The Democrats are the Big Tent Party, and I love it. As a man who’s ancestors had to look at signs that said No Irish need apply, I’m all in on inclusion. But the problem is that you have to hold the coalition together in order to get anything done.
The Republican party is built on a simpler model. More than 40 years ago they retooled the party to appeal to The American Taliban, i.e. the far right Evangelicals, the goose steppers, and the bedsheet banditos. And as a result, whether they won or lost, they simply had to keep throwing the right red meat to their frenzied base.
But a problem for the Democrats, being a Big Tent party, is that they also tend to be a Big Picture party, they want to solve all of our ills at one time to keep the base happy. And while it led to such landmark accomplishments as The Civil Rights Act, Social Security and Medicare, and The Great Society, sometimes it’s a bridge too far.
And the current logjam of the Biden Build Back Better plan is a perfect example. The plan is popular with the public, garnering 65% support, and yet lately Democratic leaders such as Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi have chastised the media for not properly selling the contents of the bill. This is not the media’s job, their job is to report the news. Maybe if the Democrats stopped monolithically talking about a $3.5 trillion price tag all the time, and concentrated on the programs, they’d be better off.
Here is a perfect example. Right now, there is a portion of the soft infrastructure bill that would allow Medicare and Medicaid to directly negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. To say that this is wildly popular with the population is an understatement. A recent poll showed national support of 94% popularity, including republicans. Sweet Jesus! Even Arianna Grande doesn’t have that kind of popularity!
There are a shitload of Republicans that were elected in 2020 that are in swing districts that went to the Democrats in 2018. And there are a bunch of GOP Senators that are vulnerable going into 2020. Senior citizens are the linchpin to the GOP voting coalition. Lose them, lose el rancho.
Here’s what the Democrats should do. The House Democrats should immediately craft in committee a stand alone bill that will allow Medicare and Medicaid to directly negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies. In the soft infrastructure bill, that was killed by 3 recalcitrant Democrats covered in Big Pharma pocket lint. Force them to vote against the bill in committee, and then go home to face their constituents. And if it passes, force vulnerable GOP swing district incumbents to vote against something that their entire constituency supports. I bet it passes with a bipartisan vote.
And if it passes the House, then the same thing goes for the Senate. Fuck the filibuster, bring it up to the floor for a cloture vote. McConnell has lost control of his caucus, and how in the hell can a Senator like Marco Rubio, up for reelection in 2022 against a spirited and qualified challenger, vote against that in a state as senior laden as Florida?
It’s always nice to have a big picture, and a far reaching goal. But sometimes you have to get down into the weeds and pass what you want piece by piece, with the population at your back, and dare the other side to stop you. This is one of those times.
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35
Follow me on Twitter at @RealMurfster35
The Ds need good PR/media people. Yes, they’re a “big tent” coalition, and keeping it together is cat-herding, but they should have figured out by now that the media aren’t going to report what the party wants them to say.
Emphasize that the cost is HALF that of the DOD, and will benefit a lot more people, and it might possibly get attention.
And tell Manchin and Sinema that either they support the bill as it is now, or they lose their committee seniority. (Especially since Sinema’s big donors are all backers of Rs.)
Its time for the entire Democratic Party to take Manchin and Senima to the woodshed (metaphorically of course) and tell them to vote with the rest of the party in congress or they are kicked out of the party altogether, stripped of any committee assignments, and censured! Too bad they can’t literally be taken to the woodshed! Time to open a supertanker of whoopa$$ on these two DINOs!!
The snag with expelling that pair of Dumbcats is that, until there’s an election and the voters kick them out, they will, with 90% certainty, side with the Republiqanons and Moscow Mitch will have his Senate majority and take over as Leader.
I too have wondered why the D’s were going for everything on their wish list in one bill.
No one knows what’s in the bill because by the 2nd or 3rd good thing we tend to tune out and just go to the price tag.
DO THEM ONE AT A TIME!
The ones the American public wants they will get, otherwise we’ll think you are trying to sneak something past us with volume as a distraction.
They do it all in one bill because they have to use reconciliation to pass it. No R will vote for any of this, but they will go home and tell their constituents that they’re responsible for passing it. Reconciliation is limited to once or twice a year. That’s why Dems put everything into one big bill. It’s their only shot.
Exactly. The Democrats need to go big or head home.
“yet lately Democratic leaders such as Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi have chastised the media for not properly selling the contents of the bill. This is not the media’s job, their job is to report the news.”
I agree. The media are supposed to REPORT the news; however, there are too many in the media who want to report THEIR version of the news, rather than the facts. It happened back in 2010 when the media felt they had to present a “balanced” version of the ACA by talking to GOPers who vehemently opposed the bill and virtually ignoring every Democratic effort to get the media to report on what was actually in the bill rather than the GOP spin that permeated the news cycle. And any time the media did talk to a Democrat regarding the bill, they turned around and spoke with 2 or 3 or 4 GOPers who basically said the opposite. And did the media actually challenge the GOPers? No. But every single word that a Democrat said was challenged at every single turn. And then, the media would use the Democrat’s fluster or defensiveness against the Democrat’s comments.
And the media are repeating the same thing now. Talk to one Democrat after getting 2 GOP views and then get 1 or 2 more GOPers AFTER the Democrat so the GOP literally gets the first and last word on the subject.
When all the media is owned by corporations with boards full of the ultra rich, is it any surprise? I think not.
This sounds good and in a sane society it’d work like a charm. We do not live in a sane society. Rubio has gotten elected using cultural issues AND anti-commie/socialist bait. He will frame any gifts to Medicare/Medicaid as communism creeping into our country and the state of FL. He does not care that seniors have to pay out the ass for their prescriptions nor does he have to. The voters in his state gobble up whatever crackpot thing he throws to them and when he even uses the word “communism” he gets the votes of every Cuban American every time-OK, that is a bit of hyperbole but not much. He has represented these folks for a bit and knows what to feed them by now.