As expected….
…the left pounces on Joe Manchin.
In yesterday’s thread on Manchin, the following point was raised by commenter “Aggie”:
Of course, there’s always Glenn Greenwald’s ‘Rotating Villain’ theory of politics:
“In American Democracy, when the majority party has enough votes to pass populist legislation, party leaders designate a scapegoat who will refuse to vote with the party thereby killing the legislation.
The opposition is otherwise inexplicable and typically comes from someone who is safe of not up for re-election. This allows for maximum diffusion of responsibility.”
So thrilled that my Rotating Villain theory from 2010 explaining this dynamic has finally ascended to the heights of the Urban Dictionary: a great honor.https://t.co/e7q9nMxGBs pic.twitter.com/w0AyB1yGPA
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 7, 2021
Greenwald says:
If Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema weren’t blocking all the lovely and wonderful things the Democratic Party pretends it wants to do, they would just have other Senators doing it instead. Anyone who doesn’t know this understands nothing about how that party functions
Something of the sort occurred to me as a possibility, as well. However, I think Greenwald is incorrect in this instance and also in general. What he’s describing is somewhat how the GOP operates or used to operate. The Democrats, however, have a somewhat different approach. I think the Democrats are extremely serious about passing this legislation (HR1) – every bit as serious as they were about passing Obamacare, for example. However, they know they can’t pass it now without nuking the filibuster and also if a single Democrat member defects (unless, of course, some Republicans come along with the Democrats and vote “yes” on it, which in this case doesn’t seem likely).
So their calculation is that – for the moment, at least – the filibuster cannot be ended and HR1 cannot pass because the required party unanimity does not exist. Therefore Manchin, of the red state of West Virginia, is allowed to come out publicly against both things. This helps the Democrats in 2022 by robbing the GOP – at least to a certain extent – of the argument that the Democrats have all become radical leftists. This is important to Democrats, because their hope is that this will help them retain the House in the 2022 election and win enough Senate seats in 2022 to be able to pass both things at that point if they so desire.
In other words, they hope not to need Manchin after 2022, and to be in a much stronger position to enact the radical measures they would like to pass.
Manchin isn’t up for re-election until 2024 (at which point he may or may not run again, considering that he will be in his late 70s at the time). And of course, because he’s from a red state, his present opposition to ending the filibuster and to HR1 can only help him win re-election if he does decide to run again.
[NOTE: In addition, as commenter “Art Deco” mentions, HR1 is not “populist” legislation.]
I’d not heard of the Rotating Villain before, but I like it. I had heard of Dem legislation that they wish to fail. One instance is where the legislation is highly detrimental to a giant corporation or group of corps. The legislation is pushed to great fanfare, only to fall apart somehow when large campaign contributions from said corps. appear. (The protection racket scheme.)
The other routine tactic that is similar to Neo’s description is when they know they have the votes to pass legislation, and they have a several vote margin. Then they invoke the “designated pseudo traitor to the party” gambit. Those red-state Dems who’s constituency hates the legislation are allowed to vote against it in order to get re-elected. Those votes don’t mean the legislator is against the bill, just that they need to get elected again.
Before Greenwald wrote that we had a big one in Michigan. Former Congressman Bart Stupak. He represented the UP and was a Dem who was allowed to always vote against any gun control measure that was sure to pass or fail no matter what he did.
He famously held up Obamacare until he was “assured” that it wouldn’t cover abortion. So a lie was crafted and blasted out as truth and he signed on. Then in the next election the UP voted him out. And Obamacare, of course, required abortion coverage.
Pelosi burned through quite a few “blue dogs” she got in in 2006 using the “porkbusters” campaign to target porky Republicans and get the House back. After she burned them to get Obamacare passed the Democrats lost the House in 2010, but the far left then became the major force in their caucus in the House.
The cynicism of this tactic boggles the mind — except when it takes place in the U.S. Congress. And I’m sure it doesn’t just happen with Democrats, but they have controlled the Congress more, so it stands out more with them.
What I wonder is if this is an age-old tactic, or if it just grew up under people like LBJ or Nancy Pelosi. Can you imagine the Reps of the second or third Congress acting like this?
Good point F. Many republicans play the actual traitor to the party/Constitution/nation game. They figuratively hang out on K Street with signs reading “Will sell out my party for cash.”
I was re-reading old material on the Keating Five scandal a year or two ago. Both John McCain and Dennis DeConcini were implicated up to their neck in that sell-out. I believe one of those senators was more deeply implicated, but I forget which one.
