Biden is giving the left a masterclass in using power.

[Little Raven]

Great president, or greatest president?

You may not have noticed, because he is not nearly as in-your-face as his predecessor, but Joe Biden is currently teaching a lesson to left and centre-left parties around the world. True, it’s one they should have learned long ago, but still they should be paying the closest attention. Because Biden is delivering a masterclass.

...

Recall how Biden campaigned. He presented himself as a reassuring grandfather of the nation who would restore calm and decency to the US government, a steadying presence who believed in the old-fashioned virtue of quiet competence. He would not be exciting; he would not light up social media. When the right claimed he was a radical socialist, the charge did not stick – because Biden had been around for 50 years and people could see with their own eyes that he was a traditional moderate. That view was helpfully reinforced by those leftists who had long written Biden off as a dull, decrepit centrist, barely fit to shine the shoes of progressive favourites such as Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

But look at him now. Two-thirds into its first 100 days, and the Biden presidency has easily secured the right to be described as radical. Usually sober observers of the White House are going further: just two months after Biden took the oath, they are branding him a transformational president. The comparisons to Franklin D Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson have already begun. And Biden is encouraging them. Earlier this month, he sat for two hours with a group of presidential historians, pressing them hard on how FDR and LBJ had moved swiftly to make changes so profound and systemic they endure to this day. At the Thursday press conference, Biden made explicit the scale of his ambition. “I want to change the paradigm,” he said, three times.

[Jaymann]

Contrast the plane theater:

Florida Man is oblivious to TP hanging off his shoe, and no one respects him enough to intervene. Then he can't be troubled to close his umbrella, so he tosses it down for the peons to deal with.

Biden slips three times climbing the steps, but he owns the moment and salutes the crowd.

[Kraken]

Biden wasn't my choice in the primaries -- second from last -- and I wasn't thrilled about voting for him in the general. I cheerfully admit to being wrong about him. He is going above and beyond to go the extra mile to give it his all and exceed expectations with his compassion and empathetic advocacy (sorry, at least 90% of the 650 nurse recommendation letters that I've edited contain one of those phrases and I hate them all. Except when they write "empathic." That one makes me think of Deanna Troi and smile.)

To be critical, Joe Biden is no Counselor Troi.

I should go to bed, shouldn't I?

[Lorini]

Biden wasn't my choice in the primaries -- second from last -- and I wasn't thrilled about voting for him in the general. I cheerfully admit to being wrong about him. He is going above and beyond to go the extra mile to give it his all and exceed expectations with his compassion and empathetic advocacy (sorry, at least 90% of the 650 nurse recommendation letters that I've edited contain one of those phrases and I hate them all. Except when they write "empathic." That one makes me think of Deanna Troi and smile.)

To be critical, Joe Biden is no Counselor Troi.

I should go to bed, shouldn't I?

Me as well, same position too! But it just shows us how simply being competent and rational can take you so so far. These solutions that he's doing are rational solutions, no matter how much the media (main and social) wants to brand them as leftist.

[Holman]

I'm really happy to see that Biden learned the lessons of Obama administration. He was right there when the last Democrat's optimism got steamrollered by GOP cynicism and lies.

I think he genuinely believes in the ideal of bipartisanship, but he has far fewer illusions about it than we feared in the primary.

I'm starting to believe that the country might actually shake off Reagan's legacy of anti-government despair.

[Kraken]

In 2013 I wrote that the New Gilded Age would end with a new progressive era -- "the only questions are how and when." Dare we hope that's it's happening now?

[El Guapo]

In 2013 I wrote that the New Gilded Age would end with a new progressive era -- "the only questions are how and when." Dare we hope that's it's happening now?

There's still a decent chance that the GOP consolidates a right-wing one party state within the next decade-ish. But if the popular will is allowed to be reflected in election results, then I expect the near term to be progressive.

[Carpet_pissr]

Maybe if he can get enough time to get some real, and needed infrastructure items accomplished (Big Stuff), and people SEE that, or the results thereof....there is a glimmer of hope. Transformative stuff that brings us in line with modern Western countries.

[Paingod]

I think Biden has done a great job thus far given the absolute shit-swirling-toilet-spiral Florida Man left him with.

My best indicator of a political leader doing well is that I can sleep at night and don't feel the need to check the news every 30 minutes to see if he's started a war with North Korea or done some other equally insane thing.

Maybe if he can get enough time to get some real, and needed infrastructure items accomplished (Big Stuff), and people SEE that, or the results thereof....there is a glimmer of hope. Transformative stuff that brings us in line with modern Western countries.

