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JANUARY 18, 2022

Meyerson on TAP

How Democrats Can Dig Themselves Out of Their Current Hole

Republicans oppose necessary and very popular programs. Make them vote
on them.

Just in case you feel the need for more bad news, the Gallup poll

released yesterday has great gobs of it. At the beginning of 2021,
Gallup reported, the share of Americans identifying themselves as
Democrats or leaning Democratic exceeded the Republicans', and
Republican leaners', share by nine percentage points: 49 percent to 40
percent. Three-quarters of the way through 2021, that advantage had
shrunk to a single point, 45 percent to 44 percent. And by year's end,
three weeks ago, Republicans had surged to a five-point lead over the
Democrats, 47 percent to 42 percent.

A bad year and a bad fourth quarter, what with rampages by the four
horsemen of Democratic decline: omicron, inflation, Manchin, and Sinema.

It will be no easy task for Joe Biden and the Democrats to extricate
themselves from this hole. Certainly, passing a scaled-back Build Back
Better bill would help. As for the elements left out of that bill, House
Democrats in swing districts have an interesting proposal: Bring them
each to a separate vote. If, as appears likely, the ultimate BBB fails
to include such items as the Child Tax Credit and reducing drug prices,
bring those up for votes, so at least Democrats can highlight their
support for them, and Republicans' opposition, before the November
election.

The Washington Post reports

that House Democrats would like to begin that process ASAP, but I think
the better course of action would be to let Senate Democrats winnow down
BBB so that it can pass through reconciliation first, and only then take
votes on its omitted popular particulars. Getting BBB enacted in any
form has proved to be such a maddening, Herculean task that distractions
like side votes might become just more obstacles to enactment. Once the
bill is enacted, however, Democrats all but have to do what their
swing-districters recommend. To not put themselves on the side of, say,
reducing drug costs, while putting Republicans on the record opposing
such actions, would amount to political malpractice of the highest
order. The Democrats should enact what's enactable and demand a
division of the House on what's not. Otherwise, the division of the
House in the next Congress will be lopsidedly worse than Democrats
currently fear-and avoidably so.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

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