Manchin and Sinema receive blowback from Dems regarding voting bill
Fox News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram discusses how Democrats are turning on Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema for blocking Biden voting agenda on ‘Special Report.’
The Democratic Party establishment is none too happy with Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Despite the fact that she votes for President Joe Biden’s agenda north of 95% of the time, her state party apparatchiks voted this past week to censure her. This for refusing, along with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., to go along with scuttling the legislative filibuster to pass the so-called "voting rights" bill.
The obstinance of these two moderate lawmakers has drawn comparisons to Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., who also exist at odds with the powers that be in the Republican Party. But the circumstances are not at all comparable. This is because Sinema and Manchin are not actually outliers; in fact, they represent a massive constituency of voters in the party of Jefferson and Jackson.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema departs from the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 28, 2021. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
The most confounding conundrum in current American politics is why Democrats have lurched so far left, spoiling their supposed base, while ignoring millions of moderate voters in their own party, to say nothing of independents.
The conventional wisdom is that Democrat leadership and their media allies exist in a bubble. That they don’t understand that most of the country doesn’t live on the Acela corridor. But that actually makes no sense. They aren’t idiots, they can read polls just like everyone else and those polls are horrible for them.
Sen. Joe Manchin defends the Senate's 60-vote filibuster in a floor speech on Jan. 19, 2022. (https://www.senate.gov/legislative/floor_activity_pail.htm)
There are at least two plausible explanations for this behavior by the party. The first is that by focusing their energy on the nation’s big cities, progressive Democrats can gain cultural power. While radical agendas on welfare, gender and education, to name a few, may play better in New York and Los Angeles than in the heartland, it is reasonable to believe that controlling politics in urban centers will influence television, movies and news in ways that will eventually spread, especially to younger voters.
Similarly, a second reason may be that the far left sees more benefit than harm in a shellacking for their party in the midterms. After all, the Democrats who will be swept out of office are not the progressives, but the moderates. By losing this election, the former can gain institutional power in the party, possibly for a generation.
This all makes perfect sense for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and their ilk, but what seems to make no sense is why President Biden, and even more perplexingly Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., would go along with all this.
The progressive bills like Build Back Better and the proposed election law have hit brick walls. In fact, the signature piece of Biden legislation that Democrats point to is the bipartisan infrastructure bill, shepherded by none other than Kyrsten Sinema. Why is Schumer throwing her under the bus? In fact, why is he throwing himself under the bus?
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer responds to questions from reporters during a press conference at the Capitol on Jan. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades)
On Monday, Politico Playbook reported enormous frustration among Democratic staffers on Capitol Hill at Schumer and his pandering to the radicals. These are folks who don’t seem willing to be out of power, and a job, in order to hand the keys to party over to the Squad.
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So why is Chuck Schumer doing it? The only answer seems to be that he’s afraid President Biden will call him a racist if he doesn’t. But honestly, who cares?
As progressives plot to primary Sinema, which would be a much appreciated gift to Republicans, both Schumer and Biden should be telling them to knock it off. But instead of grabbing onto the political lifeline offered by Democrat moderates, they are donning the cement shoes designed by progressives.
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This is an existential crisis for America’s oldest political party. Maybe in the coming months more members of it will have the courage to stand up to the far left courting electoral disaster. If not, the landscape of American politics may never be the same.