2024 he may stumble into eliminating the filibuster before 2022. at 73, i hope he lives at least a few more years. his death would put the senate in the hands of the republicans since the governor of west virginia is a rethuglican.
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This is what it should be all about- the only reason to gain power is so that you can use it to improve people’s lives. If you’re not doing that, then you’re wasting your time.
Politicians in the Democratic party should be using this period of unified control to ram through as many popular proposals as possible to benefit ordinary people. Minimum wage increase, post covid recovery, green new deal, major tax reform, DC and PR statehood, Infrastructure, weatherising the country, just get on it and get it done.
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Cory is right on here. I wish the establishment Dems understood that converting a small percentage of America’s apathetic non-particpants into voters by actually offering something that would better their lives (e.g. higher minimum wage, caregiver support, single-payer universal health insurance) would easily let them make their margins against the GOP.
As long as the Third-Way people are in charge and remain in thrall to the neoliberal default that’s been in place since the 1980s, though, that’s not going to happen. They’ll keep trying to lure away “moderate” Republicans, they’ll keep courting big corporate donors, they’ll keep trying to keep obstructionist Dems like Manchin on-side, and they’ll keep listening to arsehole economists like Larry Summers, and they’ll keep rolling over to the GOP in on the long-dead premise of bi-partisan comity and compromise.
So while I agree with Cory entirely, while I’m willing to do what I can to effect change in the party, and while I’m willing to be pleasantly surprised, all I can see right now is an Obama-style lost opportunity. That especially true since, aside from the Third Way tendencies, Biden and Congress have a massive clean-up job to do after the vandalism and incompetence of the previous regime in addition to trying to deal with a pandemic that’s months away from being under control and with a fascist insurgency that’s just getting started. They’re be lucky to have cleared all the old business on the agenda before the mid-terms, let alone get to the new business Cory is discussing.
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He keeps saying “Congress, The Senate and the White House” as if the Senate isn’t included in Congress. Does he mean to say “The House, The Senate, and The White House?” Because he makes that mistake several times. But I agree with him; as much as I detest Trump and the movement that condensed around him and continues to fester within our government, we won’t get anywhere just being anti-Trump. It’s the same problem I have with some atheists; it’s not as compelling to talk about what you don’t believe in as it is to talk about what you do believe in.
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Katie Porter is not the only single parent in Congress. Nancy Mace is also a single mom.
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