Try out an idea:
Democrat should thank Kyrsten Sinema.
I realize the idea appears preposterous on its face. After all, every Democrat has heard that the crazy, self-serving turncoat senator sabotaged some of Democrats' biggest, boldest ideas. A "real" Democrat is already preparing to run against her in the Democratic primary.
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| Washington Post photo |
Sinema is the maverick McCain of the Democrats. Arizona is barely purple. Democrats win when the Republican candidate is an unelectable kook, and then only barely. Biden carried Arizona by a few thousand votes. Candidates Kari Lake and Blake Masters both lost narrowly, even after both sabotaged their campaigns by sticking with a strong, crazy version of Trump election denial. Had Republican Doug Ducey been eligible to run for re-election he would have won in a landslide. Arizona is not a blue state where a conventional Democrat/Republican matchup elects Democrats. Mark Kelley won because he is an astronaut, a hero, and the husband of a former congressperson brain-damaged by a gunshot while doing a Town Hall. His opponent was an election-denying kook. That is what it takes for a conventional Democrat to win in Arizona.
As an Independent Sinema will still caucus with Democrats--no real change. She frustrated Democrats on a close-vote issue of the carried interest taxation loophole for hedge fund managers and she voted against the minimum wage bill. She held up the infrastructure bill and got some concessions. She positions herself as wavering, so it added drama to Senate votes. Still, amid all that, Democrats passed historic laws on infrastructure, jobs, child poverty, sentencing for marijuana, gun control, same-sex marriage, prescription drug costs, and climate change. With all the Democratic complaining about how Democratic bills would have been stronger if Sinema voted like Elizabeth Warren, somehow Democrats and Biden have a record of surprising achievement, notwithstanding a 50-50 senate. A Republican senator would have killed all that. With Sinema in office, they passed. Accept the win.
The perfect is the enemy of the good. Elizabeth Warren could not win a senate seat in Arizona. A person positioned as a maverick can. Democrats complain about Sinema. That helps her. Their complaints prove she is a real maverick.
The laws Democrats might have passed would have been more progressive without Sinema's concessions. But that isn't America and it isn't Arizona. Republican candidates for the U.S. House won 52-48 in the 2022 midterm elections. Democrats have not yet sold their message and policies to a clear majority of the American public. Since Democrats justifiably consider themselves the defenders of democracy and legitimate elections in this era of Trump, they need to face up to the verdict of democracy. Policies that are moral and just and righteous and critically important to the future of the planet only become law if they reflect the opinions of the American people.
The problem for Democrats who prefer a real progressive to a Kyrsten Sinema isn't Sinema. The problem is that Democrats have not yet persuaded the tipping point voters of America to agree with them.
9 comments:
Ranked choice voting would get her re-elected. Alaska, a conservative state re-elected Murkowski who Trump hated and a democrat who is a Native American. Ranked choice voting kept Sarah Palin from being elected. I wish The Who country had ranked choice voting.
As far as I've heard, she hasn't changed her position on any issues. So, whether she calls herself a Democrat or an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, nothing has really changed.
Point one: astute assessment of Sinema and the upshot of her decision for Democrats.
Point two: I can't let the self(Democratic)-serving comparison to McCain slide. Sinema is indeed a "real maverick". She has proven consistent in her principles and their application. McCain was not. He simply blew with the prevailing winds of Beltway approbation, including--shamefully, cravenly--before AND after the establishment news media stabbed the heretofore moderate or independent maverick in the back when partisan exigency dictated, suddenly dubbing McCain a right-wing racist extremist in order to ruthlessly, dishonestly boost Barack Obama for President. Milquetoast Mitt Romney has displayed the same Stockholm syndrome ingratiation with the folks who claimed he wanted women back in the kitchen and blacks back in chains. Now he sucks up again. McCain's vote saving Obamacare--suddenly "Maverick Again!"--was in that same greasy, feckless spirit.
By the way, the infamous woman with the bedhair said Obama was an "Arab", and McCain's immediate response was bit odd whether she'd said that or said "Muslim". "No, ma'am", he corrected, "he's a decent family man....".
Structural changes to Senate procedures must occur if the people will get a full airing of pending bills. Instead the rules require a floor vote of 60 to take a bill to the floor for discussion or a vote. The filibuster alone has highjacked the purpose of the Senate to be a cooling saucer of emotional bills boiling out of the lower chamber. Originalists on the Constitution note there is no mention of a two thirds vote necessary to pass legislation except to overrule a veto by the President. "Party" is not to be found in the Constitution either. Perhaps the real threat to democracy is the political party system.
Regarding Sinema, she would be a voice among 100 senators discussing, debating, challenging policy, forming consensus on pending legislation. Which is the purpose of the upper chamber.
Sen. Sinema was more Progressive at the beginning of her career in politics, but wasn't having success. As she moderated she started winning elections and I suspect hasn't necessarily changed her values, but has simply become more pragmatic. I think she's voted against things she actually was in favor of. OK, I guess...it's the best we can hope for in Arizona.
My read on the state is that if a more Progressive Democrat challenges her in '24 it will split the vote and the party won't risk it.
Also, let's not call right wing extremists "kooks". Kooks are harmless. They are not.
Note to commenter and comment-readers:
"David of Ashland" has offered comments for publication that go beyond my breaking point. A recent one begins: "Of course Obama's not a Muslim, he's a Hebrew Israelite.. . . Hebrew Israelites are really a radical Christian Cult of Racism and Rage."
Perhaps I serve some public good by letting "David of Ashland" reveal the dark hole that Q-Anon people and people within the conspiratorial Trump-supporting populist right have created for themselves. But on balance I have decided in the other direction and concluded that comments like his--apparently sincere and not done as parody--just normalize and legitimize the crazy. It occurred to me that "David" is doing some kind of Onion-style parody, but I think not. David" is anonymous, but real. It is useful to know what is out there, but letting it take place within this blog comment section colors both the blog and his fellow commenters.
If "David of Ashland" wants to promote those ideas he should create his own blog and invite readers here to read it.
Peter Sage
According to the Hidden Tribes Survey, 8% of Americans are committed progressives, 25% are committed conservatives, and the remaining 67% make up the “exhausted majority“ who are totally alienated and fed up with the fighting between the two extreme wings of American politics.
Kyrsten Sinema may have figured out how to appeal to that exhausted majority.
There are emerging signs of a massive political backlash against both the woke left and the QAnon right. It can’t happen soon enough for me…
Not promulgating QAnon conspiracy theories is a good choice. They get enough help from some Republican leaders. As we speak, Gov. DeSantis is promising to have a grand jury investigate those pesky COVID vaccines. Hopefully he’ll get to the bottom of why the government is injecting everyone with microchips. Next, maybe he’ll look into those Jewish space lasers that Marjorie Taylor Greene warned us about.
Dave, I don't know about the whole Country, but I would sure like to see it in Oregon, along with Open Primaries.
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