Bipartisan Infrastructure/3.5T Reconciliation/Gov Funding/Debt Ceiling (2 Viewers)

[coldseat]

Thought it would be good to have a place to discuss all the drama on Capitol Hill and whether Democrats will get any of this signed. Given that Republican have abandoned any responsibility of doing anything for the good of country it's on Dems to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling. But as with the reconciliation bill, moderates are opposing this.

I'm really trying hard to understand why Manchin and Sinema are making the reconciliation bill process so difficult and how they think that benefits them? As far as I can see, all it's doing is raising the ire of the majority of democrats towards them. It's been well known for a long time now that both the Infrastructure bill and reconciliation bill were tied together. They worked so hard to get and "Bipartisan" Infrastructure bill together (because it was oh so important to them to work together) and passed in the Senate, but now want to slow drag and bulk on the reconciliation bill (by not being able to negotiate with members of their own party)? There by, Putting both bills passage at risk and tanking both the Biden agenda and any hope of winning Congress in 2022? Make it make sense!

I suspect they'll get it done in the end because the implication of failure are really bad. But why make it so dysfunctional?

The drama and diplomacy are set to intensify over the next 24 hours, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) scrambles to keep her fractious, narrow majority intact and send the first of two major economic initiatives to Biden’s desk. In a sign of the stakes, the president even canceled a planned Wednesday trip to Chicago so that he could stay in Washington and attempt to spare his agenda from collapse.
Democrats generally support the infrastructure package, which proposes major new investments in the country’s aging roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections. But the bill has become a critical political bargaining chip for liberal-leaning lawmakers, who have threatened to scuttle it to preserve the breadth of a second, roughly $3.5 trillion economic package.
What is in and out of the bipartisan infrastructure bill?
That latter proposal aims to expand Medicare, invest new sums to combat climate change, offer free prekindergarten and community college to all students and extend new aid to low-income families — all financed through taxes increases on wealthy Americans and corporations. Liberals fear it is likely to be slashed in scope dramatically by moderates, including Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), unless they hold up the infrastructure package the duo helped negotiate — leading to the stalemate that plagues the party on the eve of the House vote.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/09/29/biden-pelosi-democrats-infrastructure/

 

[J-DONK]

Progressives are at a disadvantage here because they've developed this perception and reputation of being endless, "tax and spend", big-government advocates for decades and the results didnt always lead to tangible, meaningful results. One gets that impression after examining LBJ's " Great Society " social programs of the mid-late 1960's which ended up being a bit of disappointment due to hundreds of millions of dollars ending up bombing North Vietnam in air raids, destroying rural, possible VC hamlet villages where they got sanctuary and hid their weapons, food, munitions, and sometimes even got their wounded guerillas treated.

Aren't Medicaid/Medicare popular? I've never heard someone try to make the argument they aren't because of the Vietnam war.

I would argue that conservatives, and "moderates" rail against "tax and spend" because anytime a social program is introduced. The program becomes popular, and then can't be cut.

All I say is Sinema, and Manchin are making progressives, and their policies more popular by the day.

I'll also add a bit of a tangent in here. You say progressives are at a disadvantage, but this is 94 vs 2. There are 94 house members of the CPC. They also changed their rules so to be a member of a CPC means you vote as a bloc in situations like this. I'm sure it's a large reason as to why Biden is siding with progressives. He has no other option.

 

[coldseat]

Anybody else starting to see affects from Republicans holding the debt ceiling hostage?

I'm in the process of buying a house and just came under contract yesterday. My quoted interest rate ticked up .125% from 2.875% to 3.00% from what they preapproved me for on Sept. 16th. Now I'm really starting to worry about what's going to happen by my closing on Nov. 10th, assuming everything goes as planned.

I wrote my 2 Senators to cut the shirt and stop filibustering, but it will fall on deaf ears as always.

 

[Saintman2884]

I think that's a perception, but it's a pretty selective perception, since it disregards most of Western Europe and particularly Scandinavia entirely, which has multiple examples of progressive governments, strong unions, big state spending, and good results.

I'm personally increasingly inclined to think much of the 'problem' as perceived in the UK and USA is far more a product of an overwhelmingly adversarial, as opposed to cooperative, essentially two-party approach to government, and to union-business and union-government relationships than it is anything else.

