Reuters‘ headline (1/20/21) put the emphasis on the Democrats’ failure rather than the Republicans’ success.
With the GOP leaning ever more heavily on a strategy of voter suppression and election manipulation to gain power, Democrats finally made an effort to stop some of those maneuvers by bringing a voting rights bill before the Senate. But Wednesday’s unified GOP filibuster—and the refusal by Democratic senators Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin to modify Senate rules to allow a majority vote on this one bill—killed the attempt.
To the New York Times headline writers (1/19/21), the story went: “After a Day of Debate, the Voting Rights Bill Is Blocked in the Senate.” Their counterparts at CNN.com (1/19/21) chose: “Senate Democrats Suffer Defeat on Voting Rights After Vote to Change Rules Fails.” At Reuters (1/20/21): “US Senate Democrats Fail in Bid to Pass Voting Rights Bill.”
The morning after the late-night vote (1/20/21), the Washington Post‘s homepage version of its headline read: “Voting Rights Bill Effectively Dead as Senate Rejects Filibuster Change.”
None of those headlines were given top billing, at least not by late morning Eastern Standard Time. By lunchtime, the Post‘s headline had dropped out of the Top Stories section, and CNN.com was giving its top slot to “A Look at Biden’s First Year in False Claims” (1/20/22).
CNN‘s lead example (1/20/22) of factchecking Biden was whether the president had falsely claimed to have once driven an 18-wheeler.
But notice what—or more precisely, who—is missing from all the headlines. We don’t even get a nod to any responsible actor. (“Bill Killed in GOP-Involved Filibuster,” anyone?)
The Washington press corps seems much more comfortable identifying democracy-endangering GOP obstructionism when framing it as a story about Democrats. In an extraordinarily rare instance of a story that that acknowledged the GOP as the main culprit, New York Times congressional reporter Jonathan Weisman (1/19/21) managed nevertheless to make the focus Democratic infighting and impotence in a story with the subhead, “Prominent Democrats are expressing rage at their party’s two filibuster holdouts, rather than at Republicans who have blocked their voting rights bill.” Weisman wrote:
The remarkable vitriol Democratic activists are training on two members of their own party has largely given Republicans a pass for blocking the bill and standing by new state laws devised to limit access to the ballot box and empower partisan actors to administer elections and count votes.
Manchin and Sinema surely deserve intense scrutiny for their corrupt and anti-democratic role in this chapter of our country’s history. But how many times have the supposedly moderate GOP senators that the press corps so praised over their work on the bipartisan infrastructure bill been named in a headline about the voting rights bills? It’s not Democratic activists at fault for “giving Republicans a pass” here—but don’t hold your breath waiting for journalists to take responsibility for their own role in the withering of a democracy their corporate owners have little interest in defending.
Regarding reportage on this issue, mistakes were made.
Nah, ignoring the various poison pills has been intentional. Boss Tweed said “you can vote for anyone you like, as long I get to pick the candidates!” DNC™ LLC will lose due to rightfully fed-up ACTUAL Democrats refusing to L.O.T.E. ourselves ever further to NeoConfederate kleptocracy. Ari can just keep blathering the same cherry-picked, gas-lighting on Amy, while DCCC runs libertarians and stomps down actual Democrats so we’ll have two Republican Parties, while we the peons refuse to take part in the ridiculous charade?
“In an extraordinarily rare instance of a story that that acknowledged the GOP as the main culprit”
What? The GOP is completely irrelevant re: voting rights bills. Are you terrible at math? Insane?
Democrats (plus King and Sanders) could do away with the filibuster, and there’s nothing at all Republicans could do about it. Democrats (plus King and Sanders) could then pass any legislation they want, and there’s nothing Republicans could do about it. Do you actually dispute this?
“GOP obstructionism” does not exist right now. As long as Sinema and Manchin remain Democrats, and assuming King and Sanders would vote with them, the GOP can’t obstruct ANYTHING THE DEMOCRATS WANT TO PASS. Period. Democrats deserve 100% of the blame for this voting rights failure and all other failures since Jan 2021.
