"The angrier they get, the more
obvious it seems that their desire for a reconciliation bill is nil. This substantiates the strategy of compelling them
to get to yes."
<Fahiz Shakir, former adviser
to Bernie Sanders, responding
to Senator Kyrsten Sinema's
angry response to progressive revolt>
“We made all these promises to voters
across the country
that we were going to deliver on this agenda,
it’s
not some crazy left-wing wish list.
"I feel like we in the Democratic
Party
have lost so many voters,
because they don’t see us fighting
for the things that might be
a little bit harder
to get across the
finish line.”"
Congressional Progressive Caucus Leader,
speaking to reporters last Friday>
“It’s a huge departure from
business as usual.
Progressives have a veto over
what
Democrats pass in the House.
"It’s the beginning of an era
of
progressive governance
that will shift power to working people.”
“They didn’t have any following,”
Pelosi told
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd.
“They’re four
people and that’s how many votes they got.” Harsh, but fair—their
legislative threats went nowhere.”
<Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House,
reflecting on "the before times">
“Many people are misinformed.
Or maybe they misunderstood the progressive movement.
"The thing about the progressive movement is
we’re challenging how Washington historically has worked. We’re pushing back and saying ‘hell no.'”
<U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY),
addressing the implications
of last week's progressive revolt>
“For one year?” the New York progressive
asked rhetorically.
“Instead of them asking everyone
to cater to themselves,
why don't we come to this process
as equal partners?” she said.
<U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY),
responding to reporters' queries
on her feelings of Sen. Joe Manchin's
$1.5 trillion "counteroffer">
“If progressives are treated as adversaries,
all you’re left with
is the disrupter role to play.
"But if progressives are treated as allies,
we can really help deliver things.”
<U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA),
speaking to Mother Jones:
"What If The Progressive Revolt...
Isn't A Revolt At All?"
(10/01/21)>
Well, it's been a couple of years since The Highwayman last graced these pages, back in the fall of 2019, but our favorite outsider artist this back, with an honest-to-goodness strip this time -- and it's a doozy, if you ask me! If you've seen The Highwayman's cartoons here before, you know what to expect -- no fuss, no muss, no messing around, much like the original '76-'77 punk explosion, whose vapor trails still ricochet loudly across these pages.
So I've done the usual post-production treatment, with some appropriate quotes to ponder. One of the most interesting aspects of the fallout over the Democrats' dueling infrastructure bills is the reaction to the progressives' revolt. As usual, the mainstream media chooses to cover it as just another Beltway catfight, but in reality, there's way, way, waaay more going on behind the curtain.
And let's not kid ourselves. The road ahead gets a lot harder, especially when you read about how the obstructionists -- such as Senator Kyrsten Sinema ("D"-AZ), whose angry response ("I have never, and would never...") is referenced above, in Panel Five -- remain determined to stomp on the progressives' social spending wish list (negotiating prescription drug costs, tuition-free community college, universal pre-K, and so on) before it gains ground, and our dysfunctional Congress actually passes it, or something. I suspect that image is keeping them awake nights.
Not even a foot doctor's appointment in Arizona -- the excuse that Sinema pleaded, apparently, for skipping on a Democratic strategy meeting last Friday -- prevented the Senate's so-called engima from holding a high-dollar fundraiser that very same night, as she hobnobs with more of the high-priced lobbying hoi polloi who clearly command the lion's share of her attention.
I suspect that she wasn't even limping after she picked up the checks.
The $750,000 in contributions that Sinema's collected from Big Pharma firms, for example, might go some way toward explaining her opposition to the prescription drug price negotiation aspect of the $3.5 trillion infrastructure bill. As our old friend, the Church Lady, might say...
"Hooowww...Con...ven...iii...ent!"
Not to be outdone, of course, is her ideological twin, Senator Joe Manchin ("D"-WV), who's already suggested "pausing" the $3.5 trillion version, even as he continues to preach austerity from the pleasant, undemanding confines of his 65-foot houseboat, the aptly-named Almost Heaven, where he prefers to spend much of his down time.
Manchin's blind fealty to the austerity idol reminds me of Queen Elizabeth's equally misplaced Christmas message of 2018, in which she pleaded for generosity and self-sacrifice -- right in front of an ornate golden piano.
Like the saying goes, you can't make this stuff up. Though maybe Manchin and Queen Elizabeth might think about getting together and sharing their austerity enthusiasms over an old-fashioned plum duff lunch at Buckingham Palace (courtesy of the British taxpayer, of course).
As for the rest of the fallout from the dueling infrastructure bills, we'll see how it all plays out. But from my end, anyway, it felt good to see somebody finally standing up to the bad actors -- the same ones who've broken faith, time and again, even as they plead, "Trust us, we've got this" -- and showing them that business as usual can't continue.
As fervently as legislative darkling like Manchin and Sinema pray for a pausing in social spending, which surely ties in with social justice, the reality is starkly different for the millions of Americans whose needs they prefer to ignore.
For those cast adrift without the enhanced unemployment benefits, eviction moratoriums, and paused student loan payments that have characterized the COVID Era, the "dark night of the soul" -- coupled with the unflinching budget demands of a long cold winter -- are about to become stark reality, all over again. And it is their needs, not those of the greedy, grasping K Street crowd, whose self-entitlement knows no bounds, that Congress should put first. --The Reckoner
