For Democrats, failure is not an option. For Republicans, failure is the point.

There is a part of me that wants to reach into the TV and grab not just Joe Manchin by the throat, but Pramila Jayapal too…not to mention every single one of the talking-heads who have been wringing their collective shirt-fronts all week as Democrats have tried to get their act together to pass this goddamned infrastructure bill and whatever they’re calling the reconciliation bill this week.

And then I remember that at least they’re trying to get something done.  They’re doing it the way Democrats always do – by forming and reforming circular firing squads while never quite getting around to picking up guns and shooting each other – but at least they’ve got a goal, and at least that goal actually means something.  They’re old-fashioned in that way, aren’t they?  Trying to Do Good for the American People. 

You almost forget that was what not only Democrats, but the United States Congress used to do on a regular basis.  Remember the Environmental Protection Administration?  It was created by an executive order issued by none other than Richard Nixon on July 9, 1970.  The House and Senate held hearings that summer and voted to ratify it later the same summer.  The EPA began operations on December 2, and its first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, was sworn in two days later.

How’s that for getting things done, huh?  A Republican president and a Democratic House and Senate actually coming together in less than 6 months to create an entirely new department of government that everyone seemed to agree was necessary and a good thing.

Compare that to the Affordable Care Act.  Announced by President Obama in his first address to a joint session of Congress in February of 2008, it took two years to pass, without a single Republican voting for it.  Not one.  The day after its passage, before it was even signed into law, Republicans introduced a bill to repeal it.  They would go on to vote more than 60 times to repeal all or parts of the ACA over the next seven years.

Today, some 26 million Americans who would not otherwise be able to afford health care are protected under provisions of the ACA, including expanded Medicaid.  Thirty-nine states, including Washington D.C., have expanded Medicaid coverage under the ACA.  Twelve states, all controlled by Republicans, haven’t expanded coverage, a fact that has had very deadly consequences across rural America since the onset of the COVID epidemic.

I’ve spent much of the day watching MSNBC on the television or at least listening to it in the background.  I hardly have to go into detail about all of the machinations that have consumed Capitol Hill all week, with Manchin finally coming out with his “number” and Sinema still silent about hers, the seeming recalcitrance of the Democratic Progressive Caucus over linkage between the infrastructure bill and passage of the reconciliation bill by the Senate – in short all the squabbling that has been going on, overseen by the amazing Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and President Joe Biden from the White House.

But at least they’re squabbling over something that sets out to correct deficiencies in this country that a large percentage of Americans agree need correcting.

Republicans aren’t squabbling at all.  They’re just sitting back waiting as they did with the ACA to vote “no.”  If I hear “failure is not an option” one more time, I’m going to spit, but at least it’s a cliché that’s true.  Democrats are trying -- in the great and honorable tradition of Yesteryear, when Washington D.C. and the United States government existed to do things like protect the environment, provide healthcare to needy people, bring horrors like segregation to an end and protect people’s civil rights – to get things done that need to be done.  And because of that, failure is indeed not an option.

For Republicans, on the other hand, failure is the point.  Mitch McConnell said as much when he announced in May that “One hundred percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration.”  They’re not merely the “party of no.”  They’re the party of destruction.  They want to take away women’s right to control their own reproductive lives.  They want to take away the right to use contraception, for crying out loud.  They want to take away the right to vote.  Even now they want to take away the long agreed upon bedrock principle of democracy that if you win the most votes, you win the election.

The bills that are up for passage by the Congress really are a breaking point for this country.  Passage in some version by the House and the Senate represent not only the possibility of improving roads and bridges and people’s lives.  It is a test of whether our system of government is healthy enough to survive.

Stick with it, Democrats.  Failure is not an option.

It’s important, people. Give us a hand by buying a subscription to this newsletter. Five bucks is not an option. It’s a necessity.