Go Big Or Go Home

I am increasingly convinced that the fate of the Democratic Party depends on the passage of the full Build Back Better Act.

The Build Back Better Act provides a blueprint for the United States’ future that develops a green economy that is based on manufacturing (rather than one based on financial speculation). This economy would be supported by a new social contract that guarantees all Americans access to pre-school and community college education, and radically lowers the cost of health care by expanding the role of Medicare to set prices.

In short, the Act would empower the federal government to finally counter long-neglected problems that have had the cumulative effect of producing widespread disenchantment with government’s potential to do good, a fact that has been skillfully used to fan the flames of white nationalism and fascism in the U.S.

Rebuilding the economy by producing 3 million (unionized) green jobs a year would significantly counter act the hyper-inequality which has made the rich richer, the poor poorer and tears apart the middle class. And best of all, the $3.5 trillion bill would be easily paid for by raising taxes on the rich and corporations for the first time since the 1970s, as well as by stimulating economic growth, which has always been the way government reduces the size of its deficit (as opposed to cutting spending, which always increases deficit spending).

Polling shows that all of the major features of the Act are popular with the American public. But it seems likely at this point that Democratic Senators Manchin and Sinema are hell-bent on radically reducing the scope of the Act. Manchin has explicitly said he opposes the law for its attempt to re-engineer the U.S. economy and wants it to devolve into a welfare bill that is solely focused on providing relief to the ‘truly disadvantaged.’ This is no surprise, given Manchin and Sinema’s ties to the gas and oil industry.

Here’s the problem: the Build Back Better Act cannot pass the Senate without Manchin and Sinema’s support because the Democrats only have 51 potential votes (including VP Harris as President pro tempore of the Senate). But if the Act is radically pared down to appease them, it will garner little enthusiasm from progressives or the American public at large.

In other words, I fear the Democrats are in a go big or go home situation. Either progressives—who have already won a major victory by getting Biden to support their demands—succeed in forcing Manchin and Sinema to vote for the full bill, or they fail and the American people will sink further into despair both because of government’s inability to address the corrosive effect of the multiple social crises of this moment. In short, either the progressives win in 2021 or the radicalized Republican Party will have the advantage in 2022 and 2024.

This is even more so because unless Manchin and Sinema are forced to support this progressive agenda, passage of the badly needed John Lewis Voting Rights Act will be very unlikely.

In my previous post (link) I argued that this moment requires mass mobilization. It is now clearer than ever that the only thing that will force Manchin and Sinema to stop gutting the Build Back Better Act will be millions of people taking to the streets. We only need to look back at the New Deal legislation which became law only when the Congress of Industrial Organizations organized and mobilized 12 million workers during the Great Depression.

Unfortunately, I do not see that happening in 2021. While some activists are calling for marches (e.g., the Poor Peoples Campaign), the general feeling even among progressives seems to be one of exhaustion from years of fighting Trump and Covid.

It may well be that the amazing opportunity of this moment—a progressive Congress and a President willing to take a big chance—will be for naught. And if it is, Democrats may be wandering in the wilderness as a fascist movement takes over both the House and the Senate next year. If that happens, let us remember this moment, and understand that the Democrats had the opportunity to go big and failed to understand what it would take to do so.