Biden/Harris Presidency Discussion Thread

Rjd2

The numbers are not their to get rid of the fillibuster nor is it certain the public want it gone, Dems need to focus on stuff they can actually pass.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119118#Comment_118119118

Kick him out of the party. At the end of the day, if he refuses to support removing the filibuster, and thus allowing for the passage of the Voting Rights bills, he's effective handing the Republicans the elections. Without legislation to counter their gerrymandering and disenfranchisement, they will continue to entrench their hold over seats against the demographic realities. At that point, they're losing nothing from casting him adrift. They're going to lose their majority in the Senate, and possibly the House as well.

In short, **** him and Sinema too.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119305#Comment_118119305

The numbers are there, and the public absolutely supports getting rid of it, especially as it means passing legislation that has majority support across the country.

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119601#Comment_118119601

Do that and Mitch McConnell gets the gavel back and absolutely nothing will get done.

Without question it is an utterly bizarre situation where one or two Senators can basically control the entire Government agenda , but the sad reality is unless the Democrats can win another few seats in 2022 to "de-power" Manchin and Sinema there's effectively nothing they can do.

Totally unacceptable in what professes to be "The greatest Democracy in the world (TM)" but then everything about their entire political system is beyond ridiculous.

TomOnBoard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119601#Comment_118119601

OK. Follow that thinking through in the real world.

Why would Schumer kick Manchin & Sinema out under any circumstances and reduce the official Dem Senate seats to 46? What do you think Manchin & Sinema would do immediately after? They would either caucus with GOP and hand Mitch a 52-48 working majority, or actually join the GOP and give them 52 actual Senate seats. Either way, they would become heroes to the GOP and would WALK their next elections. In the meantime, the Harris casting vote in the Senate would become a thing of the past, and Mitch would once again control the Senate.

That's Real World Politics right there!

AbusesToilets

This might come as a shock, but there's a pretty strong likelihood mcConnell gets the gavel back, precisely because of Manchin and Sinema's actions.

And if Mitch gets a working majority, you can be damn sure he wouldn't have qualms about killing the filibuster to get stuff done if he needs to. He'll have learnt from the previous failures when the Republicans controlled both houses.

Rjd2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119929#Comment_118119929

Unlikely. Mitch refused to kill the filibuster when Trump wanted it dead and that was when McConnell had a lapdog president, House and Senate majority.

Rjd2

This site still has bugs, meant to quote all the above post from AT where he suggested that Mitch would kill the fillibuster.

Brian?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119601#Comment_118119601

Kick them out? That’s ridiculous, it would do absolutely nothing but make the Democrats look bad.

TomOnBoard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118120045#Comment_118120045

Mitch will do what Mitch will do whenever he next holds the gavel. So, if he does take back control of the Senate after the 2022 mid-terms, it will be because voters elect more GOP Senators to give him the majority. Putting that another way, voters will have decided in their 'infinite wisdom' to NOT give Dems the Senate majority that Dems claim they want, in order to get Biden's agenda enacted.

Those voters ought to be aware of the Manchinema dynamic, and will need to deal with that by making it irrelevant. The answer is easy: Elect.More.Dem.Senators.

In the meantime, Biden/Schumer have to keep within the guardrails that Reality has placed on the legislative course. Kicking Manchinema out would be an appalling failure of their own political skills and would bring Mitch doom right down on their current, albeit tortuous, efforts.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118120072#Comment_118120072

It would do the opposite. It would signal an end to letting Democratic priorities being held hostage by naked corporate interests. The public want electoral reform, they want Medicare to have the ability to negotiate prescription prices. They want universal pre-K and paid leave for childbirth. The Democrats look like a shambles precisely because the party is in effect functioning at the behest of 2 Senators.

The Democrats are determined to repeatedly ignore the wishes of their voters, and are shocked when they get crushed in subsequent elections.

SupplyandDemandZone

The Democrats are imploding and handing the next election to the Republicans at the moment. It requires strong leadership from Biden to remedy the situation but 2021 Joe Biden isn't capable of that, they've made a huge mistake and it doesn't look like Harris is the answer either. FUBAR as the yanks say.

Cody montana

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118121511#Comment_118121511

He’s president for another 3 years, get over it.

SupplyandDemandZone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118121531#Comment_118121531

I hope so.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118121511#Comment_118121511

How should Biden play it differently though? The senate is literally held hostage by a pair of DINOs, intentionally holding up critical Bills because of the politics within their own states. Had the Democrats won a couple more seats back in the Nov. 2020 races, this entire conversation wouldn't apply but here we are; it was easy to see coming with the Senate balanced this precariously. All the leadership in the world isn't going to bypass the kind of intransigence someone like Joe Manchin brings to the table.

Manic Moran

There is intransigence on both sides. If people weren't so insistent on larger spending packages, the smaller one that Manchin's more comfortable with likely would have passed by now. Presumably both sides are working on the basis of their constituencies. However....

But, no one offered a more cutting -- and honest -- assessment of exactly what happened than Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger in an interview with The New York Times.

"Nobody elected him to be F.D.R., they elected him to be normal and stop the chaos," said Spanberger, who represents a district that Biden won by a single point in 2020.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/04/politics/abigail-spanberger-joe-biden-2021/index.html

Realistically, she's not wrong. The 2020 election showed a sizeable gap between people who wanted Trump gone, and people who wanted Republicans gone. Perhaps Biden should take the win that he can get as opposed to holding out for the big one he cannot.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118119601#Comment_118119601

And how would that help them overturn the filibuster or even get any legislation passed?

You are severely restricted with what you can pass with a bare majority of senators (nothing apart from Reconciliation bills roughly once per year, which have strict rules about what kind of laws can be included in them - e.g. no electoral reform).

