Main Edition
US
FR
December 23, 2021 - 3:15pm
Democrats continue to publicly excoriate West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who has apparently torpedoed the second leg of President Biden’s “Build Back Better” proposals which, among other things, would have supplied generous tax incentives for green energy, provided universal pre-K (pre-school), expanded health-care access, and offered generous child tax credits.
In fairness, Manchin is not alone. He is now providing political cover for other Democrats who had expressed misgivings about the legislation. It is easier for Manchin to do this, as he comes from a red state dominated by coal interests, whereas the other two are in states that increasingly hew blue. In West Virginia, Trump took 68% of the vote against Biden, and the state has not backed a Democrat presidential candidate since 1996. The governor, Jim Justice, won the state gubernatorial race as a Democrat, but quickly swapped to the GOP, and Manchin could easily do the same, thereby causing the Democrats to lose control of the Senate.
Joe Manchin represents a much older kind of ‘blue dog’ conservative-leaning Democrat — a kind not seen since the days since LBJ or even FDR. But in today’s Party he looks like a relic of a bygone era; the priorities of today’s Democrats, as reflected in “Build, Back, Better” pay relatively little heed to the historic New Deal coalition, instead reflecting the priorities of the woke professional-managerial elite.
The social base of the New Deal — a farmer-labour coalition at a time when about a third of the population was rural and a third industrial working class — no longer exists. Now, the party is dominated by a progressive wing that appears to be more interested in trans rights than workers’ rights; and Green New Dealers who advocate climate change measures that could make energy less affordable, as well as reducing the resilience and reliability of the country’s overall energy supply.
In social policy, contemporary Democrats often evoke the Rockefeller Republicans of 1970 — the priorities are Planned Parenthood, the environment, feminism (which used to be an upper-class Republican cause, not Democratic) and civil rights (ditto). Recall that Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights Act, for example, would not have passed without the assistance of socially liberal Republicans, as many of his fellow Democrats were unreconstructed racists and segregationists.
But on economic policy, they eschew supporting the structural changes that would genuinely help the country’s working and middle class. As reflected in the BBB bill, the progressive wing of today’s Democrats is pretending that “care workers” are the new steelworkers, even though this is essentially an elite endowment: by subsidising their maids and nannies and apartment doormen, they don’t have to pay higher wages. Similarly, the federalised day care proposal is for warehousing the children of maids and nannies so they can create a buyer’s market in non-union domestic servants willing to work for peanuts, with the taxpayer picking up the tab to keep them alive.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe“In effect, BBB socialises the costs of care for this class, but retains a neo-feudal economic model that largely benefits the professional managerial class that now dominates the Democratic Party.”
This little article summarizes what I suspected for some time. The ‘progressives’ who’re driving Biden’s agenda are not the ordinary folks out protesting (and rioting) in the streets. They’re a much more cynical professional class.
I don’t think they’re cynical. They’re lying to themselves that they’re “good people”. They’re not.
Their sanctimony however hits stratospheric heights, as does their contempt for those below, the ‘repugs’ and assorted deplorables.
The “progressives” embpdy patronizing entitlement, and are increasingly circling their wagons against the plebs. Washington DC has become Versailles-on-the-Potomac. Manchin has somehow managed to not drink the Kool-Aid. But he is still a politician.
Can UnHerd please get a fact checker? And who writes these headlines? Joe Manchin is the Senator from West Virginia, not Virginia. There is a difference. But the headline does have a degree of truth: Manchin “no longer fits” because he is white, he is a man, he is straight, and thus the sworn enemy of the Ds.
I don’t understand a lot of this article–and I’m a Yank. A better way of putting it is that the Ds want to take $ from white people and give it to COWs (Citizens of Wakanda), who are sometimes referred to as poc (people of color, whatever that means). I like my term better, and thus I use it. The elite Ds, citizens of the world, are essentially arguing for “reparations,” no matter what the issue. Massive taxes on white people? Reparations. Allow mass theft from stores? Reparations. Looting and burning down cities? Justifiable rage at endemic racism, and burning it down is a form of reparations. (Don’t ask me how–no idea–but this is how Ds think).
Elizabeth Warren: she just called Elon Musk a “freeloader.” Elon Musk will pay $11 Billion–BILLION–in taxes, and she calls him a freeloader. Please UnHerd, have someone do a story about how Elon Musk in 2021 will pay more in taxes than the combined total of 60 million Americans–whatever the actual number is–I’m betting it’s in the tens of millions–because most people in America do not pay any taxes (aside from sales tax [a form of VAT] and maybe gas taxes).
