It's All Going to Be OK
Ignore the day-to-day coverage of what's happening in Congress: Joe Biden's legislative agenda is going to be fine. Also, I discuss how I'm voting in the New York Mayor's race.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If someone sent you this email - or you are a free subscriber - and you’d like to subscribe: you can sign up here.
My apologies for this being my first post in several days. Sometimes life has a way of getting in the middle of work! A quick reminder that I will be hosting a Zoom cast on Friday afternoon at 12:30. I hope everyone can make it, and I’ll send more info about it later in the week.
Scanning news headlines or watching cable news over the past couple of weeks, one might conclude that Joe Biden’s legislative agenda is in trouble.
CNN reports today:
Chuck Schumer is confronting his most daunting series of legislative landmines in his young tenure as Senate majority leader … the legislative dilemma comes to a head in this summer's sprint before the August recess, with the push to enact roughly $4 trillion of President Joe Biden's infrastructure and social agenda -- something that could lead to a huge victory for the 22-year Senate veteran or could all collapse and prompt a fresh round of bitter recriminations with their majority on the line in next year's midterms.
Last month the Washington Post blared, “Biden’s big agenda is imperiled as his priorities stall in Congress and a debt fight looms.”
According to the Guardian:
After his first 100 days in office, Joe Biden looked ruthless and Rooseveltian. He had just passed a $1.9trn rescue package despite painfully narrow majorities. His administration was triumphantly preparing future plans to spend trillions more on climate, infrastructure and safety-net expansions. Since then, however, little has happened, and the prognosis looks murky.
These news reports are telling an incomplete and arguably inaccurate tale.
Yes, Biden’s agenda has bogged down, but nothing about that is unusual. Perhaps after four years of Trump-bred legislative inertia and decades of Congress generally failing to get much done, we’ve become accustomed to the idea of unending gridlock in Washington. But what we see now is emblematic of how the legislative process has traditionally worked. Congress negotiates, generally behind closed doors. Members trade proposals, balance priorities, and hammer out agreements. This is the usual back-and-forth of legislative politics, playing out in a 24-hour news cycle.
On the most significant piece of Biden’s agenda - infrastructure - the fact that so many Republicans have signed on a possible bipartisan deal suggests to me that the question is not whether something will pass, but rather what it will a final bill look like. Biden and the Democrats currently have two options for infrastructure legislation - a smaller bipartisan bill (albeit one that is closer to $1 trillion) or an even larger bill that will rely exclusively on Democratic votes. As I wrote the other day, failure is not an option for Democrats. The entire caucus wants and needs a bill to pass, and it will likely happen, though not everyone will be happy with the final result.
The road ahead on policing reform and gun control is murkier. I’d wager the former is more likely than the latter, and it depends a great deal on Democrats striking an agreement with the lead Republican negotiator - South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, whose presidential aspirations could benefit from a deal.
Voting rights are not getting past a Republican filibuster. However, I fully expect it to get 50 Democratic votes in the Senate (editor’s note: as I was about to run this, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that Democrats do have 50 votes to move forward with debate). On the other pieces of Biden’s agenda, particularly the American Families Act, there’s a reasonable chance that significant parts of that legislation find their way into a budget reconciliation package.
Much of what is happening now is political theater and politicians trying to manage the optics of congressional negotiations. Liberals are drawing lines in the sand on infrastructure, demanding that climate change be addressed, or they will withhold their votes. That’s unlikely to occur. Liberals want Biden to succeed and will more likely than not take half or two-thirds of a loaf. But they are putting up fights now to ensure that the final bills get as close as possible to what they want. (On infrastructure, a bipartisan bill may leave out some important liberal priorities, so part of the rationale for the current push is to get those priorities included, down the road, in a budget reconciliation package).
On the Democratic side, the optics around this bill are heightened because literally, every vote matters. With 50 votes in the Senate, just one Democrat can kill a bill. So it makes sense to publicly threaten to withhold a vote to win key concessions. That doesn’t mean those votes are actually going to be withheld.
Moderates on both sides are looking for areas of compromise, even though on the GOP side, most will likely vote “no” with their other Republican colleagues. This is how the process has always unfolded, with politicians telling reporters one thing but working behind the scenes to find workable compromises or making themselves look amenable to a legislative deal when they really intend to vote “no.” There is a reason after all that drafting legislation is called sausage making.
