Rising: Joe Biden Cuts Bait On Key Campaign Promises

NEWS in @PunchbowlNews this AM:

Senate Ds are now unlikely to try using the FY 2021 budget resolution to put together another reconciliation package, according to three sources close to the issue.

This is important because it tells us a lot about the Senate’s timing.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 25, 2021

If you remember, Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that Senate Democrats can use the same budget resolution to pass multiple majority-vote reconciliation packages, according to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) office.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 25, 2021

Dems used the FY 2021 budget resolution to pass the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March, and they could use it again, Democrats say.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 25, 2021

But senior Democrats privately don’t believe they can finish work on a second reconciliation package using the 2021 budget resolution by the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 25, 2021

Senate Democrats instead will shift their focus to FY 2022. They can use that budget resolution multiple times as well, under MacDonough’s ruling, and they don’t have to worry about the Sept. 30 deadline, Democrats say.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 25, 2021

But it also means the debate over infrastructure could drag well into the fall, which will put it on a collision path with the government funding and debt-limit skirmishes.

— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) May 25, 2021

I’ve spent the last five months critiquing Joe Biden, the Democrats and the progressive movement from a nationalist and populist perspective. I would say my takes have held up.

The Democratic Party is two different parties. It is an upstairs-downstairs coalition of the Democratic Independent Liberal Elites (DILEs) and the Democratic Leaning Working Class (DLWCs). The DILEs are the governing wing or establishment wing of the party. These people tend to be affluent, college-educated White professionals who have modernist, cosmopolitan and antiracist values who live large metropolitan areas and their wealthy suburbs. They are concentrated in coastal states. They prioritize social liberalism over economics. Their top issues are climate change, the environment and anti-racism. It is the class of people who think Stephen Colbert is funny or who watch shows like Morning Joe.

The Democratic base or the DLWCs is the multiracial working class. These are people who generally live in the big cities and who work for the DILEs. They come from different social classes. The DILEs are middle class or above and the DLWCs are poor or working class. In Alabama, it would be like the difference between black people who live in Bessemer and the White people who live in Mountain Brook. In Georgia, it would be like the difference between the black people who live somewhere like Macon or southwest Atlanta and the White people who live up in Buckhead or Sandy Springs. Antifa are overwhelmingly drawn from the class of White people whose parents are affluent DILEs, but who went to college and ended up angry and downwardly mobile and stuck in working class or lower middle class jobs.

While the Democrats control the White House, Senate and House of Representatives, it is important to understand that it is the establishment wing of the party that is really in power and which is being further buttressed by the influx of True Cons or Republican establishment voters. This is why the Democrats are so obsessed with social liberalism and Liz Cheney. Their political strategy is to appeal to affluent, college educated Republican and Independent voters who also live in these wealthy suburbs. These people are more reliable voters and have more money to donate. The Democrats have been self-consciously trading working class voters to the Republicans in order to attract more of these people to the party. As the party becomes more middle class and professional class and more like the old Republican Party, it is becoming more obsessed with things like scolding people, controlling people and virtue signaling.

DLWCs vote for the Democrats because they think “social democracy” and it is the logical choice for people who want the government to help them improve their material standard of living. DILEs vote for the Democratic Party because of social issues and self-actualization and esteem needs.

It is obvious who rules the roost in the Democratic Party.

What happened to the $15 minimum wage? What happened to the $2,000 stimulus checks? What is going to happen with taxing the rich? What happened to the public option in health care? What happened to student loan debt relief? What happened to prescription drug reform? What happened to all that talk about “white supremacy” and systematic racism when Israel put down the Palestinians?

There are lots of issues where White working class voters who are Heartland working class or who lean to the Right agree with the Democratic base. Those are the 60% to 70% issues that you see in the polls. It is always economic issues. Virtually everyone in this country supports taxing Wall Street in order to build real physical infrastructure like roads, bridges, ports and airports. And yet, Wall Street controls the Democratic Party and gets its way and is not going to be taxed to pay for this. The SALT Caucus will also get its way.

Joe Biden could massively cut the student loan debt burden, for example, with the stroke of a pen like he stopped construction of the border wall or the Keystone Pipeline or got rid of the Remain in Mexico policy that had stemmed illegal immigration. It would be extremely popular with indebted Millennials in Hub Cities, but he is not going to do that because the banks are opposed to it.

The Democrats will deliver on the cultural agenda of their wealthy and professional class voters while quietly protecting their economic interests as well. They will disappoint their working class voters, but will scare them into believing all sorts of dumb things like Jim Crow has been restored in Georgia or Trump is poised to end democracy by maintaining a poorly trafficked blog in Florida.

It has gotten so bad that Democrats might not even get infrastructure done this year much less hold a reconciliation vote on the American Families Plan which would make the new child tax credit permanent. They are giving up on holding another reconciliation vote in this fiscal year which means that virtually nothing is likely to happen through October.

Note: It goes without saying that Republicans also scam their voters into voting for things like building a border wall only to deliver corporate tax cuts and push their unpopular economic agenda. The socially conservative, economically moderate worker is always getting screwed by both parties.