{"id":5253,"date":"2022-01-17T09:15:25","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T14:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=5253"},"modified":"2022-01-17T09:15:29","modified_gmt":"2022-01-17T14:15:29","slug":"common-purpose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2022\/01\/17\/common-purpose\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Purpose"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sinema<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

She seemed almost in tears as she stood in the well of the Senate.\u00a0\u00a0Arizona\u2019s Kirsten Sinema was committing the ultimate political insult. She was\u00a0telling the President of the United States, the leader of her party, that she would not support him.\u00a0\u00a0And she was doing it as publicly as possible,\u00a0\u00a0as his motorcade was driving to the Capitol and to her, the Mountain coming to Mohammad, to ask her and fifty other Senators for help.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It doesn\u2019t politically get more \u201cin your face\u201d than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the \u201calmost\u201d tears weren\u2019t for the possible consequences of her insubordination.\u00a0\u00a0No, she was choking up for the need for bipartisanship. She is trying to end the dramatic divide that splits the American body politic into two immobile forces.\u00a0\u00a0She was speaking in favor of the filibuster, an arcane rule of the Senate that, in its present incarnation, required sixty Senators to agree to even discuss any piece of business, any issue.\u00a0\u00a0The \u201cgreatest deliberative body in the world\u201d is shackled from even talking about something, anything, without a super-majority agreeing to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before we confer sainthood on the second year Senator from Arizona, recognize that she has made an objective political calculation.\u00a0\u00a0The President is \u201cweak\u201d politically, with a current approval rating of 45% (Reuters<\/a>).\u00a0\u00a0And Sinema is from a \u201cpurple\u201d state,\u00a0 depending on the support of \u201cMcCain Republicans\u201d. They are still angry at their Party for the insults poured on their deceased hero by former President Trump.\u00a0\u00a0Sinema\u2019s mathematics obviously conclude that insulting Biden costs fewer votes than standing for the Senate\u2019s\u00a0
\u201cregular order\u201d, a frequent talking point of McCain in his last few years.\u00a0\u00a0This was Sinema declaring independence from the Democratic establishment, her \u201cthumbs down\u201d moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Joe Biden himself, was a \u201cman of the Senate\u201d who stood with McCain for \u201cregular order\u201d (including the filibuster) for his thirty years there.\u00a0\u00a0The President has made a journey since his inauguration speech a year ago, when he called for unity and common purpose.\u00a0\u00a0In his first year in office, he was struck with a fierce reality:\u00a0\u00a0in the US Congress there is no common purpose.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans have made it clear:\u00a0\u00a0no matter how reasonable, or necessary, or even common sense a proposal might be, if the Democrats are for it, they are against it.\u00a0\u00a0Not a Republican voted for the first Covid relief package.\u00a0\u00a0Only a handful voted for the \u201cbipartisan\u201d infrastructure bill.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, the Republicans in the Senate were willing to temporarily break the filibuster itself, so Democrats could raise the debt ceiling and keep the Nation from going into financial default. Just as long as they didn\u2019t have to vote for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Debt Ceiling<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That requires just a bit more analysis.  Clearly every Senator with the exception of the \u201chair-on-fire\u201d crazies like Ron Johnson and Rand Paul, recognized that the debt ceiling had to be raised.  They all, Democrat and Republican alike, knew that it had nothing to do with future spending.  They were simply paying the bills from what they ALL had voted for in the past two years, the heavy Covid relief bills that kept the Nation out of financial depression when the pandemic hit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Republicans recognize that the American public doesn\u2019t quite get the \u201cdebt ceiling\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0It looks like spending, like getting a bigger credit card limit so more money can go out.\u00a0\u00a0In fact, it is getting a bigger credit limit, but to cover money already spent.\u00a0But\u00a0that distinction will be lost in the 2022 campaigns, when Republicans will rail against the \u201cbig spending\u201d Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So Republicans forced Democrats to break the filibuster, in order to pass the debt ceiling. That way, no Republican had to vote for it. That might be \u201csmart\u201d politics, but it definitely denies the common purpose of good governance.  That doesn\u2019t matter anymore, the \u201cmen of the Senate\u201d just want to win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the Record<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

So last week, Biden called out the Senate, and especially Sinema and Manchin, the roadblocks to defeating a filibuster.\u00a0\u00a0Biden said they had to make a choice:\u00a0\u00a0support voting rights or be listed with the great racists of our history:\u00a0\u00a0Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, Jefferson Davis.\u00a0\u00a0It doesn\u2019t get starker than that.\u00a0\u00a0The President, the \u201cman of the Senate\u201d, is calling members of his own political party racists.\u00a0\u00a0The unity and common purpose of a year ago is lost in the raw political calculations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chuck Schumer is doubling down on the President\u2019s threat, forcing the Senate to vote on breaking the filibuster to debate the Voting Rights Acts.\u00a0\u00a0Schumer knows he doesn\u2019t have the votes to win, but is \u201cputting everyone on record\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0He\u2019s making sure that all the Republicans are \u201cagainst voting rights\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0But he is placing his \u201cpurple\u201d Senators, like Tester of Montana and Kelly of Arizona, in a bind. Like Sinema, they depend on Never-Trump independents to get re-elected.\u00a0\u00a0It would be different if the votes were there to do it, but Sinema and Manchin have made it abundantly clear they are not on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a symbolic  vote, for the record, and thirty-second ads  in the 2022 campaign.  But it is another move of division, not one of common purpose.  That doesn\u2019t make it wrong, just sad, on this Martin Luther King day of 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sinema She seemed almost in tears as she stood in the well of the Senate.\u00a0\u00a0Arizona\u2019s Kirsten Sinema was committing the ultimate political insult. She was\u00a0telling the President of the United States, the leader of her party, that she would not support him.\u00a0\u00a0And she was doing it as publicly as possible,\u00a0\u00a0as his motorcade was driving to … Continue reading “Common Purpose”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCommon Purpose : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Our government is defined by division rather than common purpose. 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