The Politics of Relief

The Senate is set to debate the Biden administration’s COVID-19 relief package this week, and ...

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The Senate is set to debate the Biden administration’s COVID-19 relief package this week, and today the gang talks about the politics of getting it passed. Steve posits the administration’s strategy is more focused on public opinion, rather than what Republicans want: “They say ‘we care about bipartisanship outside the beltway, not inside the beltway.’” Along with the relief bill, the group discusses the ongoing situation in Afghanistan and debates whether an “endless war” in the country is a good idea or a bad one. Jonah and Sarah disagree on how important voting actually is. And finally, some good old-fashioned election punditry. The hosts talk about the strategy memo that came out from the GOP on how to retake the House in 2022.

Show Notes:

–The Remnant with Michael Strain

–Morning Consult polling on COVID stimulus 

–“Last Exit From Afghanistan” by Dexter Firkins

–SCOTUSblog write up of the Arizona voting rights case

–House GOP 2022 strategy memo

–Democratic Party autopsy – New York magazine

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Comments (19)
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  1. Jason Runyan

    I have a concern with the liberal use of the word Socialist when referring to people slightly to the left of say, Bill Clinton. Socialism is vile, and if we go on labeling so many people a "socialist", it will lose its sting. Much like the left uses the term "racist" on anybody that is conservative. When you call people a racist because you disagree with them rather than the actual vile people that actually believe their race is superior, then people disregard the term. Basically if everyone is a racist, then no one is. And if everyone is a socialist, then no one is. We need to be more judicious with our phrases.

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    Narwhal

    As a practical matter, someone who works as say a delivery driver or as a drywall installer or at a warehouse typically can not get time off to vote. They have to vote on their day off or after work. Making it more difficult for someone like that to vote does not help the Republicans if they want to be a multi-ethnic working class party.

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    Ben Connelly

    David, you make an excellent argument that I had not thought of but intuitively makes sense. And I admire the fact that it goes against the grain of majority opinion. I’ll admit I was never a fan of the “endless wars” rhetoric, but increasingly didn’t see strong arguments on the other side. Your point that we have not had a major attack on American soil since 9/11 is a good one. Too often in history we fail to credit the success in preventing major black swan catastrophes. We have the bias of the world we see, not the world we don’t. So we only focus on the crises that happen, when in truth we should give a lot of credit to avoiding the crises that don’t.

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    Johntadian

    The high poll percentages of approval of this bill is as disingenuous as Cuomo's apology. Try leaving everything in the bill, including the money for COVID, and just remove the $1400 handout, and see where that poll lands. The public, by and far, doesn't know, and doesn't want to know what is in this gargantuan monstrosity of liberal fantasies. They just want to get that bread. $15/hr as a stand alone bill? How about the $1400 as a stand alone (which would get at least 90 votes in the Senate)and work from there.

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    1. Paul

      And how is $1400 "more generous" (per David French) than the $1200 + $600 passed in 2020?

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        Johntadian

        The point isn't the level of generosity. It's the lack of public knowledge of all the extraneous detrius that's been attached to the bill. All John Q sees is his slice.

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  5. ROBERT

    "All 50 states should adopt my point of view." Classic Jonah Goldberg!! Glad I hadn't just taken a sip of coffee because I was laughing so hard coffee would have been spewed all over the place.
    Good fun on a serious topic! That's The Dispatch.

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  6. Fudrock

    I have misgivings about the size of the relief package and some of the pork in it, which I’ve mentioned in other posts, so I tend to side with Jonah regarding the potential upside for the Democrats of passing a bipartisan bill vs. the implicit downside of courting absolute opposition from the Republicans.

    Much has been said on both sides about the Biden Administration fighting the last war (Obama’s stimulus), and I guess we’ll see how that line of thinking shakes out, but I think it’s worth remembering that the “last war” metaphor needn’t extend that far. We need only remember the last debate over COVID relief took four maddening months, leaving many twisting in the wind while all parties engaged in relentless political gamesmanship. How many times did that package almost pass before it was scuttled?

    Expanded unemployment benefits lapse on March 15th. I can understand why Biden and the Democrats would want to avoid this. Pain is political capital, and entering a protracted battle with Senate Republicans at the same time that the most vulnerable lose their lifelines hands the Republicans a pretty big stack of chips.

