So Much for the ‘Party of Norms’

Welcome back to “Forgotten Fact-Checks,” a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we take aim at Democrats’ defiance of political norms, analyze reactions to the harassment of two moderate senators, and discuss more media misses.

Hey Dems, What Happened to ‘Political Norms’?

The party that banged on and on about “political norms” during the Trump administration seems to care little for such niceties now that it is in power. Democrats have dropped all pretense of caring about process in an attempt to cram through massive spending on infrastructure and social programs.

Eager to steamroll anyone who may stand in the way of passing the legislation, progressive politicians and activists alike have turned against members of their own party, including senators Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, for suggesting they scale back the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package.

When activists followed Sinema into a bathroom over the weekend to pressure her into supporting a pathway to citizenship as part of Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, it was just “part of the process,” according to President Biden.

When activists surrounded Manchin’s houseboat on kayaks to shout questions? “Happens to everybody,” Biden says. (Though to his credit, he said the harassment was not an “appropriate” tactic.)

Despite Biden’s willingness to shrug off the foul behavior, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said “following someone into a bathroom and recording them, that’s over the line.”

Still, the menacing pressure tactics are par for the course for Democrats: Last month, a crowd of activists marched on the home of U.S. Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh in protest of his decision to reject a challenge to a Texas abortion law. The group warned Kavanaugh to “keep your oppressive” ideology “out of our bodies” and demanded his resignation.

This aggression from foot soldiers is accompanied by outright lies from party leaders. In an effort to paint Manchin and Sinema as the unreasonable ones — perhaps so unreasonable as to deserve the harassment they’ve received — the White House has crafted a wholly dishonest talking point that the bipartisan infrastructure package and the larger reconciliation package will cost zero dollars.

On Monday, Biden said raising the debt ceiling has “nothing to do” with his agenda which he claimed is “paid for.” Last week he claimed the bill is “going to cost nothing” due to provisions to offset the spending.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed that sentiment last week arguing that it is “not about a dollar amount.”

“The dollar amount, as the president said, is zero,” she claimed. “This bill will be paid for.”

And the media are eating it up: Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein said Biden may have to make “grueling cuts” to his agenda to appease Manchin and Sinema.

“[White House] aides planning how to make grueling cuts to Biden agenda to accommodate centrists Manchin’s $1.5T ‘topline’ = ~**60%** cut to Biden’s plans,” Stein wrote on Twitter. “Wrenching choices of what gets left out: Homelessness or climate? Seniors or poor? Hungry or sick?”

Headline Fail of the Week
Caught up in the narrative that Manchin and Sinema are bringing harassment on themselves, the Daily Beast cast Sinema’s decision to lock her bathroom stall as an act of cowardice.

“Sen. Kyrsten Sinema locks herself in bathroom to avoid young activists on ASU campus.”

NR editor Rich Lowry said it best:

Media Misses

–ABC News last week omitted former President Obama’s claim that open borders are “unsustainable” from the televised portion of his interview with the network.

“Immigration is tough. It always has been because, on the one hand, I think we are naturally a people that wants to help others. And we see tragedy and hardship and families that are desperately trying to get here so that their kids are safe, and they’re in some cases fleeing violence or catastrophe,” Obama said in a segment of the interview that was edited out of the televised version but appeared online. ”At the same time, we’re a nation-state. We have borders. The idea that we can just have open borders is something that . . . as a practical matter, is unsustainable.”

–Washington Post White House reporter Annie Linsky deleted a tweet about President Biden’s visit to a cemetery where his daughter, son, and former wife are buried on Sunday after several social media users called it “distasteful.”

“Biden goes to church and walks through a graveyard in Wilmington as his legislative agenda is dying in Washington,” the since-deleted tweet read. She noted that she had deleted the tweet, “which was not intended to cause offense.” Linsky later added an apology after several users criticized her first response as being non-apologetic.

-Political commentator Matthew Dowd — who in 2018 urged fellow “white male Christians” to stand back while other races, religions and genders have their say — has announced his candidacy for governor in Texas, where he will seek to replace incumbent Republican Greg Abbott.

Prior to making his announcement, Dowd laid out his vision for how a Democrat could prevail in Texas.

With piercing political acumen like that, it’s difficult to envision Dowd falling short.

–Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin writes that the “sad reality is that when a nation loses a war, it simply cannot get everyone whom it wants out. The expectation we could save hundreds of thousands of Afghans was never realistic. (POTUS should have made that clear rather than make open-ended promises.)” Yes, she sounds positively broken up about it.