WHAT’S BEHIND THE MANCHIN – SINEMA SHOW: DOES IT MATTER?

                  

Many Democrats would enjoy knowing what’s up with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema.  They’re either principled crusaders for fiscally

responsible government and bipartisanship or they’re bought and paid for captives of corporate lobbyists.  An answer to this question depends on one’s political approach and inclinations about how much credence a politician’s own explanations for his or her behavior should get. Progressives and people who don’t trust politicians will likely look at their political contributions list and decide it’s the latter. People who want less

governmental involvement in American life and/or who take people, including politicians, at their word will likely see it differently. In any event, Manchin and Sinema are the talk of Washington these days, so they merit exploration.

Outsized Influence

Had Democrats done better in last fall’s U.S. Senate elections, we might not now put so much focus on Manchin and Sinema.   But, they didn’t and ended up with only 50 seats.  Thanks to Vice President Harris, Democrats “control” the senate, meaning the two who have voiced the most serious objections to President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda have more influence than most these days. Both have used that influence in forcing a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure package when party leadership and House progressives wanted to wait on that bill until Biden’s “human

infrastructure” legislation – his Build Back Better program – was ready for a vote in both houses. They’ve also been the driving force behind reducing the size of Biden’s plan from $3.5 trillion to about half that.

Sinema also made sure most of the tax increases Biden wanted got stripped from the bill. She said she wouldn’t “support any legislation that increases burdens on Arizonans or American businesses and reduces our ability to compete either domestically or globally.” Vague though that statement may have been, when one vote means everything, if that’s how one senator

sees things, that view probably will rule the day. Sinema also goes to great lengths to extoll the virtues of bipartisanship. She argues bipartisan legislation leads to more enduring policies that won’t get wiped out in the next power shift in Washington.    

Manchin contends Biden’s bill would promote inflation, a claim the Congressional Budget Office disputes. He also claims the legislation

would damage the coal industry. He ignores the damage the coal industry does to the environment and how few coal jobs the legislation would actually put at risk. But that’s his story and he sticks to it zealously.

The Dark Side

Both Manchin and Sinema spout elegant pronouncements that find their footing in either pragmatism or high-brow political philosophy. Progressive activists see something else behind the positions they’ve taken –cold hard

campaign cash. Both have become magnets for contributions from conservative, Republican-leaning donors who want to encourage their resistance to progressive Democratic legislation.

Manchin, who isn’t up for re-election until 2024, took in $3.3 million in the first nine months of 2021, 14 times more than he raised during the same time in 2020. Sinema, who also isn’t up until 2024, raised $2.6 million in that time frame this year, two and a half times more than she collected in that time period in 2020.

Manchin has especially been the beneficiary of contributions from energy industry figures. They blanche at Biden’s climate change agenda, especially his plans for reducing the use of fossil fuels.

Pharmaceutical industry executives, in particular, helped fill Sinema’s coffers. She’s gotten significant sums from tech industry figures.  Both she and Manchin have declined comment on the spate of contributions.

So, Which Is It?

Are Manchin and Sinema noble political leaders who will keep the country safe from

inflation?  Are they the last line of defense against a partisan split that eats at democracy by promoting division, rendering us incapable of working with each other? Or, are they bought and paid for corporate puppets who’ll do anything in exchange for campaign contributions.

We aren’t in their heads, of course, but we wonder how anyone can dismiss the influence of the money. Sinema had a progressive image when she served in the Arizona legislature. She won her senate race in 2018 with considerable support from people of color and young progressives.  She gave few hints of the kind of obstructionist approach to progressive legislation she’s shown with the Biden program.  We wonder if she just saw an opportunity and took advantage of it. Many Republican donors giving her money say they want a “go to” person in the Democratic party. She has certainly given them that.

The question for Sinema, much more than for Manchin, is what impact her approach will have on her political base in Arizona. A lot of people who backed her in 2018 aren’t happy. Her approval ratings among the kind of people who helped her win that election have plummeted.

Manchin probably has no such worries in ultra-conservative West Virginia, a state that was once solidly Democratic but is now as red as they get. Threats to him come from the right, not the left.

In the final analysis, what’s driving Manchin and Sinema may not matter much. For now, both have decided that doing what they’re doing best serves their political ends. We should expect they will keep doing it.       