As for the UK's 'winter of discontent', I think you've framed that oddly. That situation was complex and there were other factors, but it was essentially caused by the Labour government trying to impose a continuing cap on pay increases of 5% far beyond the point where that was sustainable. The various unions - including small, not especially powerful ones - didn't just all spontaneously go, "Oooh, let's demand giant pay rises!"; people literally needed substantial pay rises just to make ends meet after the substantial inflation of the previous years.

And I say 'trying to impose', because the government was only imposing the limit on public sector workers. In principle, the private sector could face sanctions for giving higher pay rises, but when that actually happened in late '78 (Ford, for example, offered 17 percent after a Ford workers' strike), the government announced the sanctions, but the Conservatives put down a motion to revoke them, which passed, so the government was left with no way of enforcing any limit on the private sector.

So you had a situation where people needed higher pay rises, people were getting them in the private sector, but the government was refusing to budge regardless. That's plainly unsustainable. People can only accept being unable to afford rent, food, and heat for so long.

I'm not sure what you're talking about with 'the British military taking over the running of a nation's economy'; the Army was used to provide limited supporting services where strikes were in action, e.g. to provide a skeleton service while Ambulance drivers were striking. Similarly, there were limited plans for the Army to provide fuel tanker drivers during the truck drivers' strike, but I don't think those were put into action.

So I wouldn't say the government made it worse 'by readying the British military to take over the running of a nation's economy', because that wasn't a thing. They made it worse through wishful thinking and denial of reality, thinking that workers would just accept unacceptable conditions indefinitely.

(Coincidentally, we have a Conservative government making things worse through wishful thinking and denial of reality right now; we even have the Army actually providing fuel tanker drivers! But that's another story).

Ultimately, the strikes resulted in better pay rises than 5%, as was inevitable, and really should have been recognised by Callaghan's government in the first place.

So inept and incompetent government problem, sure, but a strong union problem? No. Personally, I would always consider a situation that arises from an attempt to keep people in unacceptable conditions as arising from the attempt to keep people in unacceptable conditions, not from the people working together to change it.

But

I think that's a perception, but it's a pretty selective perception, since it disregards most of Western Europe and particularly Scandinavia entirely, which has multiple examples of progressive governments, strong unions, big state spending, and good results.

I'm personally increasingly inclined to think much of the 'problem' as perceived in the UK and USA is far more a product of an overwhelmingly adversarial, as opposed to cooperative, essentially two-party approach to government, and to union-business and union-government relationships than it is anything else.

As for the UK's 'winter of discontent', I think you've framed that oddly. That situation was complex and there were other factors, but it was essentially caused by the Labour government trying to impose a continuing cap on pay increases of 5% far beyond the point where that was sustainable. The various unions - including small, not especially powerful ones - didn't just all spontaneously go, "Oooh, let's demand giant pay rises!"; people literally needed substantial pay rises just to make ends meet after the substantial inflation of the previous years.

And I say 'trying to impose', because the government was only imposing the limit on public sector workers. In principle, the private sector could face sanctions for giving higher pay rises, but when that actually happened in late '78 (Ford, for example, offered 17 percent after a Ford workers' strike), the government announced the sanctions, but the Conservatives put down a motion to revoke them, which passed, so the government was left with no way of enforcing any limit on the private sector.

So you had a situation where people needed higher pay rises, people were getting them in the private sector, but the government was refusing to budge regardless. That's plainly unsustainable. People can only accept being unable to afford rent, food, and heat for so long.

I'm not sure what you're talking about with 'the British military taking over the running of a nation's economy'; the Army was used to provide limited supporting services where strikes were in action, e.g. to provide a skeleton service while Ambulance drivers were striking. Similarly, there were limited plans for the Army to provide fuel tanker drivers during the truck drivers' strike, but I don't think those were put into action.

So I wouldn't say the government made it worse 'by readying the British military to take over the running of a nation's economy', because that wasn't a thing. They made it worse through wishful thinking and denial of reality, thinking that workers would just accept unacceptable conditions indefinitely.

(Coincidentally, we have a Conservative government making things worse through wishful thinking and denial of reality right now; we even have the Army actually providing fuel tanker drivers! But that's another story).

Ultimately, the strikes resulted in better pay rises than 5%, as was inevitable, and really should have been recognised by Callaghan's government in the first place.

