Democrats shouldn’t wait for Republicans to come to their senses

By Eugene Robinson,

Here is the lesson Democrats should learn from the passage of President Biden’s massive covid-19 relief bill in the Senate: Don’t hold your breath waiting for Republicans to come to their senses. Just do the right thing. 

That not a single Republican in the House or Senate was willing to vote for the $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package is astonishing, given the overwhelming popularity of the legislation and the magnitude of the crisis it seeks to address. Yes, that’s an awful lot of money. But the GOP has long since forfeited any claim to stand for fiscal restraint, simply preferring to add to the national debt through tax cuts for the rich rather than through spending for the poor.

All the howling and moaning about how Biden supposedly went back on his pledge of bipartisanship is nothing but cynical blather. The president made a good-faith attempt to engage with Republicans, and the best they could come up with was an unserious offer worth barely a third of what the administration believes is needed. Even with GOP state and local officials, such as West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, imploring Congress to “go big,” Republican senators refused to budge. 

I recognize that our present political culture is more tribal than ideological. But the covid-19 relief legislation was an instance in which tribal GOP opposition made no political sense, even for Republicans eager to score a symbolic win. Polls showed that while Republicans in the House and Senate were voting no, their constituents were saying yes. 

A Morning Consult poll released last week, for example, found that the bill, which includes $1,400 direct payments to most citizens, was supported by 77 percent of voters nationwide — including an incredible 59 percent of Republican voters. And even when the pollster explicitly told GOP respondents that the legislation was being proposed by Democrats, 53 percent of Republicans still said they were in favor. 

The economic devastation from the coronavirus pandemic has ravaged Americans and their state governments irrespective of party affiliation. But Republicans in Congress are following the playbook that worked for them in the very different moment of 2010, when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) set out to make Barack Obama “a one-term president” by implacably opposing everything Obama tried to do. Obama did win his second term, but the GOP seized control of both houses of Congress by employing McConnell’s strategy of massive resistance. With the Senate now tied 50-50 and Democrats holding just a 10-seat edge in the House, Republicans dream of capturing one or even both chambers in 2022.

I think the GOP is misreading the moment and the country. But even Republicans who know how to read poll numbers have to deal with the fact that the party’s base is still in thrall to former president Donald Trump, which pretty much takes subtlety and nuance off the table. “Trump good, Biden bad” is what passes for a GOP platform these days. 

There may come a day when Trump’s influence over his party has waned to the point where it would make sense for Biden and the Democrats to attempt to boost the GOP’s small anti-Trump wing. Such efforts would be futile now, however. If Biden can’t get Republicans to vote for a bill that three-quarters of the public supports, he probably can’t get them to vote for anything. He should keep reaching across the aisle but shouldn’t expect anyone to reach back — and he shouldn’t let that stop him from acting once he’s made the effort.

That means the next big spending measure on the administration’s agenda — an infrastructure bill — may also have to be passed via the Senate’s no-filibuster reconciliation process, however West Virginia’s Joe Manchin III (D) may balk at the prospect. Infrastructure used to be the one thing both parties could always agree on, because there are roads and bridges in every congressional district. Now, once again, even an infrastructure bill might be legislation that is highly popular across the country, but that Republicans are too frightened to vote for.

Republicans are genuinely united against another issue of vital importance to Democrats: expanding and guaranteeing the right to vote. The GOP fears, with good reason, that unless they can suppress the votes of major Democratic constituencies, especially people of color, the Republican Party will be reduced to long-term minority status. If the ambitious For the People Act is to make it through the Senate, Democrats are going to have to get around the filibuster. Suspending it for one piece of legislation isn’t the same as abolishing it for all time.

Do Biden and the Democrats risk overplaying their hand if they plow ahead in this manner? Perhaps, but Republicans are leaving them little choice. And so far in the Biden era, good policy looks like good politics.

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