It came in with a ROAR, and died with a whimper. The Biden-McCarthy brokered two year budget bill that extends the debt ceiling for the same length of time passed the US House an hour ago with more than 300 votes. The bill now goes on to the Senate, where there will almost certainly be two long days of yada, yada, yada before the Senate passes the bill and sends it to Biden for his signature.

There is a very simple reason why this is going down this way. And that’s because every single member of the House, Republican as well as Democrat, desperately needs this bill to pass, as does every single member of the US Senate. The dent is that some of the more extreme members on both sides can’t afford to admit that they need this bill, because it would dent their ideological dignity.

But there is something deeper in the results of this House vote tonight that you won’t read anywhere else but here. Because nobody else is thinking any further outside the box than to fixate on the box itself.

Ever since 2017, we have spent the last six years being literally bombarded with the specter of The death of democracy! Trump plowing through every guardrail, the Freedom Caucus hijacking the GOP, turning Kreepy Kevin McCarthy into a rump puppet Speaker to do their will. Well you know what?

F*ck. That. Sh*t. Democracy is doing just fine, thank you very much. And I can prove it. First, none of the Armageddon scenarios proposed by pundits and the media have come to pass. But there is an even better reason to be as positive as hell about the future of American democracy.

The squeaky gets all the oil. And if there’s anything that the national media loves, it’s squeaky wheels. And in American politics, that means two things, The Freedom Caucus, and the House Progressive Caucus. Because in every major kerfuffle over the last six years, it’s been the Freedom Caucus and the Progressive Caucus Given their head, the Freedom Caucus would shut down the government, burn the global economy, and take us back to the dark ages. And if the Progressive Caucus had gotten their way, none of Biden’s signature legislation would have passed.

But in the end, Biden got his agenda passed, and we got the budget deal to raise the debt ceiling for one simp0le reason. Because in a democracy, the majority rules!

Because while both the Freedom caucus as well as the Progressive caucus love to bang their drums, and scream and yell, neither represent a majority of their parties! They depend on the squeaky wheel principle to generate as much attention as they can, and then use it to try to exert their will.

But it took two pragmatists like Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy to both realize that between them they had a moderate majority that together could turn the Freedom Caucus and the Progressive Caucus into toothless tigers, and get a deal done. And so they both reached out to their moderate middles and crafted a bill that could pass. And it worked.

It worked for one reason. Because in American democracy the majority rules. And in the United States, the vast majority of voters, Democratic, Republican, and Independents are moderates. You can have gerrymandered districts on both sides that tend to send more extreme ideological warriors to congress. But as long as the majority of both chambers in both parties are moderates, then moderate leaders on both sides can still find the path to bipartisanship, then the two extreme wings are basically rendered toothless tigers.

Look, democracy is messy, the Founding Fathers designed it that way. After all, who designs a system where 535 egomaniacal morons scream and yell at each other in order to get anything done. But it’s worked for 242 years now, and as long as we don’t let the extreme wings take over, it will trundle along for at least another 242 years.

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7 COMMENTS

  1. I wonder if the freedumb caucus ever caught on to the fact that shutting government spending down would also mean they wouldn’t get paid?

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    • I think you’re wrong on that one-they get paid even if shit gets shut down. Even if that weren’t so, many are wealthy enough to not need their paycheck from being a congress-critter.

  2. Militant moderate (and quiet/quiet) methodical moral majority. Boring, sure. Less drama, check. Gets 💩 done, check. Believe in post office and getting census done right, check (all constitutional also). Follow rules and laws (and enforce them). Actually have a policy and sane folks to handle ( although USA immigration system needs to be redone. Break up into sane departments/bureaus/agencies… asylum courts and assistance; visas, legal visas (whistleblowers, crime victims, etc), Einstein folks, agricultural folks, construction folks, military Folk, medical and so forth; customs; coast guard; immigration courts, supervision, assistance; daca; prior workers… with sponsors and family; and any thing leftover. Hilary and Bill … would have Obama visit for more… more sanity and hopefully decent moral outcomes). Boring and practical. And oh yeah. Infrastructure: any gal that can speak facts and stats on how much $$ USA/joe has directed… marriage??? Hey now. && still need to do more… rural hospitals. Hell just mental health and veteran mental health:: medical …. Jobs!!! Don’t need AI. Okay kinda long. But PS: as for progressives… well annoying obnoxious and demanding… but slaves wanted freedom, womens always want something (wonder why I am still single, 😂), Hispanics fought … drafted and since Caucasian… all legal… in ww2 and every war since… and want silly things like right to be buried in local cemetery. Of course LBJ was embarrassed… and young man buried at Arlington, if not mistaken. Well, good trouble. PS2: get 💩 from idiots, oh well && poop from immediate family… well hope progressives just get thicker skin, sharper elbows, and learn how to get down and dirty (sorta like judo-practical feminism, Diane. Cheers) and keep heads up. Getting runned over by a bus or two is okay. At least union and mass transit!!! Thanks murf.

  3. 300 out of 435 doesn’t look like everyone in congress needs this deal. Sounds to me like 135 members could give a rat’s ass less about it.

    • Nah, don’t forget Spike that a lot of them voted no for entirely different reasons but if it had been close they woulda voted yes. My sense, and I thank O’Donnell last night for this, is that a good chunk of the “no”‘s were really theatrical, and woulda been “yes”‘s if required

  4. Most of Biden’s signature bill was pushed by progressives or it would not have passed. Stop lumping them in with seditionists and traitors; they are fighting for equality and what America should stand for and idiots constantly screaming about socialism make them look like they are as bad as the right wing when the exact opposite is true! Every Democrat should be a progressive! The fact of the matter is that every time that we give in to extortion we set ourselves up to be victims of extortion again and extortion is not governing! You’ve never seen a progressive extort anything! Republicans provide excessive socialism to the rich and we’re probably a century behind thanks to the fact that Democrats can’t act like progressives and actually stand up and fight for us, instead they have to act like every time that they bow down to Blackmail that they did something wonderful!

    • I couldn’t agree with you more. And in response to the statement “…in a democracy, the majority rules!”, I have 2 words for the writer: Electoral College.

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