View this email in your browser

**JUNE 30, 2021**

Kuttner on TAP

Is the Circular Firing Squad Back?

****

For almost a year now, Democrats have enjoyed almost unprecedented
unity. Phase one was the unity necessary to oust Trump and elect Biden.
Phase two is the delicate dance needed to get big public-investment
bills through Congress, recognizing that politics is the art of the
possible-all the more so when your working majority is about zero.

I don't know about you, but for me the recent burst of Democratic
unity has been a miracle seldom seen. I've lived through Dixiecrats
undermining civil rights, the anti-war movement toppling LBJ, the hard
hats versus hippies electing and re-electing Nixon, the DLC trashing
"interest group liberalism" (as if the ultimate interest group were not
Wall Street), the splits over NAFTA, and of course Bernie versus
Hillary.

Biden, by seeming reassuringly moderate in his bearing and rhetoric,
while surprisingly progressive on the substance, has managed to hold his
party together on behalf of genuine progress.

But was it just too sweet to last? Are we back to the Democrats' usual
default setting-the famous circular firing squad? Last week, it sure
seemed so.

Thanks to a Biden blurt-that he would never sign a compromise jobs and
infrastructure bill without a commitment to pass a bigger bill as part
of budget reconciliation, a very carefully choreographed two-step
maneuver almost collapsed.

Now, the deal seems back on track, but both progressives dismayed by the
compromise and more moderate Democrats pursuing an illusory
bipartisanship are quietly seething and threatening to blow the whole
thing up.

Get a grip, people. This is how it's going to be for a while.

If Biden can just avoid more unfortunate blurts, we'll get most of the
public investment we need. It sure beats having Trump and McConnell run
the government.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

[link removed]

The Senate's Quiet Opposers

Progressive Democrats view Joe Manchin as the chief blocker of progress,
for thwarting the voting rights bill and refusing to break the
filibuster. But he's not alone. BY AMELIA POLLARD

Boston's Anti-Bain Backlash

Private equity firm Bain Capital is suppressing a unionization campaign
in Canada, but activists are protesting this in Bain's Beantown
hometown. BY DANIEL BOGUSLAW

Biden's War Powers Without Limits

Airstrikes blur the distinction between war and hostilities. BY KAREN
J. GREENBERG

⏩ David Dayen on Democracy Now! Explains the Infrastructure Crisis

Watch Prospect executive editor David Dayen with Rep. Jamaal Bowman
explain what climate change means for infrastructure. BY PROSPECT
STAFF

To receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, click here to
subscribe. 

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

 

[link removed]

YOUR TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION SUPPORTS INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

Copyright (c) 2021 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States