Deflecting Blame onto the Most Convenient Target

I had gotten it down to where the only show I watch on MSNBC, which is the only station on which I watch news shows, was Nicolle Wallace’s two-hour block. I have tried to watch it if I am home, tape it if I am not, and skim through it. But I think I am done with that show, too, at least for a few months.

For two days in a row, she has blasted “Democrats” for not doing enough to save voting rights. It certainly is a major concern, as we always discuss here, so her heart is in the right place in that regard; except that now continually blaming the Democrats for this situation, is beneath someone who was supposed to be a savvy political strategist for various Republicans.

Two days ago, she said that unless the Democrats do something to get rid of the filibuster, at least in terms of voting rights bills, they are as complicit as Republicans. Complicit? Sure enough, Fox ran with her comment in their online headlines. “Nicolle Wallace says that Democrats are complicit…” This is not only not helpful, it is wrong. “The Democrats” as a group, are not complicit with Republicans in anything, certainly not taking away the right to vote.

Yesterday, from the half hour or so I saw, she bore down on this theme, asking journalist Kimberly Atkins, whether, given that (in both their words) Black people had done everything possible to help Biden get elected, if he and the Democrats did not stop the erosion of voting rights, should we expect them to be as enthusiastic in the future? And Atkins said, “No!,” and continued the theme of how Blacks had gone all-out in the election. Wallace said that as a former Republican, Republicans would never have accepted it if they had the Presidency, and both Houses of Congress, and let the Democrats block them.

Well, there is so much wrong with this, that I have to slow down and not get too upset to write. First, “The Democrats” only have 50 Senate seats, which includes Joe Manchin, the only Democrat who could possibly get elected in a state which voted something like 75-25% for Trump;, and Kyrsten Sinema, who does not appear to have any interest in the Democratic Party as a whole, and who has essentially mocked the idea that she would ever vote to eliminate any aspect of the filibuster.

“The Democrats” did not elect Manchin and Sinema, it was the voters in West Virginia and Arizona. How does President Biden somehow get them to change positions on the filibuster? What threat would he have, even if he played that way? Sinema is even more difficult than Manchin, as she seems to glory in her role as a self-styled maverick, who did a pirouette and flounce to accentuate her vote against something that most of the rest of the Democrats were for. I don’t think that Manchin would change parties, but I could see Sinema doing it, or just listing herself as an Independent. I don’t think that she has any loyalty to the Democratic Party; unless I am being unfair to her, and she is just too ignorant to understand why keeping the filibuster while losing voting rights for millions of people, is a terrible trade-off.

And neither Ms. Wallace or Ms. Atkins, or any of the other people who keep blaming Biden or “the Democrats” for this reality, has any suggestion as to how they are going to convince both Manchin and Sinema to now vote to eliminate the filibuster. “Just do it!, or you are complicit,” or “The Black people who worked hard for you, will lose their enthusiasm,” are not arguments, they are just frustration or self-serving blaming, neither of which gets anyone anywhere but off the hook.

The bad situation the Democrats are in, is their own fault in various ways, though certainly not all. We might want to look back to 2016, where Black people simply did not turn out in numbers comparable to 2008 or 2012. Hillary was not as appealing to them as was Obama, is essentially the reason for that. And that is in some sense understandable; electing the first African-American as President, was very important to them. But if you are going to care about politics at least enough to vote, you don’t get to just pick your spots, not when you are combating the Republican totalitarian machine. Getting Obama elected in 2008, then not showing up in 2010 and 2014, had devastating consequences, which we are still desperately fighting against. Where did all those losses of state legislatures come from, allowing Republicans to pass immensely suppressive voting laws?

Now I am certainly not blaming only Black people for this; the overall Democratic turnout in those two off-year elections was very poor. But Black turnout was 60.8% in 2008, 62% in 2012, and then dropped to 55.9% in 2016. Was some of that a result of the systematic targeting of Black voters via false Facebook ads? Very likely. But were people like Eddie Glaude, who said that Hillary was “the devil you know,” and that he would not vote for anyone for President, also the victims of being fooled by ridiculous ads? I doubt it; Glaude obviously doesn’t know much about governing, and even less about Hillary, to have made such a ridiculous statement, which of course did help discourage the voter turnout. Well, there were White Democrats who chose not to vote for Hillary, either, although she got 66 million votes. The key point is that had Hillary been elected then, this assault on voting rights would not have been successful, if for no other reason than there would have been a 6-3 liberal majority.

Think of that. All they had to do was to vote for someone who was immensely popular in New York as a senator, was very highly regarded as Secretary of State, until the Republicans weaponized Benghazi, which something like eleven separate House hearings found not one shred of blame to affix to her. And yet she, and the policies she stood for, were simply not sufficient for various people to vote for her, so they allowed Trump to win instead. And such things always have consequences, in this case major and horrifying consequences, which Hillary warned over and over about, but they did not want to listen. One thing that many people supposedly on our side, do not learn, is that each election is not a tabula rasa, you don’t get to indulge yourself in one election, and then come back and vote for someone whom you like more for whatever reason, or just because you are more desperate; and then all of the bad effects of the other election disappear. It is not like skipping a meal because you disdain the entree. but far too many Democrats insist on looking at it that way.

Beyond that, why is it that people who are now criticizing Biden for not doing enough, never attacked Obama for being probably the most conciliatory President in the last 120 years? What exactly did Obama fight for? Whom did he campaign for in mid-year elections? Wasn’t he striving for a “grand bargain” which would cut Social Security and Medicare? What did he do when McConnell refused tor nine months to hold hearings on his Supreme Court nominee? How did he fight that? Well, he did not at all, which makes it more ridiculous that some of the people who absolutely adored Obama, and would never say one word to criticize him for eight years, now are eager to go after Biden for not being able to somehow make Manchin and Sinema change their positions about the filibuster.

You can’t just pop up once in a while to vote, when someone you really like is the candidate. You can’t be a Republican for most of your life, then intelligently leave that party, and call yourself a Never-Trumper, though never be willing to state that you are now a Democrat, and then have the standing to start attacking “the Democrats” for not being as single-mindedly ruthless and lock-step as Republicans. Where were these people when Reagan was going after the middle class; and piling up a trillion dollar deficit? Why didn’t they speak up about Iran-Contra, or the collapse of the economy in 2008? What did they do during the rise of the Tea Party and their even worse derivatives, when surely they could see how horrible and evil they were? Mostly, they did nothing–until some of them spoke up against Trump, and now go after Biden and “the Democrats” for not purging the evil, so as to absolve them for any role they might have had in it.

We can use all the help we can get. Democrats in general have been too timid, too cautious about offending the other side, or the media. We need more fight, and a determination to win crucial battles, not just play the role of the virtuous, hard-trying loser. But anyone who does not see what a difficult position we are trying to fight our way out of, does not comprehend the fortress that the Republicans have built, with the state legislature control, and the gerrymandering, and the relentless takeover of the Supreme Court with doctrinaire Radical Right Justices. And of course the filibuster.

Now some who did not vote for many Democrats before, are apparently expecting and demanding a masterstroke which will turn all of this around. Would that it were that easy. It might still be done; but blaming the current President or Democrats in general for it, is very unhelpful, not very insightful, and indulgently self-serving. Which is one of the greatest problems Democrats have had over the decades. The only time the party came together was as a result of the desperation during Trump’s tenure. After six months of Biden, are they eager to fracture again, just to try to prove that everyone should listen to their faction or group, which was right all along?