Twelve Dimensional Chess
Assessing the politics of the filibuster and whether Democrats are in disarray or playing a masterful hand.
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.
A quick note that I will be hosting a political Zoom cast on Friday at 12:30. The event is for subscribers only, and I’m still working on my special guest - more to come on that tomorrow when I send out a reminder email. Also, I promise that my Friday column will not be focused on Joe Manchin! Now, on to the newsletter!
Burying the Lede
On Tuesday, I wrote about Senator Joe Manchin's stubborn refusal to scrap the filibuster in the face of the GOP's nationwide assault on voting rights. Why I asked, is Manchin more interested in protecting the filibuster than in protecting democracy?
But there's another question that requires an answer: why are Manchin and his fellow filibuster fan, Arizona Kyrsten Sinema, not worried about the political impact for Democrats if the party fails to pass legislation that will protect voting rights?
We can talk at great length about the damaging impact on American democracy of disenfranchising millions of Americans. But on a more practical level, the GOP's effort to make voting more difficult means that Republicans will likely have a political advantage going into next year's midterm elections. So, for a moment, let's set aside all the high-minded rhetoric about the sanctity of democracy and the right to vote and put this in terms that politicians can easily understand: protecting voting rights also protects them.
For Sinema, the issue is especially pertinent: her home state of Arizona is one of the many places where Republicans seek to put greater obstacles in front of voting rights. Their success could directly affect her reelection chances. She, like Manchin, is not on the ballot again until 2024, but surely both of them enjoy being in the Senate majority. Surely, they appreciate that controlling the House gives Democrats the ability to pass legislation that helps their constituents. Why would they want to risk giving that up to defend a Senate procedure that is anti-majoritarian, anti-Democratic, and of little actual interest to the overwhelming majority of voters?
If Sinema and Manchin were to join their Democratic colleagues in suspending the filibuster, it would be a bad news cycle for about a week, maybe less. I'm willing to wager it will be quickly forgotten, and if getting rid of the filibuster helps Sinema and Manchin's fellow Democrats keep their job, that's what we call a win-win.
For Sinema, the politics of this are even more clear-cut. She is a Democratic senator in a state that is trending blue. At the same time, Arizona Republicans are increasingly detached from reality. If Sinema wants to get reelected, it seems her best move would be to keep Democrats happy and not expect to win over too many GOP voters. Yet, her filibuster stance appears to have the opposite effect - it's unlikely to sway Republicans, and it is likely to enrage Democrats.
In comments earlier this week Sinema attempted to explain her position … and, well, it got ugly.
Sinema told the Arizona Republic that the filibuster "protects the democracy of our nation" and that "To those who say that we must make a choice between the filibuster and 'X,' I say, this is a false choice."
"The reality is that when you have a system that is not working effectively — and I would think that most would agree that the Senate is not a particularly well-oiled machine, right? The way to fix that is to fix your behavior, not to eliminate the rules or change the rules, but to change the behavior."
As the father of a seven and nine-year-old, I can attest to the fact that this is not how it works. This statement doesn't even make a glancing blow with reality. Indeed, changing the rules — making them more permissive or stricter — is how you change behavior. And why would Republicans change their behavior when they have no incentive to do so? The current filibuster rules suit them quite fine.
Indeed, the way the two parties handle the filibuster issue says a lot about the differences between the two parties. Republicans are more than willing to break the rules, disenfranchise voters, and act in a completely hypocritical manner if they can glean some political benefit from it. For Democrats, even when they are on the right side of an issue - like scrapping the filibuster or perhaps making Washington DC and Puerto Rico states - they obsess over the optics. Now granted, both Democrats have gotten past this silly way of thinking, but Manchin and Sinema remain mired in the past.
A Hopeful Sign?
Manchin and Sinema's continued stubbornness on the filibuster finally seems to be getting under the skin of President Biden. At an event in Tulsa, Oklahoma, this week, Biden said, "I hear all the folks on [TV] saying, 'Why doesn't Biden get this done?' Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends."
As the kids say, “shots fired.”