With 48 Senators. You can't even get those bills passed. You'd basically be restricted to any bills that the Republicans would allow you to pass - which is going to be severely limited given the current environment.

The filibuster is a massive impediment in such a divided political environment. Unless the Democrats can find some extra Senators it's not going anywhere anytime soon though. Based on the results from the other night they're going to be losing Senators if anything in 12 months time.

TomOnBoard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118123079#Comment_118123079

There's an awful lot of truth in that... Biden was elected as a White House fumigator, to get rid of a bad smell there, not as some great leader for the ages. In his current guise, there's an over-promising and under-delivering label sticking to a Democrat Congress that is barely hanging on, and they're satisfying no-one, especially folks who held their noses while voting him into the WH, but didn't give him enough elected Senators to achieve a whole lot.

AbusesToilets

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118123079#Comment_118123079

This both sides are wrong is utter guff. The office that Manchin likes to quote for their estimate of Bidens plan, rated his counter proposal as worse. He has no issues with massive spending, as long as it's on the military or bailing out Wall St. Republicans running their classic Two Christmas' strategy, I've no time for it.

Fact is he's acting purely out of selfish financial interests, just like Sinema. There's not an ounce of public interest between the lot of them.

TomOnBoard

Infrastructure $1.2 Trillion passed in the House. It now goes to Biden to sign.

Now that it has been de-linked from the $1.9 Trillion Care package, it will be interesting to see what Manchinema will do with that package.

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118126196#Comment_118126196

it passed with six democrats voting against it. It’ll be interesting to see if their GOP challengers next November get any purchase on using that against them, albeit some of the members who voted against it would need a stunning upset to lose so it likely won’t make much difference in most but I’m sure the GOP candidate will use it.

well it also has to get past the senate parliamentarian due to the way it’s done so stuff may be removed before it gets to those two senators.

TomOnBoard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118126940#Comment_118126940

It (Infrastructure) has already passed in the Senate.

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118127982#Comment_118127982

The reconciliation one has to go back to the Senate after it’s passed(presumably) by the house the week of the 15th of November. The bipartisan one has to be signed by Biden but it’s done.

sorry if it wasn’t clear but my two paragraphs were meant to mirror yours.

Rjd2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118123079#Comment_118123079

Arguably both main parties have dropped the ball somewhat over last few years. The GOP when Trump won in 2016 thinking initially that his movement was much more popular than it was when in fact his success was largely due to running against a very weak candidate in Clinton.

And yep I think its a fair point regarding Biden winning v Trump.

On 2024, while its been discussed quite a bit why Trump is a terrible choice for the GOP, the bigwigs at the DNC will be getting very nervous about Harris whose poll numbers are horrific at the moment.

I genuinely believe that Biden when he won would have been content to let Harris run in 2024, but we have seen nothing from her that proves she has a chance in an election especially if the GOP crush the midterms.

Lets not forget the abysmal president run which blew up so quickly despite so much media and financial support.

Do the Dems have a plan c?

https://www.sfgate.com/national-politics/article/Kamala-Harris-approval-rating-poll-history-Biden-16602512.php

serfboard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118137760#Comment_118137760

Harris is the favourite of the liberal rich in the US - the types that get all wound up about cultural and identity issues, and who, like their republican counterparts, despise the less well off. These are the types who are on college campuses driving their completely intolerant agenda, and not fighting on the real issue - inequality - because it doesn't affect them.

The Democratic establishment thought that they were being very clever installing Harris as VP, thinking that she could ride Joe's coat tails for a victory in 24. Or maybe she'd take up the job earlier, should Joe's health decline - and then campaign as incumbent.

Democrat voters have shown before what they will do when faced with a candidate who won't work for them - stay at home.

Anybody from the GOP would beat Harris - if they want to lose the next presidential election, then Harris is who the Democrats will stick with.

AbusesToilets

Harris's performance in California should have been enough to show her as the empty shirt she is. Democrats will get hammered if she is their candidate in 2024.

Rjd2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118138291#Comment_118138291

Yeah its pretty bleak that she had to drop out when she did as she knew she was going to lose her home state by a biggish margin.

The issue for Harris is she doesn't really know who her base is

She should have ran as a law and order centrist candidate and Obamaism as Biden showed their was clearly votes their, but she was chasing unicorns trying to focus on the progressive base who were never going to warm to her.

Some have lazily said racism is a key reason for her unpopularity, but look at the primary, was it just racists voting? And if so why did Obama come through his primary relatively easily and still has a huge hold over the party?

She just isn't a good politician at all.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118126940#Comment_118126940

There is absolutely zero chance any of those 6 lose to Republicans next year. They all represent deeply blue districts. Pressley, in fact, has run opposed by the Republicans in the General both times. In 2020 the vote % totals in the General for all 6 were: 86.6, 78.1, 71.6, 78.7, 84.2 and 64.3 (and the 64.3 was partly due a 3rd party pro-marijuana candidate getting 9.5%. Omar beat the Republican by 39.5%).

Like any Representative of a partisan district the only real challenge to them would be from a primary challenger. Typically in these kinds of districts those challenges come from the outside (as opposed to the centre). For that reason this vote actually shores them up from being primaried from the left since they can say that they did it in order to hold out for the maximum possible sized second bill.

Rjd2

Some good news for the Dems regarding 2022 at least.

New Hampshire will still be competitive , but Sununu would have won it relatively comfortably for the GOP.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/09/politics/chris-sununu-new-hampshire-senate/index.html

AbusesToilets

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/15/us/politics/republicans-2022-redistricting-maps.html

In a shock to absolutely no-one, the Republicans are set to mop the floor with the Democrats and enshrine their majorities.