Senate Setup

Here's an update on that Senate standoff.  Early last week, Mitch McConnell backed off from his stand against the filibuster and let a power-sharing arrangement go through when he concluded that the Democrats wouldn't be able to get rid of the filibuster thanks to opposition from two Senate Democrats in particular: Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Both Sinema and Manchin are moderates who have a problem with progressives not unlike the problems Republicans have with progressives. But they're more likely to side with Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer on numerous economic issues, so that should help Schumer get President Biden's COVID relief bill passed.

President Biden wants to go big on this bill, and most congressional Democrats don't want to cave to Republican demands to spend less, knowing that the last time they did that, in 2009, they lost the House and also their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate - which allowed the Tea Party to come in and ruin President Obama's agenda.  If the Democrats can pull America out of the COVID crisis, the 2022 midterm elections could be a repeat of the 1934 midterms, when Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal helped the Democrats gain seats in Congress despite being the party holding the executive branch.  (The party that holds the White House often loses congressional seats in midterm elections.)