THE VIRGINIA ELECTIONS PART I: DEMISE OF THE DEMOCRATS? NOT SO FAST!

                                                             

A Republican victory in Virginia’s off-year elections (and a closer than expected win by incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy in New Jersey’s governor’s race) prompted a spate of media stories about the Democratic Party’s supposedly dismal

electoral prospects. Coupled with President Biden’s falling poll numbers, the loss by former Governor Terry McAuliffe to Glenn Youngkin and GOP gains in the Virginia legislature generated rampant speculation about Democratic prospects in the 2022 midterms and through 2024.  Some

pundits suggested it’s a foregone conclusion we’ll have a Republican Congress in 2023 and a Republican in the White House in January 2025.   We don’t subscribe to the hype, but we recognize the Virginia outcome merits discussion of where Democrats stand and what they must do so they can keep a sufficient numerical advantage.

The question takes on so much importance because

of our fractured political landscape. Republicans seem bent on destroying Democracy. Only the Democratic Party obstructs the way. It’s essential, therefore, to evaluate where Democrats stand with the electorate

and understand how the country maintains this precarious equilibrium and doesn’t buy into the Republican zero-sum game.

 

The Narrative

Virginia has trended increasingly Democratic in

recent years. Biden won the state 54-44 in 2020. George W. Bush, with a 53-45 victory over John Kerry in 2004, was the last Republican presidential candidate who won the state.  Both Virginia’s Democratic senators, 2016 vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine and Mark

Warner, easily won reelection the last time they ran (Kaine, 57-41 in 2018 and Warner, 56-44 in 2020). In 2017, in addition to the 53-45 gubernatorial victory of Ralph Northam, Democrats won majorities in both houses

of the Virginia legislature. A year later, they flipped control of the state’s congressional delegation. Because of these outcomes, the view of Virginia as a swing state eroded. Before the 2021 elections, many observers saw it as safe Democratic territory.

                                              

That prognosis, however, masked another truth

about Virginia. In its quirky odd-year races that follow election of a new president, the candidate of the party that lost the presidency usually wins the Virginia governor’s chair the next year. That happened when Northam won in 2017 following Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory. After Barack Obama won the White House in 2008, the next year Republican Bob McDonald took the Virginia governor’s race. In 2001, after George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential triumph, Warner captured the Virginia governorship. Republican George Allen won in Virginia in 1993 after Bill Clinton took the White House in 1992. Democrat Doug Wilder, the state’s first black governor, won in 1989 after George H.W. Bush captured the 1988 presidential election.

Virginia’s voters apparently like this arrangement, since they’ve engineered it so often. Perhaps analysts need not look beyond the history books for an understanding of the 2021 outcome.    

 

The Other Explanations             

Despite the history, however, political observers offered other explanations for Youngkin’s win and McAuliffe’s defeat:

·    The fact House Democrats didn’t pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill before the election. They approved it a few days later, but Warner asserted McAuliffe might have won if he could have campaigned on the roads, bridges, and other improvements the state would receive under the bill.

·    The Critical Race Theory boogey man. Despite no evidence any Virginia school district teaches Critical Race Theory or anything like it, Youngkin capitalized on the concerns of white parents about what’s being taught about race in public schools. McAuliffe made things worse with a tone-deaf comment that he didn’t “believe parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

·    Biden’s performance as president. This explanation begins with the messy Afghanistan exit. McAuliffe tied himself closely to Biden. Some conservative commentators argued that as Biden’s poll numbers fell in the wake of the bad Afghanistan optics, McAuliffe suffered some of the fallout.

·    Economic anxiety. Even if the economy is doing reasonably well in bouncing back from the pandemic, fears about inflation have ramped up. Some thought that hurt McAuliffe as well.  

 

Virginia and Malcom Gladwell

We’ve taken note before of the work of social commentator Malcom Gladwell who observed in

his 2008 book Outliers: The Story of Success, that one thing seldom causes an airplane crash. Instead, most air disasters result from a cascading series of events piled on top of each other. We think that also applies to political outcomes. Races one candidate should win but doesn’t – as happened with McAuliffe – usually have many explanations, not one.

Our list of what may have created the Virginia result probably isn’t all inclusive. Other things could have played a role.  But the cause is important in light of the question we began with: What does the Virginia outcome say about where the Democratic Party stands with the electorate as the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential cycle approach?