You mean things that make the GOP angry? Things that, if accomplished, they'll either ignore or take credit for?

[Blackhawk]

You mean things that make the GOP angry? Things that, if accomplished, they'll either ignore or take credit for?

You mean 'block or reverse', right? Trump taught me that any positive changes are, at best, temporary, and many of them will be neutralized before they ever take effect.

[YellowKing]

One of the most telling signs of Biden's success is how little the GOP has been able to fault him for. Their only angles of criticism so far have been mental acuity, which comes off as schoolyard whining, and the general "big liberal spender" label which has fallen on deaf ears since the vast majority of the public supported (and benefitted from) the stimulus package.

You could argue that immigration has been his most vulnerable spot so far, but even then it's been difficult for the GOP to convey the "immigrant threat" without Trump pounding the war drums.

I can't overstate how excellently Biden has negated the right's attacks by not giving them an easy target. If Biden had framed the stimulus as a victory for the progressive left, the right could have seized on it. Instead he frames it as a victory for all Americans, and any criticism the right levels at it is a potential attack against their own.

[El Guapo]

Biden's well established public image as a kindly grandfather is a borderline political superpower.

[malchior]

Biden's well established public image as a kindly grandfather is a borderline political superpower.

It definitely helps a lot. He is deflecting a lot of the 'personality' criticism that Obama couldn't. That said, the GOP is driving media narratives more effectively than I think people are giving them credit for here. Still he seems to at least be talking strongly about the 'big issues' of the day around voting rights and economic recovery. That feels like a winning strategy in the short-term at least.

[Zarathud]

I keep talking to scared rich people who fear Biden, so Fox’s message is landing some places.

[Paingod]

I keep talking to scared rich people who fear Biden, so Fox’s message is landing some places.

What's funny is that they're living in fear of a shoe that will never drop. It's pure fiction.

I love the people who still think Florida Man has a master plan and is going to spring his trap any day now. Any day. Any day. Now? How about now? Please? Oh, Lawd, where are you? Save US!

Dude's just off eating stale KFC he had shipped into his resort and wallowing in misery.

[Holman]

I keep talking to scared rich people who fear Biden, so Fox’s message is landing some places.

What's funny is that they're living in fear of a shoe that will never drop. It's pure fiction.

If they're just regular I've-Got-Mine rich people and not Qunatics, they're pissed about the promise of higher taxes.

The effects will be dire. The rich will starve and suffer exactly as they did in the early 2010's. We could actually see multi-millionaires reduced to the status of still being multi-millionaires!

[Jag]

I keep talking to scared rich people who fear Biden, so Fox’s message is landing some places.

Same here. Which is fine. I can deal with greedy people not wanting to pay higher taxes. It's the Trumpist nutjobs who still worry me.

[Lagom Lite]

The progressive left is a thing now, though. Right? Without Bernie, AOC/Squad and hordes of angry millennials (and the more and more overt fascism from the right which gotta turn some neoliberals as well) Biden wouldn't be able to rule much differently than Obama did.

[Zarathud]

Getting a ruling that reconciliation can be done by amendment to the current fiscal year is a huge win. It also relieves the pressure to act on the filibuster.

Biden can turn the Republican playbook of obstruction into a weapon because regular people are still hurting and infrastructure is popular. Biden can say he’s passed more relief in 2021 than any other president and still blame the Republicans if it’s not enough.

[Holman]

The progressive left is a thing now, though. Right? Without Bernie, AOC/Squad and hordes of angry millennials (and the more and more overt fascism from the right which gotta turn some neoliberals as well) Biden wouldn't be able to rule much differently than Obama did.

It is, but electorally the USA is still poised on a balance between center-left and center-right. The task of the progressive left is to frame issues and policies that attract the former without completely alienating the latter. (See the fact that the 50/50 split in the Senate includes two Dems who are openly center-right.)

[gbasden]

It is, but electorally the USA is still poised on a balance between center-right and fascist.

FTFY

[Kraken]

It is, but electorally the USA is still poised on a balance between center-right and fascist.

FTFY

You beat me to it.

There's a more salient reason that Biden is reaching farther left than he might have otherwise in his effort to "build back better:" the pandemic left the social and economic status quo in tatters, and Florida Man blew up politics-as-usual, domestically and internationally. Without those two breaks from the past, and with Congress almost tied, Biden would be governing as Obama II and Bernie & the Squad would still be sniping from the side.

