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**JANUARY 21, 2022**

Kuttner on TAP

How Things Will Get Better for Biden and the Dems

We can count on Trump to seize defeat out of the jaws of victory.

It is just sickening to watch the media pile on Biden. OK, Manchin and
Sinema are holding the administration hostage. The signals from the CDC
on COVID have been mixed, and Biden stepped on some of his lines at his
recent press conference. The man doesn't walk on water. But compared
to ...

**what**?

Here is a scenario for a Democratic comeback.

Within the next month or two, my sources indicate that Biden will get
about $1.5 trillion of his Build Back Better program. The reconciliation
process cannot be filibustered, and Manchin will eventually support a
lot more than zero.

At that point, Democrats-in-Disarray stops being the slow-drip,
day-after-day headline. And the herd-instinct, echo-chamber press has to
find a new story.

One leading candidate is Republican cannibalism, which has been
proceeding right on schedule.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis broke the unwritten norm that nobody
challenges Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, by suggesting that
Trump is a wuss for urging people to get vaccinated. This in turn made
Trump predictably apoplectic.

If DeSantis can hint at a presidential run, others will follow. Trump
will do more damage to his party by running lunatic unelectable MAGA
candidates in primaries. And then the story becomes Republicans in
disarray.

Just in case the public needs another reminder of just how deranged the
Trump and congressional Republicans are, in February and March the
January 6 Committee investigation of the attempted coup will reveal more
and more details. All of that will also dominate the headlines.

And a massive election-year grassroots mobilization of Democrats will
take shape this spring. Pundits, seeking a new morning line, will start
remembering the larger stakes for our democracy and start writing about
Biden as the comeback kid.

Needless to say, I can't guarantee that this will happen. But don't
rule it out either.

****

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

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**Robert Kuttner's latest book is**

The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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The annual report on union membership explains a lot about what's
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Trump-era austerity for the regulatory state has been in place since
Biden's inauguration. That must end next month. BY ELEANOR EAGAN

Altercation: Before 'Fixing' Election Results, There Was
'Fixing' Census Results

But only now is a fuller picture emerging. BY ERIC ALTERMAN

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