We adhere to Gladwell’s basic principle – one thing seldom causes a disaster. We point to the things we’ve listed and raise the possibility that winning

in 2022 and 2024 requires that Democrats look at the question in an entirely different way. While not ignoring the list of  possible reasons for the 2021 Virginia loss, perhaps Democrats should focus on the broader question of what policies they must offer that will insure their

standing with the electorate in the upcoming elections. Just on the politics, the Virginia outcome suggests Democrats are not now in a good place with voters. In our next post, we’ll offer suggestions about how they might rectify that situation. 

                                      

IS THIS DIFFERENT? CIVIL UNREST OR REVOLUTION?

If you watch much cable news, you often hear the question posed to guests appearing about

the George Floyd case and the ensuing demonstrations, “Is this different?” The question recognizes that there’ve been protests before about police misconduct and racial injustice, but many argue things didn’t significantly change. The hosts

ask if the length of time the protests have continued and the diversity of the crowds means something might happen this time that hasn’t happened in recent history.

We believe the “Is this different question?” suggests a number of answers, depending on

how the questioner defines “different.” If the question speaks to short term reform of police practices, that might warrant one answer. If the question refers to long term, systemic change regarding race relations,

income and wealth inequality, and universal medical care for all Americans a much different answer seems in order. Today, we wade into the question of policing.

A partisan divide: What did you expect?

Democrats and Republicans in Congress have

put out police reform proposals and  might vote on them soon in the houses of Congress they control. Some reports say House Speaker Nancy Pelosi already has the votes for a legislative package spearheaded by the Congressional Black Caucus. The measures would: 

Senate Republicans, led by the GOP’s only black senator, South Carolina’s Tim Scott,

and Jim Lankford of Oklahoma, put out their plan. Its highlights include: 

Republicans aren’t sure if they’d ever  accept

codification of a use-of-force standard, like a chokehold ban. Overall, the Republican plan focuses on record keeping and transparency, while Democrats prefer specific limits on police conduct. Representatives of both sides offered early conciliatory talk about the possibility of compromise and suggested patience during the legislative process. That’s admirable. The question of getting the gap bridged remains.

The absence of prohibitions against chokeholds and no-knock warrants in the Republican proposal stand out. Qualified immunity reform might become the biggest sticking point. Some Republicans called that Democratic proposal a “poison pill,” something Republicans could never accept. Scott said any “poison pill” in the legislation means getting nothing.

Waiting for the Election  

We don’t doubt members of Congress have an obligation to try getting something done now. Things keep happening. With George Floyd barely buried, another high-profile case developed in Atlanta, where a white police officer killed another black man, Rayshard Brooks, by shooting him in the

back as he fled after a scuffle with officers. The optics in the Brooks case were different than what happened to Floyd in Minneapolis, but the bottom line remained the same – a police officer used deadly force when reasonable alternatives existed. Experienced law enforcement observers said no reason existed for shooting Brooks. He wasn’t armed with a deadly weapon and wasn’t likely to get away or harm anyone else since police had his driver’s license and vehicle. 

 

The Brooks case and the continuing protests highlighted the need for action but the truth remains that with Donald Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of the U.S. Senate, passing the kind of bill Democrats want just may not happen this year. That puts them to a choice – accept something like what the Republicans now propose or wait things out until the election in the hope of getting a senate majority and winning the presidency. Then, Democrats could pass their version of police reform legislation.

The Long Run

Whatever happens with police reform measures, the debate about race and whether this moment is “different” will continue.  Whether or not this is “different” depends on changes in the heads and hearts of Americans and in the structure of institutions. How different it becomes depends first on individual decisions

Americans of all races make about their own attitudes and behaviors concerning racial issues. Do white people finally recognize the role white supremacy has played in American society and decide they will help eradicate its effects? Will people of color embrace the idea of equality is within reach? How “different” this time becomes also depends on public policy decisions political leaders, businesses, and institutions make in the weeks, months, and years ahead in response to the protests.

The debate over police reform constitutes a significant part of our current racial angst, but it’s not all the problem. As the developing controversies over income and wealth inequality, the lack of universal health care

coverage, names of military bases and monuments in cities and on college campuses, even university alma maters, make clear, this is a multi-faceted problem and we have miles to go before we sleep.