So inept and incompetent government problem, sure, but a strong union problem? No. Personally, I would always consider a situation that arises from an attempt to keep people in unacceptable conditions as arising from the attempt to keep people in unacceptable conditions, not from the people working together to change it.

Maybe you werent alive back then or were too young to remember, but Callaghan's Labour regime actually had a halfway decent reason they stuck to their 5% recommended pay raise protocol: runaway inflation due to UK's economy suffering terrible repeated OPEC oil shocks, gradual steady rise in consumer goods, and the even more glaring reality that a good portion of existing British heavy industry was outdated, old and antiquated. Even as late as the 1970's, quite a bit of British steel, iron ore and coal plants, or "pits" lagged far behind in terms of innovation, worker productivity, creativeness, compared to.newer, more technologically sophisticated, advanced economies of France, West Germany, and Scandivinavian countries. UK was actually labeled.by many times economists as "the new sick man of Europe" because of lack of.government investment by both Labour and Tory regimes going back to Atlee's creation of British modern welfare state and massive nationalization program from 1945-51. Honestly, in terms of actual work effective decent working political government in UK's "post-WWII consensus" from 1945-79 was certainly Atlee and Harold Wilson for his social reforms. Even during this period, the UK economy had some noticeable ups and downs, IIRC, they nearly defalted on their debt payments in mid-60's,.or some major near-disaster was averted in the mid-60's in the country's financial markets. The pound was devalued, and the TUC, the political backbone of the Labour Party, particularly more so back then, DID ACTUALLY become a bit more politically vindictive and petty, Wilson nationalized the steel industry but TUC leaders wanted a lot more then that. There was a sense by the mid-70's, internally England was becoming an overly difficult place to govern properly. The IRA had flaired up again. There were massive power outages, which caused businesses, stores, offices to close and even adopt.a three-day work week. The TUC werent and shouldn't be viewed as blameless because some commentators viewed or suspected they were becoming too unreasonable, demanding, and even worse, militant. Some have argued they deliberately called a 1974 miner's strike to force Heath's resignation, which caused its intended effect. Sure, they were strong, but that doesn't necessarily mean back then they were always acting rationally and logically because there are notable instances where one might be forgiven to think they weren't. Labor or trade unions are just as likely to be corrupted or become not to reasonable actors as much as politicians or parties. Look at the long, well-documented history of American organized labor's association with Mafia ties, how Jimmy Hoffa and successive Teamsters leaders made their members retirement funds unofficial slush funds to build lavish, underworld-controlled Las Vegas casinos and beat up, intimidate, murder any investigative reporters who dared to do any deep digging or ask too many unnecessary questions.

Callaghan had to be the man who do what Heath and Wilson werent willing to do and refused to do, reign in rampant, runaway inflation, and by late 1978-early 79, inflation had finally gone to.single digits. The "Winter of Discontent" ruined what had, by that point, been a very auccessful PM tenure and any British historian will tell you Callaghan was as pro-union as you were going to find. He never actually called up or decided to implement the National Emergency Contingency Plan, mostly because he couldn't believe the rank-and-file TUC who frankly didnt know shirt about how to stop or curtail runaway inflation would turn against them, or him.

And I sincerely hope those Ford workers, road haulage workers, striking lorry drivers in cities like Hull and even gravediggers in Liverpool went on strike and left many grieving families unable to bury their dead, so they were stored en masse at storage facilities. There was even rumors floating around that if the Liverpool grave diggers union wasnt settled soon, they'd be forced to bury dead people at sea. Roof, WTF is that all about? Thats major time BS. I hope they enjoyed their pay rises, because their actions, unintentionally as they may have seen them, actually brought in to power a very hardline Tory government led by a forceful woman determined not to let Labour or its TUC allies hold the UKs economy hostage again. If Callaghan's Lib-Lab power-sharing agreement had stayed in power in early 1979, a lot of the drastic, devastating economic carnage Thatcher brought might've been avoided and Old Labour's once-dominant status couldve evolved or reformed itself better.