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  7. Michael Hartley

    I am assuming David was looking at the Brennan Justice Center site for bills introduced in state legislatures to change election laws. David mentioned the Pennsylvania legislature (Republican dominated) as a place where a lot of election law bills have been introduced. Introduced, yes.
    But none of them have received a single vote yet -- not even in committee. None. Including HB 25 which would abolish no-excuse mail-in voting. (It has 12 sponsors out of 203 representatives.) We have a primary election May 18. The House of Representatives does not return in session until March 15. There does not seem much sense of urgency in Harrisburg.

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    1. Fudrock

      We’ve had 60 such bills introduced in Tennessee, and I’ll be curious if they go anywhere or just try to take advantage of the zeitgeist. Of course, Republicans don’t have much trouble winning in Tennessee.

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    Adicesa14

    Steve’s comment regarding ‘as many eligible voters, voting, as possible,’ begs questions. Age requirement aside, what makes a person eligible to vote? Personally, I think citizenship should be required, but it may not be enforced in some (many?) places. To be registered, a display of some amount of civics knowledge would be a wonderful idea, but … fat chance! What are the requirements for voting?

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    1. Fudrock

      U.S. citizenship is required to vote in all Federal elections. Two states, Arizona and North Dakota, explicitly state that non-citizens cannot vote, while the rest just state citizenship is required. Fourteen states don’t explicitly bar non-citizens from voting in municipal elections, but as of 2020, on 10 municipalities in the country allow for non-citizens to vote: 9 in Maryland and San Francisco, of course, albeit only for school board.

      https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_permitting_noncitizens_to_vote_in_the_United_States

      https://ballotpedia.org/Debate_over_the_prevalence_of_noncitizens_voting

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    karmol

    So I just listened to a Remnant podcast where they talked about how most of the country didn't care about Covid because it 'ravaged blue cities' first.

    And then I listen to a podcast on how the country will react to a terrorist attack. I'm not sure the politics hold. I work (ok worked, covid means i don't really go into the office) in 1 World Trade Center, and I walked by the 9/11 memorial every day I went into the office. I've watched the 9/11 annual memorial celebration from 40 floors up. A lot of my coworkers worked or consulted in Twin Towers. I have spent probably more time than the average American (at least in recent years) thinking about being the target of a large scale terrorist attack.

    When there were a rash of mall (and other) mass shootings a couple years from anti-globalist actors, I will say that I was MUCH more worried about domestic, let's call them anti-diversity attacks. I changed which door I walked and my general route to make sure I avoided high target areas. We occasionally got notices from building management to be on higher alert. When the guy rented a Home Depot pickup truck and rammed it into the pedestrian walkway, I watched the police response from 40 floors up, and had walked across that walkway hours before.

    I will say 1) I have been much much much more concerned about a domestic terror attack - someone with an AR hitting up the memorial and this monument to global trade compared to a foreign attack and 2) after watching the rest of the country not give a $h!7 about NY deaths from covid (i'm originally from central Pennsylvania, and i was really dismayed seeing people not care).

    I don't have a full coherent argument here, but so many more people have died from COVID than did from 9/11 and I wonder if the next attack also hits a blue city, will the rest of the country care? and also, should we also have had a "we were attacked" response to COVID in the zeitgeist?

    It's always boggled my mind a bit that most of the people who would like to massively reign in the war on terror LIVE IN TERROR TARGETS (i.e. blue cities), and those that support empire building and a massive ramp up DO NOT live in places that will likely be targeted.

    Also, I think that The Dispatch podcast needs a token liberal to join occasionally - I don't think you've captured the politics of the left wing of how a drone strike in the middle east happened before covid relief direct payments and an 15 minimum wage. I've seen generally pretty centrist people who have responded VERY STRONGLY to this sentiment being expressed.

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    Kwasi_Broni

    David is so wrong when it comes to Afghanistan. For the twenty years before 9/11 there were no 9/11-type attacks either, without an American presence. There has been no 9/11-type attack since our presence in Afghanistan, but there has been multiple European attacks of different scales... London, Madrid, Paris, Brussels, etc. over that time; not to mention the Philippines, Australia, Canada, and, of course, the United States itself. It's unfortunate that David feels American troops, even down-sized, are just expendable enough to play a continual game of Whac-a-Mole with no end in sight, twenty years later.

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