I don’t want to completely dismiss the possibility that Democrats will fail. Anything is possible. But the public statement of any congressional Democrat during protracted negotiations is not evidence of likely failure. More likely than not, it’s a negotiating tactic.
So the bottom line here is don’t pay too much attention to the day-to-day back and forth of the current negotiations in Congress. More likely than not, Democrats are going to be fine.
How I’m Voting
As a rule, I usually don’t write about how I vote in elections. I don’t want readers to think that my personal preferences are driving my political analysis. (Indeed, few of my friends could figure out, based on my reporting, which candidate I supported in the Democratic presidential primary. I’m still not going to tell!).
But I’m going to make an exception for the New York Mayor’s race.
Generally speaking, I use a very different set of criteria when determining who I vote for in local elections than I do in federal campaigns. For a race like New York City Mayor, it’s all about competency and experience to me. It’s always a nice thing if you like the candidates you are voting for, but I rarely have had that problem as a New Yorker. I didn’t much care for Bil DeBlasio when he got my vote in 2013 and 2017. I was no fan of Bill Thompson when I voted for him in 2009, and truth be told, I preferred the incumbent, Mike Bloomberg, but I was so outraged by his efforts to run for a third term that I couldn’t vote for him. I did begrudgingly cast a ballot for Bloomberg in 2005, but only because I couldn’t stand his opponent, Freddy Ferrer. Voting for Mark Green in 2001 is the closest I’ve come to in supporting a candidate who I actually liked.
This year is, unfortunately, no different. None of the candidates do much of anything for me (and there are many from which to choose). My strongest feelings are reserved for Andrew Yang and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. The former is, in my opinion, a clown candidate who doesn’t understand the city, abandoned it during the pandemic, and would be entirely out of his element as Mayor. I have zero confidence that he could do the job effectively. Eric Adams is to me the most objectionable of all the candidates. There is such a strong whiff of corruption, opportunism, and demagoguery around him. I don’t trust him at all.
Making the situation even more difficult is that New York uses ranked-choice voting, which means I need to pick five candidates! I think the clear choice is Kathryn Garcia. She has experience in city government, has run major city agencies, and of all the candidates, seems best equipped to do the job on day one. In short, she is the Mike Dukakis candidate - but in a good way. That she would also be New York’s first female mayor is a major plus as well. I understand that some liberals don’t like her because her politics are somewhat centrist, but for me, political ideology is not a significant consideration when voting for Mayor. That she is not an ideologue actually counts for something because it suggests to me that her focus will be on running the city. Our last mayor had a knack for getting into silly fights driven more by ideology than the best interests of the city. I’d like to see less of that.
I don’t have a clear second choice. I will decide when I get in the voting booth between Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Maya Wiley. I will probably give the nod to Stringer because of my fixation on experience and competency. He is, however, an incredibly unexciting candidate. Wiley is fine and has surrounded herself with intelligent people, but I have a tough time seeing her as an effective Mayor. She simply feels out of place in the rough-and-tumble of New York politics. However, I really do like the idea of a female mayor, so perhaps I will change my mind by the time I head out to vote. My fourth choice will likely be former HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan because he appears to be the best of the other candidates. I honestly think I’ll leave the fifth spot blank or might go with Yang, if only because that might help stop Adams from winning. And as I leave the voting booth, I will hope someday to have a mayoral candidate to vote for that I like.
What Going On?
Michelle Goldberg has a pretty good take on the Mayor’s race.
This week in people are going to believe what they want to believe and disregard the rest.
Americans are still refusing to get vaccinated … and dying as a result.
The GOP assault on voting rights is only getting more intense.
Really interesting piece by Zack Stanton in Politico on how the GOP’s embrace of Trump is seriously damaging in the party in previously solid suburban areas.
I have long been obsessed with the story of Julianne Diller, who fell out of a plane two miles above the Amazon and survived.
Not all heroes wear capes.
Musical Interlude
Today’s headline is an indirect reference to the Bob Marley song “Three Little Birds,” so here you go! It’s a song that always puts a smile on my face.
“One good thing about music, when it hits, you feel no pain” is arguably one of the greatest lyrics in the entire rock canon.