And yes, there was talk, rumors going around in certain circles, mostly among high-ranking, retired or semi-retired military officers, aristocrats about feasibility or possible success of a military coup. We know about a secret, high-level meeting between Lord Mount batten and several potential coup plotters who personally didn't like Wilson, held on to persistent he had KGB kopromat being used against him based on a trade delegation earlier in his political career some deemed a bit too chummy, and he had allowed a racist, South African-styled apartheid regime in Rhodesia announce UDI in 1965 led by a charismatic white Rhodesian populist, Ian Smith, make a fool out of him and reveal just how powerless UKs attempts to sanction him to agree to a black majority rule regime. Wilson had a rumored reputation as being anti-monarchist, and pro-Republican and there's several episodes in The Crown TV series that discuss these issues as well the discussed 1967 coup. There's even been conflicting accounts Wilson may have been forced out in 1976 by a coalition of conservative British generals, officers and some political enemies he'd made in the Labour.

There were segments, presented as hypothetical scenarios on BBC TV programs during the 1970's about what a military putch, might look like if lets say, Scotland unilaterally declares its independence or the massive violence, bombings in Northern Ireland become so uncontainable, British military would essentially have to take over from civilian leadership to run the region's security or increase its then already-vast military presence to try and keep Provos/IRA/Sein Fein and Ulster Defense League from going full frontal to a state of near-civil war.

Also, countries like Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have a bit of a fundamentally different economic model used thats different than its French, Anglo-Saxon counterparts. Its called the Nordic Model and its works primarily because Scandivinavian countries tend to have less corruption, graft, and slick, duplicitous power-hungry demogagoes looking to advance their careers. There's also a greater.sense of knowing "not to press" or push shirt in terms of big-government spending, they don't go too far or massively overreach their authority. Labor or trade unions also, IMHO, also tend to have a smarter, more mature, less politically adversarial sense of "social responsibility" compared.to.their British or Continental neighbors. Good government works when it knows its exact responsibilities and big government works even better when the regime in charge doesn't believe it can keep on pushing, they know where the lines are drawn and never crosses them because they develop some "entitlement complex".

 

[Saintman2884]

Aren't Medicaid/Medicare popular? I've never heard someone try to make the argument they aren't because of the Vietnam war.

I would argue that conservatives, and "moderates" rail against "tax and spend" because anytime a social program is introduced. The program becomes popular, and then can't be cut.

All I say is Sinema, and Manchin are making progressives, and their policies more popular by the day.

I'll also add a bit of a tangent in here. You say progressives are at a disadvantage, but this is 94 vs 2. There are 94 house members of the CPC. They also changed their rules so to be a member of a CPC means you vote as a bloc in situations like this. I'm sure it's a large reason as to why Biden is siding with progressives. He has no other option.

I'm saying or arguing that a lot of potential money that should've been invested in LBJ's Great Society welfare programs instead got put on intensive military spending for a conflict LBJ was told, by his military generals, that even if they did succeed, it was going to be a long, drawn-out war with very high casualty lists. How effective are social programs back then if the money back then earmarked for it is being massively used instead for bombs, tanks, guns, fighter planes, military housing complexes and bases for US troops and personnel?

 

[Kerry Won Ohio]

And that's the very reason the Progressives won't pass Infrastructure. They know they can't trust Manchin or Sinema and other moderates. The frustrating part is that they won't name what their top line number or conditions are that they will support to allow the negotiations to move forward on reconciliation.

Either way, they'll both be blamed for tanking the Biden agenda. And they'll be primaried and/or lose enough support among progressives in their states to lose the general if they allow this all to tank. Not to mention assuring a full republican takeover and Trumpism to destroy our country. What a win!

What's interesting about this Democratic infighting is that the progressive wing of the party actually has legitimate power now. That certainly wasn't true 5 - 10 years ago. Rep Jayapal in the House has done an excellent job holding firm and negotiating the Progressive Caucus' position -- that the two bills must be passed simultaneously.

And Biden, who has been a moderate throughout his career, is actually agreeing with the Progressives that both bills must be passed simultaneously. This is something else that never would have happened 5 - 10 years ago.

I'm encouraged that the Democratic Party is becoming more progressive, but they better stop the Republicans from stealing the 2022 election. Otherwise, the game is over and none of this matters.

 

[Kerry Won Ohio]

I say follow the money. I am trying to find an article on Sinema that I read about 10 days ago or so, about her opposition to some things. Coincidentally some of what she opposes happens to align with some lobbyist group that opposed the same things, which just so happened to be a huge donor of hers.