The media is absolutely right to blame Democrats for this. The GOP is completely irrelevant right now, as far as passing legislation goes. If all GOP congresspersons had fallen into comas last January and remained so, they’d have exactly the same procedural ability to “obstruct” anything the Democrats [with King and Sanders] wanted to pass. ZERO ability. Do you actually dispute this?
And no need for any commenters to mention Sinema or Manchin as “no True Democrats”. Until they’re ousted, this is 100% Democrat Party failure [plus King and Sanders of course]. Complaining about Republican “obstruction” when Democrats are in complete control is ludicrous. Republicans have as much power to stop legislation as Green party members. Or Koreans. Or Martians.
“Democrats would be passing all this great stuff, if not for all that platypus obstructionism!” <—makes as much sense as this article.
Are you capable of acknowledging that not every single constituent who lives in a state represented by a Republican senator, is opposed to legislation put forth by members of the Democratic Party? If so, then perhaps we can have a discussion.
By refusing to acknowledge the failure of senators (including Manchin) to act in accordance with the will of a majority of their own constituents, you’ve managed to pervert a question of proper representation into a purely partisan issue.
There are multiple shades to democracy, which severely complicates any attempt to color this issue with a red or blue crayon. Also, since there are NO current members of the Green Party in the U.S. Senate, that color is also off the palette.
You claim: “The GOP is completely irrelevant right now, as far as passing legislation goes.”
This is factually incorrect, although tens of millions of Americans actually wish it were true. Unfortunately, when the current filibuster is invoked, the requirement for passage is a 60 vote majority. Without 10 members of the GOP voting alongside all 48 Democratic senators (plus Sanders and King), that threshold is unattainable.
There would be no need to actually amend the filibuster, but it has been abused by senators merely seeking to prevent passage of legislation by raising the tier from 50 votes to 60 votes. In a functionally representative body, where members were willing to cooperate in order to reflect the will of their constituents, that 10 vote margin would be of little consequence. That is not the reality in which we live.
Finally, the fact the not one GOP senator was willing to vote in support of amending the filibuster is further evidence of the betrayal of any constituency that expressed a majority of support for that process.
Instead, we are watching the tyranny of the minority destroy democracy:
“48 senators who voted to reform filibuster represent 182 million Americans, 55% of US
52 senators who upheld filibuster represent 148 million Americans, 45% of US”
-Ari Berman
Ari just learned that we are a democratic republic. Manchin and Sinema know that in their states, the majority of people do not want the filibuster removed. The senate is in place for exactly the reason we are witnessing. To slow things down and to make sure that simple majority rules do not dominate. You must have appreciated this fact during Trump’s first two years.
Regarding voter suppression, exactly where are votes suppressed?
Even monkeys fact check before throwing poop at the wall:
WEST VIRGINIA
“…48% of West Virginia voters want Senator Joe Manchin to vote to modify
Senate rules if necessary to allow this legislation to get dark money out of our elections and protect voting rights to pass, while just 42% disagree, saying they do not want Manchin to modify the Senate rules.”
“Legislation to protect voting rights is especially popular among seniors: Voters over the age of 65 support the legislation by a 35-point margin (60-25), while voters between the ages of 46 and 65 support it by a 17-point margin (52-35) and voters between the ages of 18 and 45 are more divided (43-49.”
https://files.pfaw.org/uploads/2022/01/West-Virginia-Polling-Memo-01.18.22.pdf
ARIZONA
Fifty percent of Republicans polled, and 54 percent of independents polled, said they support “voting and elections legislation that ends dark money, stops partisan gerrymandering, thwarts election sabotage, and protects the freedom to vote for all Americans.”
“Fifty-five percent of Arizona respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a senator who backed the legislation, as opposed to 19 percent who said they would be less likely to.”
“The Public Policy Polling survey found that 57 percent of voters surveyed were in favor of reforming the filibuster, including 48 percent of independents and 39 percent of Republicans.”
