Originally published at: Watch this spoof of Kyrsten Sinema in Dog Day Afternoon hostage scene | Boing Boing
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Manchin and Sinema care only about their power in Congress (Sinema also loves attention). Dem establishment centrists keep arguing that it’s worth keeping them in the party to ensure that the GOP doesn’t get to dictate the national agenda and that they shouldn’t be punished or whipped into following the party line. As it stands, though, the outcomes aren’t much different than if the Party of Demonstrable Bad Faith had its majority. At this point I’m not even sure that these two wouldn’t help Yertle block a Dem SCOTUS nominee they found too progressive.
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Nope.
ETA: To be clear, I agree with the rest of your points. Sinema and Manchin are a cancer on the party. But being able to push through judges to bend the judiciary back toward the left is far from nothing.
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Biden is now the President who nominates or appoints judges, not a Senator who votes to approve them. Manchin and Sinema aren’t mentioned in that article. They probably vote along party lines for the most part when it comes to judicial nominees, but given that it’s just about the only remaining area where they do so it’s only a matter of time before they betray the party there too. Especially if the Dems keep rewarding their bad behaviour in other areas.
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They’ve been 100% reliable “yea” votes on Biden’s judicial nominees thus far–even though Manchin is anti-choice.
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True. These two sneaks wait until they have the cover of a GOP President’s nominee to vote for anti-choice judges. For example:
While she and Manchin can’t go too far yet in defying the party on SCOTUS nominees, they find other ways to exploit the situation to the advantage of their fellow right-wingers.
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The gentlewoman Senator is bought and paid for by big-pharma currently. She can’t be removed (there’s no "recall"ing a senator), so she’ll annoy people and enthrall the media until 2025ish in the senate, then be primaried and go be a lobbyist for even faster returns. Sinema wants to be rich and famous, and she’ll succeed, at least with the rich part. Sometimes the dragons win; and about all we can do is to vet our candidates more carefully. -sigh-
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Both Manchin and Sinema squeaked victories with just a few percentage points, and only by appealing to centrists. Otherwise they probably wouldn’t have been elected and the dems would have zero path to majority.
Yeah, this gives them too much power, and yeah politicians use most of their power to get more power. Sinema may be too green to focus her power. But the alternative is no power for the dems, and that is much worse.
I know it is not popular to say here, but getting politicians motivated for bipartisan compromise is a way out of the polarization logjam. Having other politicians see that there is tremendous power in being bipartisan could be a good thing, even for all the wrong reasons.
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It’s not popular to say here because most of us recognise that politicians from one of the duopoly parties have zero interest in compromise. Since compromise is by definition a two-way street, that’s not how we’re going to find a way out of the polarisation logjam.
The only option now is for the Dems to elect politicians who actually support their stated agenda (not just on the judiciary) and beat back the GOP. Instead, they reward Manchin and Sinema when they help block reforms that enable the Republicans to game the system.
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Political power is the only thing that motivates both sides to come together. But please if there is another lever let’s pull it.
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But don’t worry, she’s still widely available to other special interests that run directly contrary to her party’s stated agenda!
Except that excuse died with the Senate passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF). There hasn’t been one single GQP Senator who has even indicated that they might vote for the Build Back Better plan, yet they’re both still obstructing some of the highest polling initiatives in US history (which also totally negates the “independent vote” risk; which neither of them even have to think about that for another 5 years). This moment has nothing to do with bipartisanship.
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Primary the twit.
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Please explain how to compromise with people who want women as broodmares and POC and LGBQT+ as second class citizens (at BEST)? Or who want to privatize literally EVERYTHING for a quick buck, no matter how much environmental damage it does? You don’t compromise on basic rights. Ever.
The democrats have bent over backwards for years now to compromise. It’s the GOP who refuse to compromise on ANYTHING EVER. The democratic party HAS been bi-partisan to a fault.
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Sinema & Manchin aren’t actually Democrats.
They, [along with many others in Congress] are Grifters.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Most of 'em seem to be on the FDC side, but nevertheless…
Manchin is a NeoCon, pure & simple. Sinema is a rookie, but a quick study. She wants fame…
I wonder if Uncle Joe could start making noises about Dealing With Political Corruption?
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Related, cross-posted from @mr_raccoon’s topic.
https://twitter.com/EoinHiggins_/status/1443750386066731014?s=19
A nice companion piece to Sinema’s little jig when she voted “no” on the federal minimum wage.
Again, these are two politicians who the Beltway Dem establishment keep telling us are vital to the continued advancement of the party and its goals.
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Apparently its money she wants for her hostages. Two fundraisers in the past week to sell her votes against progress to corporate lobbyists
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Talk to your constituents, Senator…
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Ah yes, Stephen Colbert’s Daily Show. It’s a fixture in my home, alongside Milton Berle’s Your Show of Shows, SCTV’s Flying Circus, and I Love Lassie.
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