Biden’s statement is quite clearly a reference to Manchin and Sinema, and it's worth noting that Biden has his numbers wrong - the two senators have voted with Biden 100 percent of the time since he took office.
At this point, you might be asking, "what exactly is hopeful about the president falsely calling out two members of his own party?" When I first heard Biden's comments, I was surprised. Biden might wear his heart on his sleeve, but he keeps his political cards close to his vest. It's certainly possible that he criticized the Filibuster Duo out of frustration, or maybe he was trying to pressure them publicly, but that isn't Biden's style. I suspect there is something else going on here. One source I spoke to had an interesting theory: Biden is accusing Manchin and Sinema of voting with Republicans because he thinks it might burnish their centrist bonafides … before they take the step of doing away with the filibuster. In other words, they can go back to their constituents and say, "we tried to work with Republicans. We even took their sides on a few issues - and Biden criticized us for it. But they wouldn't meet us halfway, so that's why we had to get rid of the filibuster." I'll grant you this is a rather Panglossian view of the situation. Still, it's a heckuva lot more reasonable than taking Manchin and Sinema's inane and illogical defenses of the filibuster seriously.
The problem is that none of what the two senators are doing makes any sense at all - either from a logical, small "d" democratic or political standpoint. Where it does add up is an effort to posture and agonize before finally pulling the plug on the Senate's anti-majoritarian tradition. I've long believed that eventually, Senate Democrats would come around to doing away with the filibuster, but only after exhausting every effort to work with Republicans. They would want to get the political optics right before acting. With the GOP's blocking of an investigation into the January 6 insurrection combined with the assault on voting rights and now the president's rhetorical intervention, we might have reached the denouement of the filibuster fight. If I'm right (and I give myself a 20-30 percent chance), I recommend sticking around to the end because it's quite possible things are about to get good.
Good News Thursday!
This is a very exciting chart on the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On June 6, there were just over 16,000 cases in the US - and 397 deaths from the coronavirus. These are the lowest numbers in nearly a year. If there’s a downside, however, it’s that vaccinations are stalling, and there are genuine fears that in places where people still aren’t getting the vaccine (particularly the South), a spike in cases could be coming. But, it’s worth stepping back for a moment to marvel at the progress we are making.
What’s Going On?
A gut-punch of a story in the New York Times about families losing a loved one to COVID-19 as the pandemic wanes.
Crazy story here: It turns out that giving people money makes their lives better. Who'd have thunk it?
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is marking Pride Month. First, by signing legislation preventing trans athletes from participating in women's sports, and second, by vetoing $150,000 in funding for mental health and counseling services for survivors of the Pulse mass shooting. He also vetoed funding to support housing for homeless LGBT youth. The sad part is that DeSantis likely assumes correctly that these actions will help him maintain support among conservative voters.
President Biden is offering tax concessions to GOP negotiators to get bipartisan support for his massive tax and infrastructure plan. I seriously doubt this will win over enough Senate Republicans to break a likely filibuster. Still, it might give Democrats some political cover when they try to pass the bill through the budget reconciliation process.
It's hard to capture the craziness of this photo. Pictured here is Yair Lapid, the leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party in Israel, which received the second-highest number of votes in recent parliamentary election; Naftali Bennett, the head of a right-wing, pro-settler party, who is slated to be Israel's next prime minister; and Mansour Abbas, the leader of Ra'am, an Islamist party that relies on the support of Israeli Arabs. The document they are signing is a coalition agreement that will finally end the reign of Benjamin Netanyahu. All three leaders deserve credit for coming together to oust Bibi (along with the left-wing Meretz Party and the center-left Labor Party). But Lapid deserves a special shout-out for surrendering the prime ministership to Bennett, whose party got a fraction of the seats Lapid received (in two years, Lapid will become prime minister). It's a new and better day for Israel!
Musical Interlude
This 80s nugget is the best song I could find about chess (and the use of the word "best" is a reference to its relevance, not its quality).
Here’s Bob Dylan singing “Only a Pawn in Their Game.”
Since that first song kind of stinks, consider this a palate cleanser.
Dylan really can’t sing worth anything.