In October 1964, Ronald Reagan gave a speech on behalf of Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, the right-wing extremist nominee of the Republican Party, known as the “a time for choosing” speech. Barry Goldwater went on to lose the election by one of the largest margins in history.
I hate to borrow a turn of phrase from Ronald Reagan who used it to promote an extremist in 1964, but it aptly describes the situation the pro-democracy political party in America, the Democratic Party, finds itself in today.
What will Senate Democrats do to stop the anti-democratic, anti-majoritarian, crypto-fascist MAGA/QAnon personality cult of Donald Trump that tried to overthrow American democracy in a coup d’etat on January 6, and is still engaged in a slow-motion ongoing seditious insurrection against American democracy?
There are two putative Democratic Senators who stand in the way of the Democratic agenda to restore and renew American democracy, and build an economy that is more equitable and just to the American working class: Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.
They insisted that they could persuade ten Republican “patriotic senators” to vote in favor of the January 6 Commission. They failed miserably. Only six Republicans voted for the January 6 Commission, and there is no reported evidence that these Republicans were swayed by any arguments of Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. They voted the way they did based upon their own judgment.
To his credit, Joe Manchin did vote for the January 6 Commission, and held Republicans to task after the vote.
To her shame, Kyrsten Sinema could not be bothered to even show up for the vote. She has avoided the media to explain her failure to vote. See Laurie Roberts at The Republic, Sorry, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. You are no John McCain. Nor has Kyrsten Sinema held her Republican colleagues to task, as Joe Manchin did, after the vote. How could she, after she did not even bother to vote herself? She has disappeared into the safety of her chicken bunker.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has had enough of “Fun with Dick and Jane,” er, Joe and Kyrsten. When the Senate comes back from its Memorial Day recess next week, Senator Schumer intends to make it “a time for choosing” for these prima donna senators. For Democrats, GOP filibuster of Jan. 6 commission tests ‘limits of bipartisanship’:
Democrats have the power to change the Senate rules but lack the unanimity it would require of the 50-member caucus. And when the Senate returns from a weeklong Memorial Day recess, Schumer appears ready to test his members.
He promised votes on the Paycheck Fairness Act and a bill to protect voting rights — both have viable paths to a majority vote but not 60 to defeat a filibuster. He said LGBTQ rights and gun legislation may also come up.
“We have seen the limits of bipartisanship and the resurgence of Republican obstructionism,” Schumer told reporters after the Jan. 6 commission vote, which won 54 senators. Six Republicans crossed the aisle.
When it comes to changing filibuster rules, the New York Democrat said “everything is on the table.”
“I think the events of the last few days probably made every member of our caucus realize that a lot of our Republican colleagues are not willing to work with us on a whole lot of issues, even issues where we [have] bipartisan [agreement],” Schumer said.
Of course, it isn’t just up to the majority leader. Two vocal proponents of the 60-vote threshold, Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., won’t be easily persuaded.
But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is testing their limits.
Among Democrats, the debate over the filibuster is about whether it promotes bipartisanship or hinders necessary action.
[F]or Democrats, it raises a haunting question: If the two parties can’t even agree to inquire about a violent attack on the U.S. Capitol that endangered their lives – for which there was a bipartisan agreement – what hope is there for bipartisanship on ideologically contentious issues?
“This is just the final nail in the coffin of the Republicans completely selling their soul to Donald Trump and his perceived base,” said Jim Messina, a former campaign manager and White House aide for ex-President Barack Obama.
Messina urged Biden not to repeat Obama’s mistake by relying on GOP cooperation for his agenda. On Capitol Hill, many Democrats share his viewpoint, but not all of them.
“That’s the preferred way to go,” Schumer said of two-party cooperation. “It’s just not possible in many different areas with this Republican Senate.” In the near-term, he said using a special budget process to pass infrastructure spending without GOP votes is “certainly a consideration.”
One way or another, Schumer said, the Democratic-led Congress will deliver “big, bold action.”
This will require two prima donna Democrats with an indefensible attachment to the Jin Crow relic Senate filibuster rule to finally come to their senses and discard the Senate filibuster rule.
Do they want to save American democracy from the existential threat of Trumpism, the new American fascism, or do they want to appease Mitch McConnell and enable his policy of “total obstruction” by continuing to support the Jim Crow relic Senate filibuster rule?