“Fifty-nine percent of respondents said the threat of election sabotage is driving their support to reform Senate rules, including 42 percent of Republicans and 45 percent of independents.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/588444-majority-of-arizona-voters-support-election-reform-poll
FILIBUSTER
The filibuster was used to kill the Federal Elections Bill of 1890, intended to ensure access to the polls for minority populations in the U.S.
The filibuster was used to kill the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill of 1918, intended to prevent the 4,000+ mob lynchings of African-Americans in the U.S.
The filibuster was used to kill the Costigan-Wagner Anti-Lynching Bill of 1934, intended to prevent the 4,000+ mob lynchings of African-Americans in the U.S.
The filibuster was used to kill the Anti-Poll Tax Bill of 1942, intended to prevent voter suppression that required U.S. citizens to pay a fee in order to cast their vote.
The filibuster was used to kill the Fair Employment Practices Bill of 1946, intended to enforce the anti-discrimination policies previously adopted by Executive Order during WWII.
The filibuster was used to kill the Amendment to Abolish Electoral College of 1970, intended to remove a scheme which allows disproportionate representation in certain federal elections.
Perhaps if you had been aware of the manner in which the filibuster has been used to suppress equal representation under law in the United States for over 130 years, you might have chosen a different argument.
Appeals to accept institutional exclusion of the will of the majority, in the name of a “democratic republic” or to “slow things down,” are simplistic responses to the proven pattern of intentional discrimination in which the filibuster has been invoked. This vote this week was one more example.
The same states proven to have engaged in voter suppression, and then sanctioned within provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, are among those now enacting dozens of restrictions courtesy of the SCOTUS decision in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder. Racist state legislatures previously hobbled by the ability of the federal government to override proposed restrictions, are now free to continue their historical agenda of suppressing minority votes.
Maybe if you actually knew what a “carve-out” was, instead of WRONGLY asserting that there was a vote to “remove” the filibuster this week, it might be possible to overlook the multitude of ignorance you’ve displayed thus far… but I doubt it.
Your assumptions regarding my position in regards to Trump, would appear to indicate you also assume I’m a member of the Democratic Party (my correct spelling). Sorry to prove you wrong again, but I’m just a well-informed independent voter capable of thinking for himself.
When it comes to a diminishing minority of white voters seeking to permanently rig the American political process so they can manipulate society through disproportionate representation and hypocritical, self-serving decisions courtesy of an ethically compromised Supreme Court… I’ll always be willing to tell it like it is.
If you require tutoring in order to sufficiently comprehend how the process of voter suppression works, I heartily recommend this video:
I’ve told you where before. GOP-controlled states shut down polling places, reduce hours, require a specific ID that they make you jump through hoops to get and they shut down and reduce hours of the places where you can go to jump through those hoops, they criminalize voter registration drives, and all sorts of other stuff and they target the urban population for it.
You just don’t wanna believe it’s voter suppression.
“There are multiple shades to democracy, which severely complicates any attempt to color this issue with a red or blue crayon.”
Tell that to this article’s author. Is Manchin a Republican? Sinema? Sanders? King? The author is claiming that “the GOP is the main culprit”.
Do you agree with the author here? If you don’t, why did you reply to me?
p.s. Sorry if I haven’t made sense myself–fwiw I think most politicians are trash.
But if at a time like this one particular Party is fully in control and doesn’t deliver on their supposed agenda and goals, the proper response by the media isn’t to lie and say they’re being obstructed by the other party.
Which is what the author seems to desire.
Until Manchin and Sinema are booted from the party, the Democrats own the failure of the past year, fully [assuming of course King and Sanders wouldn’t obstruct]. No apologism, no illogic, no irrational lies will change this, sorry.
It’s FAIR and ACCURATE REPORTING to assign 100% blame right now to the Democrats. They could pass their entire supposed agenda next week. If they wanted to.
I replied to you, because I didn’t agree with you. My opinion of the author is absolutely irrelevant in regards to the validity of my prior argument.
Instead of rebutting the cogent points expressed in my initial reply, you’ve chosen to deflect conversation elsewhere. For now, I’m just going to chalk that up to a possibly limited comprehension of basic mathematics.
