Biden Thread

[Montmorency]

I have to admit, this is amusing.
https://twitter.com/itsdylan46/statu...02191467941888 [VIDEO]

There's even Manchin on tape actively seeking donors to bribe an out-going GOP senator in an attempt to garner the required 60 vote bi-partisan majority, just so he can avoid criticism for the "far-left".

We discussed this a few weeks ago, and I explained my thoughts on how the story reflects on various perspectives of Manchin.

In the coming days, His Royal Highness will most likely show his true colors on the climate change portions of the infrastructure bill:

Given Biden's most recent statements, dovish on the filibuster and on voting suppression (upholding the idea that sufficient mobilization can reliably overcome the latter), I think he's no longer in the driver's seat. That is, regardless of whatever Biden's private beliefs are on the matter, I think he's given up on Congress.

What law are you referring to?

I'm referring to the idea that a bird in hand is better than two in a bush. To the extent that corporations can be alleged to micromanage legislators, particularly marginal or swing legislators, it is to their advantage to encourage the passage of legislation that contains goodies for them (such as actually happened earlier in the year with the aforementioned U.S. Innovation and Competition Act, or even, arguably, the individual market component of the ACA). Whereas if it were true that corporations, broadly, are buying Senators to block any major investment from being enacted, they would typically be harming their own interests compared to the possibility of tilting that legislation in their favor.

For example:

So 4.5 million reasons for opposing the move away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. But there's more:

It would be pretty easy for Manchin to secure Big Coal a bailout (as they have been begging for over the years), or even a subsidy for his own business concern, as a precondition to passing Biden's/Democrats' agenda. He would notch a win for himself, for his party and its electoral prospects, and for the bottom line of whomever he wishes to favor. There are many worlds where everyone's wheel gets greased. Yet he doesn't want to do that.

Another example from the other direction: Here is a letter to Congressional leadership calling for Medicare price negotiation to be included on the agenda right now. Rep. Katie Porter is a signatory, but included are centrists such as Malinowski and Slotkin. Indeed, most of the signatories appear to be centrist/moderate from competitive districts. Now, to be sure, Medicare price negotiation is very far from a radical proposal, yet some other Democrats - from safer districts - categorically reject any such policy in legislation. Take Jake Auchincloss, a freshman from Massachusetts who opposes price negotiation and received heavy pharma PAC support. Now here is a politician I could easily believe would take a different view on things under different political circumstances (which I do not affirm as the case with Manchin or Sinema). Is it because he's corrupt? Well, his district, and Massachusetts as a state, are pharma hubs, and he barely won his primary (where some of his opponents explicitly supported drug price controls). If the pharma lobby decided to spend hundreds of thousands on a friendly challenger, or signaled to the relatively-high number of pharma-industry-and-adjacent constituents that there is a problem with their Representative, that would present a threat to his political career. While constituting a sort of selfishness, the motivation behind resisting drug price controls suddenly looks a lot less like "corruption"...

Take the celebrated liberal lion John Dingell, after all, a New Dealer and "old-fashioned social Democrat" to his end just a few years ago, basically Sanders-wing. One of his last contributions was this op-ed calling for the abolition of the Senate. He nevertheless demonstrated an outsized level of deference to the auto industry throughout his career; he represented part of Detroit.

And, as always, if you suspect a pol is bought, you should be eager to test the honesty of their graft, to see whether your side can sway them with a better offer. Donald Trump - the ultimate byword for corruption, yes? Now tell me if he would accept $10 billion cash from Uncle Sam to stay out of politics for good. Nah, some things can't be bought.

Look, even Harry Truman - as we now know - was personally corrupt. Manchin or Sinema could be corrupt as well, if perhaps in more licensed ways. But it's often not explanatory of political behavior. Or at least you need a direct case, not a gesture. I think Manchin's putative corruption affects his beliefs about energy policy, and what policy action he is willing to tolerate, but simultaneously has about as much to do with his filibuster stance or his bipartisanship stance or his voting rights stance as Harry Truman's corruption has to do with the Korean War.

I just think your narrative for why what's happening is happening is too "just so."