Candles at the Grotto. (Peter Ringenberg / University of Notre Dame)
Reports this morning put President Joe Biden on the way to the Capitol. He is delaying his trip to the Climate Conference in Scotland to make this trip.
Joe Manuchin and even Kyrsten Sinema know why. Mr. Biden needs SOMETHING. He needs to take something with him to Glasgow. I am betting on something being some form of the climate initiative Biden originally proposed, whatever is left of it.
The reason I am guessing that the President is headed to the Capitol is to tell the House Democratic Progressive Caucus to vote for whatever, so that Mr. Biden has SOMETHING to take with him on his trip. It has been the Progressives of course who have stood behind the President's Build Back Better Plan even though it means that they will have to hold their noses and vote for the corporate or so-called 'bipartisan' roads and bridges infrastructure plan arranged by corporate senators like Manuchin and Synema.
Joe Biden has a history of turning on people who support him if it suits his purpose in the current moment. This looks like just such a moment.
This has all the feel of a set-up. Mr. Biden, I predict, will tell the Progressives what corporate Democrats have told Progressives for decades: It is better to have a corporate bill than no bill at all. Even if the bill is not progressive. Even if the bill does not benefit the people. Even if the bill mostly benefits the corporations. Otherwise, the corporate Democrats will say that the Progressives are blocking 'progress,' that Progressives cannot get things done.
The truth of the matter is that corporate Democrats like Mr. Biden cannot get the Build Back Better Bill done.
When Mr. Biden turns on the Progressive Caucus in the House, it will be interesting to see how they respond.
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