Senate Democrats Folded Like a Cheap Suit

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

01 January 21

This is to be expected from Mitch McConnell, but Senate Democrats folded like a cheap suit

he United States Senate saw out the final hours of this plague-ridden alley-rat of a year by doing what it does best: capping off a week of posturing by folding like a cheap suit. This is particularly true of the Democratic caucus, which talked bravely for almost a month about delaying a vote on the National Defense Authorization Act until Mitch McConnell brought an increase from $600 to $2,000 in survival checks to the floor for a clean vote. Whereupon all but six Democratic senators went over the side and voted with McConnell to move to begin debate on overriding the president*'s veto of the NDAA with no strings—and, more important, no additional cash—attached. It is important to note that, by the logic of the Senate, the country can afford $15.4 billion for the president*'s idiot Space Force next year, but it simply cannot afford the cost of keeping sick people from starving or being evicted. Dickens died too goddamn soon for these people.

(Before moving on, we should call out by name the five Democrats who joined Bernie Sanders—and, it should be said, six Republicans—in sticking to their word on the survival checks: Jeff Merkley, Chris Van Hollen, Ron Wyden and both senators from the Commonwealth—God save it! Interestingly, both incumbent Republicans from Georgia declined to vote at all.)

I am as big a fan of conservative Republican chaos as anyone is, so watching McConnell continue to go upside the president*'s head on the NDAA ordinarily would bring me great joy, especially since the president*'s veto was based on a) wanting to preserve the names of Confederate traitors on U.S. military posts and, b) wanting to arrange for Twitter to stop being mean to him. But the country is suffering now, immediately, and the unseemly scramble to pass this hog farm of a bill while essentially stiffing the rest of the country is an embarrassment to the idea of a civil society. But, as has been the case since forever, all you have to do to scare Democrats into line is infer that they are leaving the country open to its enemies, as McConnell more than well knows. It's Red-baiting without actual Reds. From Politico:

McConnell in particular slammed progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for making the defense bill collateral damage in the stimulus fight. Sanders is leading the charge with conservative Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) for $2,000 stimulus checks, which were approved overwhelmingly in the House earlier this week at Trump’s urging. Trump has derided the stimulus legislation, which he ultimately signed Sunday, that would only grant $600 stimulus checks to Americans. “The Senate will not let our national security be shoved off course, certainly not be senators who have spent years, literally years, trying to gut America’s capabilities while our adversaries continue ramping up," McConnell said of Sanders.

I'm fairly confident that the Senate will join the House of Representatives and override the president*'s veto. I am absolutely confident that this will occasion a full-blown tantrum from down at Camp Runamuck. But the response of the institutions of government to the exigencies of this monumental public health emergency remains more than a little embarrassing.