The Democrats leadership debacle

 A.B. Stoddard:

As the Democrats’ political fortunes worsen, recriminations abound. White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain seems to be the latest target, while centrist Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema continue to come under relentless attack. President Biden takes a daily pounding, and news that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will run for another term has produced headlines like this one in Axios: “Pelosi is the GOP’s 2022 Bogeywoman.”

It seems strange, then, that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose fingers are all over the mess the party is in, isn’t taking more heat. Last week Politico Playbook reported that Schumer has created tension among his colleagues that has largely remained inside the tent and that no senator has articulated publicly.

This frustration resulted from Schumer’s decision to force a vote everyone knew would fail, and which – because they knew Manchin and Sinema would vote with Republicans – focused more attention on party divisions than GOP opposition.

Show votes are high-risk because they make lawmakers facing tough reelection campaigns walk the plank for nothing. The most vulnerable Democrat, Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, for example, is now on the record seeking to carve out a filibuster exception for two voting rights bills that didn’t pass, so she can expect to answer for old videos of Joe Biden and Barack Obama championing the filibuster while they were in the Senate.

Meanwhile, Republicans got to tweet about Sinema and Manchin’s fealty to the upper chamber and praise them as institutionalists while avoiding the subject of the voting rights legislation they oppose altogether.

“The Republicans had a fine week last week,” one senior Democratic staffer told Playbook. “There was no contrast with Republicans. And it was a result of the fact that our party leader chose not to be the leader of the entire caucus.”

The anonymous aides to top Democrats quoted in the story described a failed strategy that had not only threatened caucus unity but had succeeded in disappointing their already demoralized voters even more. One senior House Democrat also told Playbook: “This level of malpractice is stunning. BBB is a once-in-a-10-year opportunity, and we fucked it up.”

The Build Back Better debacle lasted months, taking tortured twists and turns as party leaders, including Biden, allowed progressives to hold bipartisan infrastructure legislation, supported by 19 GOP senators, hostage to the social welfare bill that Manchin warned from the start was too expensive.

Thanks to Schumer the negotiations could never proceed in good faith because he kept critical information from both Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, mainly that Manchin had a bottom-line number he wouldn’t budge on. By not sharing this with the White House or House leaders, Schumer tied the hands of everyone negotiating with Manchin. Schumer didn’t just listen to Manchin lay out his concerns or criticisms. He didn’t just read them in a letter written by the West Virginia senator. Schumer signed that letter, and Manchin signed it with him.

In December, after months of strained discussions and Democrat-on-Democrat feuds staying front and center in the media, Manchin walked away from the negotiating table furious. He’s no flame thrower, but he purposefully chose to kill off BBB in an interview on Fox News in retaliation for mistreatment by top Biden aides. He made it clear that it was not the fault of Biden, but the White House staff, which had done “inexcusable” things. Manchin was explicit about his exasperation, saying on Fox, “I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there.’
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There was never any mandate for BBB.  It was a strictly partisan left-wing mess and Democrats should be thanking Manchin and Sinema for saving them from passing an expensive unpopular mess.  Schumer has demonstrated he is not up to the job of a Majority Leader.  Hopefully, he will be out of that position after the 2022 election.  BTW, Pelosi is just as bad.  Her coming back in 2022 is bad news for Democrats, too.