Do they stand with the pro-democracy Democratic caucus, or the crypto-fascist Sedition Caucus of the Party of Trump?
It is a time for choosing.
Contact your senator and tell her to choose saving American democracy.
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Amen, Wileybud. I do recall that Sinema was Schumer’s choice, rammed down our throats as usual by the conservative party elites.
I’m not impressed with Schumer, not even slightly. However, I don’t want him to fail and I don’t think he deserves these two DINO idiots making his job impossible. He’s got to do something about them, I don’t know what but he better think of something.
Sinema is getting a lot of bad press for failing to show up for the Jan 6 Commission vote. And that’s what should happen. Sinema and Manchin need to be reminded that what they’re doing is despicable and dangerous and it’s just wrong. I will go so far as to say immoral because if Biden can’t get any of these important bills passed, then we’re on a fast track to lose the Republic.
I expected Sinema to be a problem but not this bad.
Sharpie & Liza, Sinema is what she is & would not be surprised if the “good” Senator flipped to the Repukes. She is definitely a waste but equal blame is on Schumer as he’s the one who recruited her, cleared the primary for her and has not learned his lesson as he’ll be doing the same thing today, especially in Florida where the last person he wants in the Senate is Alan Grayson. That’s the problem with establishment conservadem leadership. They want more election losing conservadems & would prefer hard core Repukes over progressively minded types. He needs to butt out of all Senate primaries & leave the outcome to locals.
Judy Stahl
@judy_stahl
Just tried to call
@SenatorSinema @kyrstensinema’s DC office to tell her to end the filibuster but the voice mail is full. Just like we have ZERO explanation of why she did not show up to vote on the #January6thCommission.
She welcomed our work to elect her. Now she ignores us.
11:01 AM · May 31, 2021·Twitter Web App
Sharpie, it would be interesting if Sinema ran next time as a Republican. I think she would lose here in Arizona. But it seems possible that could be the game she’s playing, waiting for a kinder, gentler less Fascist GOP. If so, she’s got a long wait. Ditto for Liz Cheney.
Using the duck based method of fact finding I believe Sinema will eventually identify as a Republican.
You can’t fake the science of the walk-quack methodology.
She’s literally giving the GQP everything they want during Biden’s presidency.
Kyrsten Sinema has been quoted as saying, “I do not bend to pressure from either party.”
Does being a registered Democrat who ran for public office as a Democrat and used the Democratic Party resources to win her election mean anything at all to her? Who exactly is she representing, given that this is a representative democracy?
Never again will I be shamed into voting for her if she runs for re-election and I’m still living in Arizona. But if Chuck Schumer is getting ready to kick ass and take names in the Senate he is supposed to be in control of, specifically his own Democratic senators, then I applaud his efforts. Hopefully, it’s not too late.
So far, Kyrsten has been unapologetic about her antics and isn’t ready to walk back her filibuster stupidity. I’m not sure what it will take to get her to stop this ridiculous show of hers, but since so many of us were shamed into voting for her, I hope that Schumer returns the favor on our behalf.
Paul Waldman of the Washington Post explains, “If you want to see what it looks like when a party really uses its power, you have to turn your gaze to the state level, particularly in a few places where Republicans have firm control of state government despite enjoying only tenuous majorities of support among the voters.”
Like Arizona, where a shift of only one vote in either chamber can block the Republican majority, as is occurring now with the state budget/flat tax proposal.
“[O]ften it’s places like Texas, Arizona, or Georgia — where Republicans are in charge but may not be for long — where legislators are passing bills to assure their base that they’ll make their state as inhospitable to liberals as possible. In many cases that means targeting liberal cities (every conservative state has a few) in an attempt to deprive them of the ability to make their own rules.
You’ll struggle to find an analogy on the other side, cases where Democratic state legislatures have enacted a frenzy of extreme leftist legislation. The closest thing is what has happened in Virginia after Democrats took control of the legislature in 2019 — but in that case a change in power precipitated the legislative push, as the state party finally could act on pent-up policy demands.
Which raises the question: Why now? Why are Republicans in state legislatures so eager to push the limits in 2021?
[S]o a state Republican Party — especially in a state like Texas that is trending more Democratic — will decide that feeding the base red meat to keep them energized seems like the way to keep a hold on power, especially when Democrats are in charge at the federal level.