For Manchin? Willing to bet same thing: it is big political donors influencing him

Its all these huge corporations controlling what happens. I see this happened too

Democrats dial back drug-pricing plans to win over moderates

It’s a sign the drug industry is bending a potential compromise in manufacturers’ favor after spending more than $171 million lobbying in the first half of this year.

www.politico.com

eventually this thing will probably be so gutted it won't even resemble the original plan

Manchin and Sinema face zero pressure from their voters to compromise on this issue. The vast majority of voters in West Virginia and Arizona don't care if the spending bill is $1.5 trillion, $2 trillion, or $3.5 trillion. The voters will be happy with any of these amounts.

The ONLY pressure that Manchin and Sinema feel regarding the total amount in the spending bill are from their corporate donors.

 

[Kerry Won Ohio]

You take what you can get and live to fight another day, IMO. Here’s a pretty good exchange I came across:

"Eric Owens" is totally off the mark. The fact is that Progressives have already compromised a great deal, a lot more than moderates like Manchin and Sinema have. I believe Bernie Sanders' original proposal for the spending bill was over $6 trillion.

The ONLY people who have been negotiating in good faith have been the Progressives. This is a major reason why Biden is siding with the Progressives in this debate.

 

[Saintman2884]

What's interesting about this Democratic infighting is that the progressive wing of the party actually has legitimate power now. That certainly wasn't true 5 - 10 years ago. Rep Jayapal in the House has done an excellent job holding firm and negotiating the Progressive Caucus' position -- that the two bills must be passed simultaneously.

And Biden, who has been a moderate throughout his career, is actually agreeing with the Progressives that both bills must be passed simultaneously. This is something else that never would have happened 5 - 10 years ago.

I'm encouraged that the Democratic Party is becoming more progressive, but they better stop the Republicans from stealing the 2022 election. Otherwise, the game is over and none of this matters.

Their still going to have to deal with moderate Dems who see them as reckless, "tax and spend", big government liberals and kick them out of the party because their not completely down with their more left-wing policies.

And some prominent progressives, like Bernie Sanders, Illam Omar, Tlalib, sometimes have been their own worst enemies, Sanders, Omar among the most notable seeing as Sanders has been reticent to criticize or condemn brutal, failed left wing governments like Chavez and Maduro's Venezuela, and has made positive, somewhat misguided remarks about one-party Communist dictatorship of Castro's Cuba,.like how long, bread or food lines creates a sense of social solidarity and responsibility and tending to ignore how undemocratic Cuba's government was in handling pretty vocal, intense street protests in Havana this past.summer, and had to be essentially called out by MSM outlets to even to forking say something or release some statements.

 

[Saintman2884]

Manchin and Sinema face zero pressure from their voters to compromise on this issue. The vast majority of voters in West Virginia and Arizona don't care if the spending bill is $1.5 trillion, $2 trillion, or $3.5 trillion. The voters will be happy with any of these amounts.

The ONLY pressure that Manchin and Sinema feel regarding the total amount in the spending bill are from their corporate donors.

If we're going to cast them down to the deepest pit of Hell, then lets be honest with each other that they'll be in good company. Progressives have left-wing, well-funded pressure groups putting a lot of the same pressure on them in same, similar fashion as corporate donors, just with a lot less money involved or billion-dollar budgets or windfalls.

 

[Kerry Won Ohio]

If we're going to cast them down to the deep pit of Hell, then lets be honest with each other that they'll be in good company. Progressives have left-wing, well-funded pressure groups putting a lot of the same pressure on them in same, similar fashion as corporate donors, just with a lot less money involved or billion-dollar budgets or windfalls.

"with a lot less money" is the key phrase there. You're basically acknowledging that moderate Democrats are more corrupt. However, I think ideology is more important when discussing the key differences between progressive vs moderate democrats.

Progressives and their lobbyists believe in investing in the future of this country. They understand that, in the long run, investing in people and social safety net programs and fighting climate change will save trillions of dollars over the coming decades. Moderates are simply short-sighted on these issues.

The spending bill is fully funded with an increase in taxes on the wealthy and on corporations. For whatever reason, moderates like Manchin are hesitant to raise taxes on the wealthy. Well, we know why -- their corporate donors.

These "moderate Democrats" really aren't Democrats at all. They are Nixon Republicans from the 1970s is what they are, before the Republican Party completely lost their minds.

 

[SaintForLife]

 

[Kerry Won Ohio]

It's not obvious to me. After all, a bunch of Trump supporting Republican traitors tried to overthrow our government on Jan 6.

