My fellow Democrats – this essay is for you.\u00a0\u00a0I know, we are disappointed.\u00a0\u00a0When Joe Biden was elected, we hoped for change (wasn\u2019t that an Obama slogan?). There was so much to get done.\u00a0\u00a0The list was long:\u00a0\u00a0voting rights, police reform, health insurance reform, student loan forgiveness, infrastructure repair, tax reform, LGBTQ rights, early childhood education, affordable child care.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And there was also Covid, Afghanistan, China, inflation, and now, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a year and a half, it just doesn\u2019t seem like much has been accomplished. Sure we managed to pass Covid relief bills. But Covid itself seems to be endemic now, something we must learn to live with. When Joe Biden took office, there were 400,000 Covid deaths in the US ten months after the pandemic began. Now, fifteen months later, the death toll is approaching one million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Covid treatments have improved, the vaccinations seem to help, but the reality is that Covid is doing what Covid wants.\u00a0\u00a0The chance to \u201cstop Covid\u201d ended somewhere around June of 2021, when vaccinations and masks stopped being about medicine, and became all about political identity.\u00a0\u00a0Now Covid deaths seem to be a function of politics \u2013 did your ideology allow you to get the vaccine or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We thought that the death of George Floyd and the conviction of his killers would change how America is policed.\u00a0\u00a0But evidence shows that little has changed.\u00a0\u00a0Today the news is filled with another video: an unarmed Black man killed by a police officer.\u00a0\u00a0He was pulled over for a car license violation. It escalated into a life and death struggle.\u00a0\u00a0That continues to happen in our nation, as do mass shootings. We seem helpless to make changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Biden election triggered a tsunami of \u201cvoting reforms\u201d, with the purpose of keeping people from the polls, and electing Republicans to office.\u00a0\u00a0The solution to those \u201creforms\u201d sits in the US Senate, unable to overcome the united block of Republican Senators, aided and abetted by two Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that\u2019s the point.\u00a0\u00a0While Democrats won the White House, their grip on the House of Representatives and the Senate is tenuous.\u00a0\u00a0In the House, only four votes kept Nancy Pelosi in the Speaker\u2019s Chair instead of Kevin McCarthy.\u00a0\u00a0Those four votes allowed the investigation of the January 6th Insurrection, an event that literally would have been swept under the rug, like the broken glass from the halls of the Capitol, had McCarthy been in charge.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But a four vote margin means that any small block of Democratic Congressmen can control what becomes law and what does not.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s not the Democrats \u201cfault\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Republicans in both the House and the Senate have simply refused to participate in governing. Sixty Republican Congressmen even voted against military support for Ukraine.\u00a0\u00a0No deal can be made that brings them across the aisle, so Democrats must do everything by themselves. They even had to increase the debt limit so that the United States doesn\u2019t go into default without a Republican vote.\u00a0\u00a0That empowers every four Democratic Congressmen with a \u201cveto\u201d on every proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Minimal control is even worse in the Senate. Democrats and Republicans are tied at fifty-fifty.\u00a0\u00a0Only the Democratic Vice President\u2019s tiebreaker gives Democrats control.\u00a0\u00a0As President Biden said, every Democratic Senator has a \u201cPresidential veto\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0And, because Republicans have, as a block, refused to participate in \u201crunning\u201d the nation, two Democratic Senators in particular have stopped many of the most important legislative proposals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrats shouldn\u2019t focus their ire on Manchin and Sinema. It\u2019s 2022, and there\u2019s an election in November. I\u2019m well aware that \u201chistory\u201d informs us that Democrats will probably lose seats in the House and Senate. And since there are almost no seats \u201cto lose\u201d, Republicans are looking forward to regaining control of the Congress again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that doesn\u2019t have to be.\u00a0\u00a0The Senate is primed for Democratic expansion, in spite of the state voting law restrictions.\u00a0\u00a0Tim Ryan in Ohio, John Fetterman in Pennsylvania, Cheri Beasley in North Carolina, Mandela Barnes in Wisconsin and Val Demings in Florida all have strong candidacies to win current Republican seats.\u00a0\u00a0Raphael Warnock in Georgia, Mark Kelly in Arizona, and Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada need to defend their seats as well.\u00a0 Should most of these candidates win, then Manchin and Sinema will have less impact on what happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s especially true when it comes to Presidential appointments.\u00a0\u00a0Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has already made it clear.\u00a0\u00a0If he controls, Joe Biden will not fill another vacant Supreme Court seat.\u00a0\u00a0While Democrats thought about \u201cCourt Packing\u201d before the 2020 election, McConnell has discovered \u201cCourt Shrinking\u201d as a way to maintain his conservative majority on the Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And while Speaker Pelosi\u2019s control of the House looks even more at risk, re-districting may ultimately favor Democrats over Republicans, despite the \u201cRed Map\u201d Republican efforts to gerrymander. Former Attorney General Eric Holder and attorney Marc Elias\u2019s Democratic efforts in the Courts have held the worst Republican map-manipulations to a minimum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bottom line: Democrats can bemoan their failures, stay home in November, and let Republicans gain control of the House and Senate. We can say \u201ca pox on both your houses\u201d. And then, things will get infinitely worse. Or we can get to work. We can register voters and get them to the polls, regardless of the new voting restrictions. We can work for candidates, and most of all, we can SHOW UP in November. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we do, the actions of Manchin, Sinema, and the Republicans; won\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"