Now imagine if Democrats in Congress were that aggressive with their new power. President Biden would have triumphant ceremonies signing new laws that would expand abortion access, guarantee voting rights, create a public health insurance option, and much more.
[B]ut all told, Biden has signed only 14 bills into law this year.
The biggest reason is of course the Senate filibuster. In the House, Democrats have passed some significant bills, including statehood for Washington, DC, and electoral reform, but without a change to the filibuster, the chances any will become law are somewhere between slim and none.
Yet most of those bills are quite popular — and in any case, they constitute the clear agenda with which Democrats won the White House and Congress.
In the states, Republicans are saying, “We’d better pass every last thing we’ve ever wanted.” But in Washington, many Democrats act as though the most important thing is to be cautious and not do too much. Maybe they should learn from those Republicans.”
See, “The GOP is going hog-wild in the states. If only Democrats in D.C. did the same.”, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/26/gop-is-going-hog-wild-states-if-only-democrats-dc-did-same/
Senator Jon Tester (D-MT), who has been squishy on the Senate filibuster rule, said before the vote on the January 6 Commission, that he believes there will be a future Jan. 6-style attack on the Capitol and “the outcome is going to be far worse.”
“We’ve got to get to the bottom of this shit,” Tester said. “Jesus. It’s a nonpartisan investigation of what happened. And if it’s because they’re afraid of Trump then they need to get out of office. It’s bullshit. You make tough decisions in this office or you shouldn’t be here.”
See, “Senate GOP moderates fume as McConnell prepares to block Jan. 6 commission”, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/27/republicans-to-block-january-6-commission-491162
Senator Rev. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), moments after Senate Republicans used their first filibuster of Biden’s presidency to block debate on a bill to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack, Warnock stood off the floor of the Senate and reflected on the moment. “‘A Defining Historical Moment’: Raphael Warnock On The GOP’s Blockade Of Jan. 6 Commission”, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/raphael-warnock-capitol-attack-trump-gop_n_60b39cb0e4b0c5658f95117f
Standing in a Senate hallway not far from where a mob of Trump supporters chased Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman up the stairs after they smashed out windows of the Capitol and broke into the building, Warnock said he worried his colleagues may have grown cynical and prioritized short-term political gains at a time when the future of American democracy is on the line.
“Sometimes we’re standing in the midst of a defining historical moment, and we miss the magnitude of it all,” said Warnock, the pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. grew up listening to his father preach.
“I think there were some people who slept through the civil rights movement, quite frankly, who didn’t understand that in a real sense it was a fight to save the country. Not just the South, not just Black people, but the country,” Warnock said. “We are in a renewed, 21st-century fight to defend our democracy so that we might pass on a future that’s worthy of all our children.”
Warnock said the country is in the middle of a “historic abandonment” of the “basic democratic framework” in statehouses across the country, as supporters of former President Trump move to pass restrictive voting laws because of his election lies. Jan. 6 was not only a violent physical attack on the U.S. Capitol, Warnock said, it was “an attack on the votes of the people of Georgia and people all across this country.” But most Republican senators, Warnock said, have decided they are unwilling to do the right thing to stand up for American democracy.
“All of us are here as representatives of a democracy that folks on the other side have decided they’re not willing to defend. Some things ought to be bigger than politics. This is about truth,” Warnock said.
“It’s ironic that this would happen [on Memorial Day] weekend, because all of us will go back to our home districts, and we will celebrate great patriots who paid the ultimate price to defend our democracy on bloody battlefields, and we have politicians who are not even willing to stand up on the Senate floor for what’s obviously right,” he added.
Jan. 6, Warnock said, “was an unabashed exercise in attempted disenfranchisement, and now we have seen that attack metastasize to state capitals all across the country” as Trump-supporting legislatures throughout the country pass legislation that will make it more difficult to vote because their supporters believe the former president’s lies about a stolen election.
“This is a defining moment. Somebody’s got to stand up and defend our democracy,” Warnock said.
“The integrity of the democracy is at stake,” Warnock said. “Let’s have the arguments about the size of government, let’s have the arguments about health care, taxes, education, infrastructure. But what has made this country work, with all of those challenges, is that we have a general framework in which those arguments take place, and what we are witnessing in this moment is a historic abandonment of that basic democratic framework.”