 

[SaintForLife]

What's "unbelievable" is that you have an entire political party dedicated to removing basic protective measures FOR a pandemic IN a pandemic.

That's the modern Republican party.

You do understand how that's an irresponsible way for adults to act, right?

Put aside the playing politics goggles for a second and answer that question straight up.

The Democrats have the majority to vote in the proposals they have been campaigning on for a while, but for some reason they find bs excuses not to vote for it. Do you not see the game the Democrats are playing? Their corporate donors don't want any progressive bills passed, but they have convinced many of their supporters that they want it passed. Keep up the charade or realize that the US is an oligarchy and the citizens will is ignored.

 

[Kerry Won Ohio]

The Democrats have the majority to vote in the proposals they have been campaigning on for a while, but for some reason they find bs excuses not to vote for it. Do you not see the game the Democrats are playing? Their corporate donors don't want any progressive bills passed, but they have convinced many of their supporters that they want it passed. Keep up the charade or realize that the US is an oligarchy and the citizens will is ignored.

Trump supporting anti-vaxxers on their death beds...still denying they have COVID. Republican governors actually trying to prevent mask wearing during a pandemic that has killed freaking 700,000 people.

That's YOUR crazy party. Own it.

 

[SaintForLife]

Trump supporting anti-vaxxers on their death beds...still denying they have COVID. Republican governors actually trying to prevent mask wearing during a pandemic that has killed freaking 700,000 people.

That's YOUR crazy party. Own it.

I'm a Libertarian and I support vaccination. Those Republicans that support what you mentioned are horrible people catering to their idiot supporters, but it still pales in comparison to the Democratic party that is attached at the hip to the CIA/FBI propaganda and supports censorship of any views that go against the liberal orthodoxy.

 

[Kerry Won Ohio]

I'm a Libertarian and I support vaccination. Those Republicans that support what you mentioned are horrible people catering to their idiot supporters, but it still pales in comparison to the Democratic party that is attached at the hip to the CIA/FBI propaganda and supports censorship of an views that go against the liberal orthodoxy.

"Those Republicans" are the majority of Republicans or very close to it, in case you haven't figured that out yet. At least you agree they are horrible people.

But for some misguided reason known only to you, you would rather complain about a much smaller problem (i.e. the Democrats) than those "horrible people" (i.e. the Republicans).

 

[Saintman2884]

"with a lot less money" is the key phrase there. You're basically acknowledging that moderate Democrats are more corrupt. However, I think ideology is more important when discussing the key differences between progressive vs moderate democrats.

Progressives and their lobbyists believe in investing in the future of this country. They understand that, in the long run, investing in people and social safety net programs and fighting climate change will save trillions of dollars over the coming decades. Moderates are simply short-sighted on these issues.

The spending bill is fully funded with an increase in taxes on the wealthy and on corporations. For whatever reason, moderates like Manchin are hesitant to raise taxes on the wealthy. Well, we know why -- their corporate donors.

These "moderate Democrats" really aren't Democrats at all. They are Nixon Republicans from the 1970s is what they are, before the Republican Party completely lost their minds.

Idealogy and idealogues can be a corrupting influence, especially when unchecked. Trump's effect and polarization of the GOP from 2016 onwards is proof is that. Like I said, progressives have well-funded pressure groups pushing them too, so their not exactly "clean" as solar, renewable energy resources. And you didnt exactly answer my second point I made about how progressive Dems can sometimes be their own worst.enemies?

Are why are only left-wing Democrats the only people acceptable to.sit at the table? That kind of attitude increases partisan political tribalism and only serves to alienate voters, not attract them.
Like it or not, independents and moderates got Biden's arse elected to POTUS, not progressive Dems like Bernie or Elizabeth Warren. And you'll need them to hold onto and increase your House and Senate leads, telling them and people like Sinema and Manchin they don't have a seat at the table risks losing some of those voters.

 

[SaintForLife]

"Those Republicans" are the majority of Republicans or very close to it, in case you haven't figured that out yet. At least you agree they are horrible people.

But for some misguided reason known only to you, you would rather complain about a much smaller problem (i.e. the Democrats) than those "horrible people" (i.e. the Republicans).

Smaller problem? Calling for censorship or deplatforming of views the liberals don't like and parroting the propaganda of the US national security state is literally the definition of authoritarianism.