NB, of all the Democrats in the U.S. Senate from Southern and Border states, four are from the blue portions of mixed states (the four in question include two from greater Philadelphia, 1 from greater Baltimore, and 1 from greater Washington); two are from Georgia, where ballot security is an acute issue; and two are from Virginia, where an escalating share of the population consists of northerners settling in greater Washington (neither of the two Senators grew up in Virginia, btw). The characters representing Maryland and Delaware might well have been elected in statewide contests 35 years ago; the characters in Georgia and Virginia no way. Manchin is distinct from the characters in Virginia and Georgia is that he would not have been anomalous at that time and was a state legislator back then.
If you look at the House, you notice the Southern and Border state Democrats consist of the following: those representing the non-Dixie portions of mixed states (peninsular Florida, greater Washington, greater Baltimore &c), blacks, Texas hispanics, and about 10 others. The 10 others include Steve Cohen (who has a majority-black district around Memphis), a couple of people from the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area (which has a lot of migrants from up north), a woman from suburban Atlanta (ditto), a man from Austin, Tx (a city which has long been an outlier), a man from Louisville (another long-term outlier). Not many white Southern Democrats left.
I believe one of those senators was more deeply implicated, but I forget which one.
See James Jackson Kilpatrick on the Keating Five. It was his opinion that it was Dennis DeConcini who was the primary force pushing on regulators. Three other Senators he thought more circumspect. He said Alan Cranston just ducked in and ducked out and wasn’t actually involved.
I heard of this tactic before, but did not know it had been assigned a name.
I agree that the “Rotating Villian” ploy is used far more by the GOP than by the Democrats. I also think that Manchin is sincere (but has he the will to stay the course?) and that the democrats very much want to pass HR1 and end the filibuster. I base that upon my sense that they have no intention of ever again allowing the republicans to regain control of either Congress or the Presidency.
As far as I know, nothing has changed regarding the use of the Dominion Software. Nor have to date, any of the States where massive electoral fraud occured been reformed. The precedent of changing electoral provisions outside of those State legislatures is unchanged as well… so what basis is there for assuming that the 2022 and 2024 elections will be any different from the 2020 election?
Art Deco,
Thanks. I would have guessed DeConcini but wasn’t sure. I recall being amazed at how aggressive he was in pushing the whole thing.
As I wrote at Don Surber’s blog yesterday- it isn’t inconceivable that Republican Senators, from states with Democratic governors with the power of senatorial appointment, won’t be targeted for assassination. The Democrats are deadly serious about getting this voting legislation passed before 2022. I wouldn’t put anything past these people.
@Yancey Ward:
Unnecessary for Dems to kill anyone — there are so many other ways to discredit and get rid of a person. Huntering laptops for example. They’d be stupid to pull a Fort Sumter. Then again some of them are stupid.
Yancey Ward:
Well a former muckey muck from the FBI just proposes to arrest members of Congress for wrongthink. And Jeffrey Epstien killed himself in custody so don’t connect any ….
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2021/06/08/watch-msnbc-has-an-tyrannically-insane-plan-for-republican-congressional-members-n393715some high ups in
Well a former muckey muck from the FBI just proposes to arrest members of Congress for wrongthink.
You read a menu of the positions the man held at the FBI over a period of > 24 years, and you begin to figure the agency is unreformable. Just shut it down and take a wrecking ball to its awful HQ.
om,
“a former muckey muck from the FBI just proposes to arrest members of Congress for wrongthink.”
Fantasize about it sure but we’re not there yet, calls to do so are I think intended to intimidate rather than a proposal that dem leadership is, at least at this time taking seriously. I don’t think Schumer would sign off on that.
That said, democrats are increasingly disconnected from reality so who knows, we may be closer to that than I imagine. But that might well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back…
“shut it down and take a wrecking ball to its awful HQ.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMOBxjIvLBE
Brutalism is not nice at all.
Odd that Manchin is a “hero” since he finally voted to support the interests of his state instead of supporting the Ideology of our blessed rulers. It is a thowback to earlier times, and welcome at that.
The legislation is pushed to great fanfare, only to fall apart somehow when large campaign contributions from said corps. appear. (The protection racket scheme.)
This, in the California legislature, was called “A Juice Bill” and Willie Brown was very adept at using them. I spent years in California politics until the stink drove me out.