In response to your other question: Manchin and Sinema, represent the values of the current Democratic Party… about as much as Liz Cheney represents the current values of the Republican Party. Clearly, this is just one more indication of how simplistic partisan opinions regarding modern American politics, continue to lead to widespread acceptance of obviously inaccurate assumptions… bringing us back to those red and blue crayons.
I sincerely hope this is expressed in a way you can easily to follow:
1.) When the current filibuster is invoked, it becomes mathematically impossible for the Democratic Party to pass that piece of legislation without obtaining at least 10 votes from Republican senators.
2.) If just TWO Republican senators had voted in favor of a filibuster carve-out for the Voting Rights Bill, Vice President Harris would have had an opportunity to end that 50-50 tie. PLEASE NOTE: Manchin and Sinema are completely irrelevant to this scenario!
3.) If TEN Republican senators had voted in favor of the Voting Rights Bill under normal filibuster rules, it would have been passed.
4.) Since FIFTY Republicans used their votes to block the Voting Rights Bill and the filibuster carve-out, that equates to ONE HUNDRED votes by Republicans to prevent passage of the Voting Rights Bill.
5.) TWO votes were cast by Democratic senators in the same manner.
6.) Therefore, ONE HUNDRED Republican votes were “the main culprit,” rather than TWO Democratic votes upon which attention is being focused.
This can be expressed by the mathematical formula: 100 > 2
>> If all GOP congresspersons had fallen into comas…
>> Complaining about Republican “obstruction” when Democrats are in complete control is ludicrous
If Manchin and Sinema lost to Republicans what would happen? They wouldn’t be replaced by moderates and the bill would still fail. Thus, their party’s stance also matters. They don’t have moderates.
When taken by itself this can’t be the whole story but it’s not professional to leave it out either.
Since activists are so far removed from influence in the Senate, I think we should start a running count of capitalisms failings, and try to be even handed about red states and blue states. The Texas power outage, Amazon warehouse deaths, fraudulent covid tests in Illinois etc.
The Republicans are much better at this than Democrats. They follow riots and crime rates, and when nothing else is going on they whine that learning history is unpatriotic, bark at immigrants and queer minorites, and ratchet up the hate machine.
What if we built our own anti capitalist, democratic scoreboard, that reflected people’s real problems?!
Exactly where do Republicans whine that learning history is unpatriotic?
At mask-free rallies outside of school board meetings, mostly.
Non answer – typical
I apologize for your inability to comprehend my prior statement.
You really don’t fact check or look for possible evidence before posting, do you?
https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-race-and-ethnicity-arkansas-iowa-slavery-6e31deb459407841b0957f5f3451bfdd
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Complaining about what he called indoctrination in schools, former President Donald Trump created a commission that promoted “patriotic” education and played down America’s role in slavery. But though he’s out of the White House and the commission has disbanded, the cause hasn’t died. Lawmakers in Republican states are now pressing for similar action.
[…]
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a close ally of Trump’s, last month proposed $900,000 to ramp up her state’s civics curriculum to emphasize the U.S. as “the most unique nation in the history of the world.” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves is proposing a $3 million “Patriotic Education Fund” to combat what he called revisionist history.
Tim’s probably going to avoid this site for a bit: plenty of trolling elsewhere.
If FAIR continues to move in the direction of the shallow political analysis and partisan apologetics regularly exhibited by Ms Hollar, rather than keeping to its prior non-partisan vantage point, it will become the very thing it once would have exposed — an ideologically captured media organization which serves to reinforce mainstream partisan narratives. Sad.
So sad that I should adopt such (transparent and) illogical animosity towards FAIR?
Even this British socialist can see the blatant errors of judgement in this story. It ain’t the media, for once, to blame for the Dems’ failure to honour even their most basic election promises. The Dems didn’t mean any of them. If they wanted to, they could pass anything. As many others point out elsewhere, when the Reps have full power, they roll over the Dems to achieve what they want. This highlights the main reasons the Left has been in retreat and defeat since the 1970s: timidity, weakness, needless moderation, bipartisanship.
