"I would not want Nancy Pelosi as my enemy."
That, I would normally assume, is the gentle motivator being circulated by House Democratic whips among the legislatively fussy. But it would also assume that the whips themselves are being unfastidious.
And since every House Dem is presently at the throat of every other House Dem, this gentle motivator appears inoperable. The result is an epic street brawl between the moderate and progressive wings in the House, with both sides embarrassing themselves with unconcealed chutzpah.
The moderates are demanding a quick and stand-alone passage of the infrastructure bill, while progressives are having none of that, demanding instead a parallel approval of the roughly $3.5t social spending plan. Meanwhile, a government shutdown presses, with the subsequent option of a debt default.
There are no heroes in our story. Only villains. And they're behaving like three-year-olds, with a three-year-old's understanding of political realities and compromise. Their "sharing" skills are yet developed.
"Moderate" objections to the social policy bill are anything but. There are calls for lower price tags entirely divorced from need and fixated on the number alone; panty-waisted opposition to taxing the obscenely affluent; and mind-boggling hostility to Medicare-negotiated drug costs.
Progressives are more generic in their grievances. AOC has simply staked out a "nonnegotiable" stance, as has the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Pramila Jayapal, who insists that up to half of her caucus will vote down the otherwise in-the-bag infrastructure bill, should moderates fail to approve the full spending package.
Which propelled Majority Leader Steny Hoyer into classic understatement: "There will not be a positive reaction to help coalesce our [entire] caucus if the infrastructure bill goes down."
And this is just the House. The mind rebels with violence at pondering, simultaneously, the Senate.
What seems to be missing from House Democratic calculations is that the party stands on a fatal precipice. The failure of compromise between moderates and progressives will mean three tortured years of legislative stagnation, a Democratic Party irreparably split, and a promising presidency shattered. To that we can add two years of a Republican majority, come 2023, investigating every White House sneeze.
It's time to do your magic, Nancy, probably with bludgeons and knives. Never have I seen your members' self-interest cranked up so staggeringly high. It ain't pretty, it's embarrassing, and it could well present the death of America's only governing party.
Guys, get your fucking act together.