Do Democrats Think They're Bulletproof, or Do They Not Just Care about Winning in 2020?

by Thomas Neuburger

Some flavor of this piece has been written many times, but it bears repeating. One of these two things must be true:

• Either Democratic Party leaders, who define by their actions the Party they completely control, must think they're electorally bulletproof, completely immune from rejection by voters whose interests they claim to serve,

• Or the Party's leaders — Pelosi, Schumer, Clyburn and all the rest — think they themselves will be fine next year no matter what happens in November, think so little will change for them, that they're perfectly fine losing in November, thank you very much.

It can't be any other way. Democratic leaders, all of them, are showing no fear at all that any of their actions now will affect the election, or that any of their actions now will eject them from Party power and DC status and privilege — membership in the "Oh It's You, Senator" Club.

Zero fear. Do Party leaders think their actions are invisible to ordinary Americans? Or that the press will cover them so favorably (because, Trump) that they can do any damn thing their donors want them to do and suffer no blowback at all?

Apparently yes. And perhaps they're even correct in thinking this.

Here's just a taste of the evidence from the past few days of Party actions they have been nervous about. First this from David Sirota at his new Substack site.

Dems Give Unanimous Consent To Trump
Traumatized a generation ago, party leaders' default setting during a crisis is fear-driven acquiescence.

Why do Democrats want to win Congress if they don’t want to use power? What is the entire point of Democrats raising money and ginning up activist energy to win control of the U.S. House, if when a crisis hits they just pass whatever Mitch McConnell sends them? Is there anything they’ll actually negotiate for? And why won’t they flip the script and force McConnell to vote yes or no on their own agenda?

These are the questions bouncing around my mind as Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi accede to another GOP-written stimulus bill -- and I think ultimately the answer has to do with deep-seated, self-destructive fear that was internalized by party leaders a generation ago during another national crisis.

Before we get to that, consider the present: the GOP bill adds more money for testing, hospitals and small business loans — the latter including a few vaguely positive tweaks, but no serious measures to prevent those loans from being raided by big business.

McConnell had the nerve to write a multi-trillion dollar check to large corporations, and then turn around and block money for state aid -- and he actually admitted he blocked it specifically because he doesn’t want states using it to prevent cuts to the retirement benefits of teachers, first responders, firefighters, cops and other public-sector workers....

Meanwhile, the Washington Post’s Jeff Stein points out that the legislation doesn’t include any resources for first responders, budget-strapped states or food stamps. It doesn’t include any new oversight of the first bailout bill. It includes nothing to help states move to a vote-by-mail system in the event that coronavirus complicates in-person voting during the general election.

It basically doesn’t include any alleged Democratic Party priority at all.

Frankly, he's much too kind; his subhead gives them way too much credit on the blind vs. evil scale. Are Democratic leaders showing fear and learned helplessness, cowardice in the face of McConnell and Trump's attacks? Or are they simply letting Republicans do what they and their donors want done anyway, to "write a multi-trillion dollar check to large corporations"?

Either way, Sirota says it doesn't have to be like this. House and Senate Democrats have good alternative choices:

Senate Democrats could put up some kind of fight -- they could filibuster, they could try for amendments, they could do anything other than just voice vote through whatever McConnell gives them.

House Democrats could do even more. They literally control the House. It is theirs. They could pass their own emergency legislation and dare McConnell to reject it, at a time when he is running for reelection and polls show he is one of the country’s most unpopular senators.

But they refuse -- and their rationale is revealing.

Yes, Democratic leaders want to placate their corporate donors by passing corporate bailout bills. Yes, they are part of a bipartisan establishment that takes orders from K Street. That’s all true. [emphasis added]

One of the great mysteries of this last round of bailout is, Where was the House bill? There was none.

Next, from Matt Taibbi at his own Substack site:

Why Did Democrats Nominate Donna Shalala to the Bailout Oversight Panel?
With the Congressional Oversight Committee, Democrats had a rare opportunity to reverse public perception about the party’s closeness to Wall Street. Instead, they punted again

First, he notes that "the Congressional Oversight Committee is not about health, but high finance, and Shalala appears to know nothing about that." He follows with this from David Dayen:

She holds shares in Boeing, as well as Alaska Airlines and Spirit Aerosystems, which builds a lot of pieces of Boeing aircraft. She owns Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell, and Occidental Petroleum at a time of a historic crash in oil price… She owns retailers and retail producers Ralph Lauren, L Brands, Burlington Stores, and Five Below… She owns big banks JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of New York Mellon, BBVA Compass, and HSBC…

Then Taibbi adds: "Shalala owns between $301,000 and $615,000 in UnitedHealth, suggesting she wasn’t much troubled by the suit accusing the firm of overbilling Medicare for billions – not a great look for someone now charged with watching for the same kind of behavior with significantly larger stakes. Worse, Shalala has between $202,000 and $550,000 in a series of iShares exchange-traded funds. These are BlackRock funds, at the center of the Fed’s new bond-buying programs already discussed at length in this space."

This, he notes, puts "a big-name Clinton apparatchik with millions invested in the very financial markets that stand to rise from bailout programs."

Taibbi's conclusion, that this "seems like a major unforced error, to put it mildly," is similarly excessively kind. From Taibbi I understand that — he's more reporter than partisan, and that's what reporters say when they don't want to editorialize in their own voices. (Sirota is at least as much partisan as reporter, so I expect something more to the point from him.)

Finally, I offer this, from Nina Turner:

Over 43,000 US millionaires to get ‘stimulus’ averaging $1.6 million each, committee finds | https://t.co/Kub3mTuGwA

This 🤬right here is unacceptable. The vast majority of Americans are suffering especially the poor. Congress come back to work. https://t.co/vz1D2XpvGL

— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) April 20, 2020

The linked headline says it all, or most of it. From the linked article, we find this:

The [CARES] act allows pass-through businesses that are taxed under individual income versus corporate an unlimited amount of deductions against their non-business income, such as capital gains, according to The Washington Post. They can also use losses to avoid paying taxes in other years.

Hedge-fund investors and real estate business owners are “far and away” the ones who will benefit the most, tax expert Steve Rosenthal told the Post.

The CARES Act passed 419-6 in the House and 94-0 in the Senate.  Hands across the water.