At Slate, Jim Newell asks: “Will Democrats finally stop embarrassing themselves?”
Answer: No.
But that isn’t really the question.
Newell writes about the Democratic anguish over parts of its agenda being blocked in the Senate. No doubt that some Democrats are very upset by this. And some aren’t — we can all think of at least two.
The question for the Democrats is whether they want to be a party with wide enough appeal that moderate voters in Arizona and West Virginia feel comfortable voting for Democratic senators who will stand in the way of the worst bits of the loopy-left agenda, or whether they want to be the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez party, in which case the moderate voters in Arizona and West Virginia (and elsewhere) are likely to vote for Republican senators who will stand in the way of the worst bits of the loopy-left agenda.
If you want diversity, you get diversity. If you want the votes of Manchin and Sinema voters, you get Manchin and Sinema, who are going to want a say in some things and who aren’t from New Jersey or Connecticut and aren’t going to act like they are.
The Democratic Party has had some real success in maintaining a working coalition with many voters who are not really 100 percent down with its core progressivism. (In this, they have been aided mightily by the Republican Party.) But those voters and their representatives do have priorities of their own, which are going to have to be accommodated from time to time. To treat Sinema and Manchin as “pariahs” — Newell’s word — is simply a way of saying that your party leadership cannot manage the political diversity of the coalition it actually leads: It is a prayer for a smaller party.
You would think that would go without saying, but, apparently, not.