And this is not unique to America. That citizen of the world, Gordon Brown, said that the West has suffered a stain on its soul because “we” are not giving massive doses of vaccine to corrupt failed states in Africa and other corrupt Third World countries. “No one is safe until everyone is safe” is the utter tosh he repeats. He’s a joke– a Churlish UnHinged Negative Twxx. GB seems to be arguing for reparations because the Third World is too lazy or corrupt to either develop their own vaccine or buy it from us. No free lunch, Corrupt Third World! Time to step up! Pay for your vaccines–and don’t destroy them if they are a week old. The time of the white man’s burden is long gone, which equally applies to the US.
Message to Gordon and to ALL the citizens of the world: They can Let’s Go Brandon!
Yeehaw! giddy-up.
Oh, please, keep that sort of thing up. You, presumably a blue stater, may hate us, but it’s a contemptuous hatred, and thereby blinded to who we are. Please, please, keep pushing us, never pause to reflect that people whom you don’t know may have qualities and potential which you couldn’t imagine. See: Afghanistan.
Go! JJ
Ahem! “… the progressive wing of today’s Democrats is pretending that “care workers” are the new steelworkers, even though this is essentially an elite endowment: by subsidising their maids and nannies and apartment doormen, they don’t have to pay higher wages. Similarly, the federalised day care proposal is for warehousing the children of maids and nannies so they can create a buyer’s market in non-union domestic servants willing to work for peanuts, with the taxpayer picking up the tab to keep them alive”. Sounds like Tax Credits in the UK.
51 duly elected Senators against.
49 duly elected Senators for.
Hard to see where democracy is under assault.
There would likely be more against if there was a blinded vote. Many Democrat senators agree with Joe just don’t want anybody to find out. Senators from solid blue must go along and are at no risk but others must navigate a line trending red and don’t want to be forced to vote.
Simple. It’s progressive math. Only the Democrats count. Therefore one person is preventing 49 from passing what they want. Hence, no democracy, it’s a rule of the minority.
Can UnHerd please get a fact checker? And who writes these headlines? Joe Manchin is the Senator from West Virginia, not Virginia. There is a difference. But the headline does have a degree of truth: Manchin “no longer fits” because he is white, he is a man, he is straight, and thus the sworn enemy of the Ds.
I don’t understand a lot of this article–and I’m a Yank. A better way of putting it is that the Ds want to take $ from white people and give it to COWs (Citizens of Wakanda), who are sometimes referred to as doc (people of color, whatever that means). I like my term better, and thus I use it. The elite Ds, citizens of the world, are essentially arguing for “reparations,” no matter what the issue. Massive taxes on white people? Reparations. Allow mass theft from stores? Reparations. Looting and burning down cities? Justifiable rage at endemic racism, and burning it down is a form of reparations. (Don’t ask me how–no idea–but this is how Ds think).
Elizabeth Warren: she just called Elon Musk a “freeloader.” Elon Musk will pay $11 Billion–BILLION–in taxes, and she calls him a freeloader. Please UnHerd, have someone do a story about how Elon Musk in 2021 will pay more in taxes than the combined total of 60 million Americans–whatever the actual number is–I’m betting it’s in the tens of millions–because most people in America do not pay any taxes (aside from sales tax [a form of VAT] and maybe gas taxes).
And this is not unique to America. That citizen of the world, Gordon Brown, said that the West has suffered a stain on its soul because “we” are not giving massive doses of vaccine to corrupt failed states in Africa and other corrupt Third World countries. “No one is safe until everyone is safe” is the utter tosh he repeats. He’s a joke– a Churlish UnHinged Negative Twin. GB seems to be arguing for reparations because the Third World is too lazy or corrupt to either develop their own vaccine or buy it from us. No free lunch, Corrupt Third World! Time to step up! Pay for your vaccines–and don’t destroy them if they are a week old. The time of the white man’s burden is long gone, which equally applies to the US.
Message to Gordon and to ALL the citizens of the world: They can Let’s Go And this is not unique to America. That citizen of the world, Gordon Brown, said that the West has suffered a stain on the world because “we” are not giving massive doses of vaccine to corrupt failed states in Africa and other corrupt Third World countries. “No one is safe until everyone is safe” is the utter tosh he repeats. He’s a joke– a Churlish Negative UnHinged t**t. GB seems to be arguing for reparations because the Third World is too lazy or corrupt to either develop their own vaccine or buy it from us. No free lunch, Corrupt Third World! Time to step up!
Why are American political expressions such as ‘blue dog’ so irredeemably vulgar?