[malchior]

Unless Joe can win over Machin this honeymoon might be over soon. He op-ed tonight in the Washington Post that is very concerning. He very well may torpedo the infrastructure bill. Filibuster reform is dead Jim but that isn't a surprise. Hopes that maybe Manchin was negotiating are possibly dashed now. He essentially stands up for the undemocratic nature of the institution and asks *his party* to work with the Republicans. It is unbelievable that after Trump, the election nullification efforts, and 1/6 that he expects bipartisanship. What world does he live in? Our democracy is in deep trouble and fools like him refuse to see reality. It is infuriating.

WaPo

When Americans vote to send their two senators to Washington, they trust that they will work to represent the interests of their state on equal footing with 98 other senators. I have always said, “If I can’t go home and explain it, I can’t vote for it.” And I respect that each of my colleagues has the same responsibility to their constituents.

It’s no accident that a state as small as West Virginia has the same number of senators as California or Texas. It goes to the heart of what representative government is all about. The Founding Fathers understood that the challenges facing a rural or small state would always be very different from a more populous state. Designating each state with the same number of senators — regardless of the population — ensured that rural and small states and the Americans who live in them would always have a seat at the table.


The filibuster is a critical tool to protecting that input and our democratic form of government. That is why I have said it before and will say it again to remove any shred of doubt: There is no circumstance in which I will vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster. The time has come to end these political games, and to usher a new era of bipartisanship where we find common ground on the major policy debates facing our nation.

[Isgrimnur]

Congrats, you’re in charge of working with them. Let us know how it goes.

[Smoove_B]

Manchin is 73 years old. He DNGAF about the future of anything. Would not surprise me if he retires before 2024, quite frankly and he's perfectly happy just maintaining the new (old) status quo until then.

Now Sinema? She's the one that needs to be examined.

[malchior]

One more reaction to this. It strikes me as particularly as a 'America is broken' problem that one of Manchin's objections on multi-reconciliation is an increase against the massive Corporate tax break from 2017 that blew up the deficit. To put that cut in context, the Chamber asked for a cut from 35% to 25%. The GOP gave them 21%. Biden was talking 28% (probably to land around 25%). It should be unbelievable but it is all too believable. The United States is looking ungovernable again. I think we need to steal ownership of the British phrase, "It is the hope that kills you".

[El Guapo]

Unless Joe can win over Machin this honeymoon might be over soon. He op-ed tonight in the Washington Post that is very concerning. He very well may torpedo the infrastructure bill. Filibuster reform is dead Jim but that isn't a surprise. Hopes that maybe Manchin was negotiating are possibly dashed now. He essentially stands up for the undemocratic nature of the institution and asks *his party* to work with the Republicans. It is unbelievable that after Trump, the election nullification efforts, and 1/6 that he expects bipartisanship. What world does he live in? Our democracy is in deep trouble and fools like him refuse to see reality. It is infuriating.

WaPo

When Americans vote to send their two senators to Washington, they trust that they will work to represent the interests of their state on equal footing with 98 other senators. I have always said, “If I can’t go home and explain it, I can’t vote for it.” And I respect that each of my colleagues has the same responsibility to their constituents.

It’s no accident that a state as small as West Virginia has the same number of senators as California or Texas. It goes to the heart of what representative government is all about. The Founding Fathers understood that the challenges facing a rural or small state would always be very different from a more populous state. Designating each state with the same number of senators — regardless of the population — ensured that rural and small states and the Americans who live in them would always have a seat at the table.


The filibuster is a critical tool to protecting that input and our democratic form of government. That is why I have said it before and will say it again to remove any shred of doubt: There is no circumstance in which I will vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster. The time has come to end these political games, and to usher a new era of bipartisanship where we find common ground on the major policy debates facing our nation.

What's the basis for thinking that Manchin will torpedo the infrastructure bill? Given the ruling that Democrats can 'amend' the reconciliation bill, it's pretty much a given that they'll use that for the infrastructure bill, right? And as long as that can pass with 50 votes, Manchin may well force Democrats to reduce the size / cut parts of it, but the odds that he'll sink it altogether seem pretty close to zero.

As for the broader issues posed by Manchin publishing this...they're concerning but this doesn't panic me. It's long seemed like the best route on this stuff is to not fully abolish the filibuster but to gut it to the point where it becomes meaningless. Depending on how often Democrats can amend the reconciliation bills, that route plus adding one or two subject matter exceptions (similar to how judges and budget reconciliation items are exempted) probably gets Democrats 95% of what they want. If Manchin ultimately goes along with a filibuster exemption for voting / civil rights bills, then he can go home and say that he heroically saved the filibuster and stood up to the radical left who wanted to change the Senate, and Democrats can pass substantially all that they need to pass.

Also, bear in mind that Manchin, as a bizarro Susan Collins, just wants his bipartisanship to be loud while his partisanship is quiet. As long as he gets bold faced headlines like "Manchin Fights Democrats' Calls to Abolish the Filibuster" and "Manchin Sinks Controversial Biden Cabinet Appointee" then he has what he wants and he can go along with aggressive budget reconciliation which almost no voters will pay attention to. Bear in mind that Manchin sunk all of one cabinet nomination.

Now, if Manchin won't let Democrats pass voting reforms...then I'll freak out.

[malchior]

What's the basis for thinking that Manchin will torpedo the infrastructure bill? Given the ruling that Democrats can 'amend' the reconciliation bill, it's pretty much a given that they'll use that for the infrastructure bill, right?

He signaled he was against using 'out of order' rules to pass these bills. It was a shot across the bow but might just be negotiating.

And as long as that can pass with 50 votes, Manchin may well force Democrats to reduce the size / cut parts of it, but the odds that he'll sink it altogether seem pretty close to zero.

I don't think it's near zero but it very well may be much smaller and cut out critical components of the plan due to the Corporate tax implications.

As for the broader issues posed by Manchin publishing this...they're concerning but this doesn't panic me. It's long seemed like the best route on this stuff is to not fully abolish the filibuster but to gut it to the point where it becomes meaningless. Depending on how often Democrats can amend the reconciliation bills, that route plus adding one or two subject matter exceptions (similar to how judges and budget reconciliation items are exempted) probably gets Democrats 95% of what they want. If Manchin ultimately goes along with a filibuster exemption for voting / civil rights bills, then he can go home and say that he heroically saved the filibuster and stood up to the radical left who wanted to change the Senate, and Democrats can pass substantially all that they need to pass.

I read his full throated defense of the filibuster as a red line on even voting/civil rights bills. I see that as nearly dead.

Also, bear in mind that Manchin, as a bizarro Susan Collins, just wants his bipartisanship to be loud while his partisanship is quiet. As long as he gets bold faced headlines like "Manchin Fights Democrats' Calls to Abolish the Filibuster" and "Manchin Sinks Controversial Biden Cabinet Appointee" then he has what he wants and he can go along with aggressive budget reconciliation which almost no voters will pay attention to. Bear in mind that Manchin sunk all of one cabinet nomination.

Maybe. We'll see but stakes are too high for this sort of absolute bullshit. That he is selling this 'rural' protection scam when the electoral college was 90% about slavery is just...frustrating. Maybe it is all politics but it is cynical politics when we need heroes to look beyond their selfish interests right now.

Now, if Manchin won't let Democrats pass voting reforms...then I'll freak out.

Right and that is what concerns me. Again I'm pretty sure that's near dead. He either needs to find 10 Republicans who will join HR.1 or he needs to go along with a carve out. Otherwise, we're almost certainly fated to see our democracy die.

[Kraken]

Now, if Manchin won't let Democrats pass voting reforms...then I'll freak out.

That's the bottom line. If Republicans are allowed to cheat their way into power, Biden's agenda will be blocked in two years and reversed in four. Republicans can't win fair elections, Democrats can't win rigged ones, and rigging is full speed ahead right now.

[Jaymann]

Manchin is one of the nine people sitting at a table with a Nazi.

[LordMortis]

Getting a ruling that reconciliation can be done by amendment to the current fiscal year is a huge win. It also relieves the pressure to act on the filibuster.

Biden can turn the Republican playbook of obstruction into a weapon because regular people are still hurting and infrastructure is popular. Biden can say he’s passed more relief in 2021 than any other president and still blame the Republicans if it’s not enough.

Yeah, but who cares if it's your face that's getting eaten? I mean your face should be eaten. And Biden is trying to make sure that doesn't happen.

[malchior]

Now Sinema? She's the one that needs to be examined.

Beyond the 'Fuck Off' Instagram unserious-ness recently some folks got footage of her talking to business leaders about how they can give her cover to knock down the PRO act. I still can't shake the feeling she is a major poll drop away from switching parties. The feeling is getting stronger. The video is actually fairly reasonable in the abstract but her current views are definitely not in step with her party which is interesting and Hayes I think nails the subtext perfectly.

[El Guapo]

eh, Sinema's talking to a business group. She's just saying "I welcome any concerns that you have about the bill, happy to discuss them." I would expect that you could find similar clips like this where she's talking to labor groups, environmental groups, etc.