The US public, like the British, are generally much to the left of the Democratic party and the Labour party. Yet oddly, neither party gets much done when in power. Could that be because they are both in hock to corporate interests? Report on that, FAIR.
Spoken by a person who doesn’t understand US politics. The US public is not to the left of the Democrat (spelled correctly) party. Bernie and AOC represent a tiny portion of the US (the very reason Bernie cannot win the primary).
“Spoken by a person who doesn’t understand US politics.”
“Together, we are the Democratic Party.” SEE: https://democrats.org/
(Sad Trombone Sound Here)
Comprehending intentional abuse of the current filibuster, to include the failure of certain senators to represent the majority will of their constituents, might lead to a more accurate understanding of the ongoing failure of democratic institutions in the U.S.
Then again, tens of millions of Republicans adamantly refuse to recognize the pattern of intentional erosion that has been created by the elected representatives and Supreme Court Justices who belong to their own political party.
Corporate interests were granted the unlimited ability to financially influence legislators in the U.S., due to Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission. A majority of judges (nominated by Republic administrations) sitting on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) gladly opened the door to this abuse. Sure, their decision ultimately diminished proper representation by members of BOTH parties, but the majority opinion of this case was written by Republican appointees!
A similar majority utilized the Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder decision, to end federal oversight of voter suppression in U.S. states with a PROVEN history of attempting to restrict access to the ballot by citizens within minority populations.
This majority opinion was also authored by Republican appointees, and resulted in almost 400 legislative proposals to restrict access to the ballot in 23 states… many of those being the very states previously reprimanded for illegal voter suppression!
If a person is incapable of constructing a clear understanding of exactly how the Republican Party has succeeded in debilitating the foundations of our American democracy… then perhaps they should dig a little deeper than mainstream media.
Fundamental political procedures and legal jurisprudence have been manipulated by the Republican Party to effectively guarantee minority rule, with the SCOTUS poised (FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HISTORY) to end a civil right previously established by its own prior legal opinion (Roe v. Wade). At such a point, our SCOTUS will have morphed into a regressive influence upon legal jurisprudence, tactically harnessed to enforce the political ideology of an increasingly minority party, while inflicting that will upon a majority… in direct opposition to both reason, and prior precedent.
If you are sincerely unable to recognize the difference between the two major American political parties, it might be that you have mistakenly come to believe Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema somehow represent the values of the Democratic Party. As an independent American voter, not aligned with any political party, please allow me to assure you- they DEFINITELY do not.
How sad too that Mitt Romney—who was almost murdered by the insane Jan 6th people, but fortunately saved by an alert security guard——how odd that Mitt is suddenly afraid to speak up for the People. How sad that when McConnell was in charge, 50 votes was fine for a filibuster. How truly sad that Manchin and Sinema are owned by corporate money—-and honestly , when was the last time that America even cared about its children?
It seems that the politicians no longer recognize the needs of We the People—and outside of getting personally rich—it seems to many in Congress do not care about this nation’s future.
I truly hope that the Progressives gain more support—because it sadly seems that much of the GOP does not want We then People to have any power at all. Perhaps TS Eliot was right, ” This is the way the world ends—not with a bang–with a whimper.”
GROW UP Congress, and YOU the People—wake up!
It’s almost as if political parties should be subject to RICO statutes, right?
I still believe the Dems need to call the bluff of the Republicans on this filibuster tactic. On an important bill like the Voting Rights Bill, or similar key issues, let the Republicans filibuster for days or weeks, and as the government grinds to a halt, have the TV cameras focus on the Republican speakers wasting Congress’ time and thwarting the will of the majority. This might-well lead to a replay of 1994 where the obstructionist Republicans suffered serious losses at the polls, primarily attributed to their temporary shutdown of the government…
Millions of American voters could not even comprehend that the proposed filibuster carve-out ONLY applied to voting rights legislation, and would NOT result in the permanent end of the filibuster in future senate debate. That’s disturbingly simple!
Julie Hollar,
Please hang in there! Mehdi Hasan agrees with your assessment, and continues to make the effort to promote understanding of the inherent culpability of the Republican Party.
Start at time stamp 7:40 for his quote: