To Spite Your Face
So here’s an old tale from the British Isles. Viking raiders landed in Scotland in 867 A.D., and were headed south. Saint Ebba was the Mother Superior of the convent at Coldingham, and was desperately worried that the Vikings would “defile” her nuns when they arrived. So, she urged them to cut their noses and upper lips, so that the Vikings wouldn’t find them attractive, and wouldn’t take their virginity. It worked; the Vikings found the disfigured nuns disgusting. So instead of any defiling, they trapped them all in the convent, and burnt the building, and them, to the ground. (I’m hoping getting her nuns immolated wasn’t how Ebba earned her sainthood, but I bet it was).
So that horrible tale is how we got the expression that my English mother often used: “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face”. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell must not have had an English mother. Last week, he found the perfect way to “cut off his nose”, and, like the tragic nuns of Coldingham, he managed to burn his whole Party.
Holding the Bag
The sequence of events went like this. Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer made a deal with the House Progressives back in October. The Progressives agreed to vote for the Biden infrastructure plan. In return Schumer and the Senate Democrats agreed to pass the Progressive supported Build-Back-Better plan by “budget reconciliation”. That allows the fifty Democrats in the Senate and the Vice President to bypass the inevitable Republican filibuster.
The House Progressives voted, and the infrastructure bill became law. But when Build-Back-Better reached the Senate, Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia balked and refused to vote for it. Since the Democrats have exactly fifty votes and depend on every Democrat to pass legislation, Manchin’s refusal meant that Build-Back-Better was dead. The House Progressives, got left holding “the bag”. (So that’s another expression from England – when a bunch of thieves stole things and got caught – there was always one in possession of the stolen stuff – left “holding the bag”. That was the one the went to jail or the gallows.)
Progressives were, to use a more modern expression, “salty”, but still continued to support the rest of the Democratic agenda. Their noses “remained intact”. (“Salty” is a US expression, supposedly from the 1920’s referring to sailors with hot tempers who become “unexpectedly enraged”. They worked in the sea, therefore they were “salty”).
Wrench in the Works
Meanwhile, Schumer, Manchin and Biden continued to negotiate to find some way to pass parts of Build-Back-Better, even if Manchin couldn’t agree to the whole package. Several times in the past few months they’ve been close to a deal, but Manchin always “torpedoed” it in the end. Democrats all over the country began to look at Manchin as the biggest block to the Democratic agenda, though there were fifty Republicans who also served that purpose. But somehow Manchin always was the one “throwing a wrench in the works”. (I figure torpedoes and wrenches are pretty self-explanatory).
That all came to a head a few weeks ago. Biden publicly rebuked Manchin, but Schumer remained quiet, still trying to get something done. Then Schumer and Manchin had a public rupture, each angrily telling the press their side of the story. It seemed, this time for sure, all the pieces of Build-Back-Better were done for, at least until after the November elections. That put a black cloud over the entire Democratic Congressional body. Historically, the Party that wins the White House loses ground in the Congress two years later. With the Senate tied, and the House narrowly Democratic by five votes, any losses would mean Republicans take control. No Build-Back-Better, No possibility of a Democratic majority, at least in the House.
No Brainer
Democrats desperately needed some legislative “wins” to campaign on. But Manchin seemed entrenched in his opposition to any Build-Back-Better proposals.
In order to solidify Manchin’s intransigence, McConnell made it clear that Senate Republicans wouldn’t support anything, even bills they themselves wanted to pass, if Schumer tried to pass any Build-Back-Better proposals by budget reconciliation. So Manchin and Schumer went silent. The Senate passed the Pact Act, a bill for US veterans who were victims of the military “burn pits” in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it went to the House for approval.
Schumer then proposed the “Chips Act”, giving companies incentives to build computer chips in the United States. It was a “no-brainer” bill for both parties. Democrats got jobs in the United States, Republicans got money to corporations. Everyone was happy. They could go out and tell their constituents they “helped”. (No Brainer – a problem or situation that does not require any thought or use of brain matter to come to the correct conclusion).
Who’s Salty Now
Then Manchin and Schumer pulled an “upset”. The day the Chips Act passed the Senate, they reached an agreement for a $700 billion “baby” Build-Back-Better. It was written as a finance bill, making it eligible for the fifty vote budget reconciliation process, and was exactly what McConnell wanted to prevent. But Chips was already going to the House for confirmation. This time McConnell was left “holding the bag”.
So it was McConnell’s turn to be “salty”. Now McConnell is known as a brilliant tactician, and no one; not Schumer, not Biden, not Manchin expected McConnell to “cut off his nose”. But that’s what he did.
The House made minor changes in the Pact Act, requiring the Senate to reconfirm its passage. McConnell had forty-one Republicans vote against it, filibustering its approval. He got Republicans to vote against American veterans who were disabled because they were in contact with poisonous fumes during war. To be clear: the Leader of the Republican Party led his Senators to vote against American warfighters, as those veterans, dying of cancer, stood on the Capitol steps. McConnell didn’t just slit a nostril, he removed the entire orifice.
Burn It Down
The veterans were more than “salty”; they were besides themselves (a Biblical reference, Acts 26:24 meaning really, really, angry). And they were represented by comedian Jon Stewart, who was quick to profanely point out how two-faced the Republicans were (a reference to the Roman God Janus, who had two faces and could say two different things at the same time).
So for the past four days, McConnell and the Republicans have had their “feet held to the fire” (you get that one). Stewart and members of the Veterans’ groups put enormous pressure on the Republican Senators to change their vote on the Pact Act. And not surprisingly, Schumer will give them the chance to do so, on Tuesday.
If Republicans switch and vote for the bill, they caved into pressure. If they stand firm, they estrange themselves from veterans throughout the country, and give Democrats another talking point. McConnell has already “cut off his nose to spite his face”. Now he has to decide whether to let veterans burn his whole party down too.
