Working people want to see the Squad stand up to the establishment. Progressive leaders and leaders of major labor unions need to harness that desire and publicly urge that the Squad use their numerical balance & refuse to vote on the MUST PASS stimulus bill unless $15 is in it.— Kshama Sawant (@cmkshama) March 6, 2021
Or has the moment passed and the House already voted on the bill?
Yeah so was women's suffrage until women died for it, and civil rights with desegregation until people died for it, and getting the New Deal until the socialist party stood their ground and forced FDR to support it.
"Magical" is the word liberals tell you when it's outside of their desires, not when it's outside possibility.
All this would take is the progressive block actually standing their ground for the first time.
I did not say $15 was outside possibility. I said the idea that four people in Congress can click their heels together and raise everyone's pay is magical thinking, because it is. Dressing that magical thinking with references to the civil rights movement or women's suffrage doesn't make it any less magical.
Ten people, the deciding votes on a must-pass bill, trying to get a policy with massive popular support that the president ran on into a bill that it absolutely should not be excluded from by any logical conclusion.
I agree with that (minus the last edit)! It shouldn't be excluded, and the fact that Biden and 16% of the Democrats in the Senate spiked it speaks to the limits of electoralism as a whole, not some conspiracy theory that the Squad is selling us out. We should focus on the corporate Dems that are actually selling us out, not doing their bidding by punching left at the Squad.
If the Squad said "no $15, no vote", the Dem leadership would look for moderate GOP support. Dems would cut a deal with Lisa Murkowski (who almost voted for the bill) or five Republicans in blue districts to water the bill down even further. The "moderate" GOP would chomp at the bit to water down the bill further to stick it to the left.
And they absolutely could not find that, because there is NO ground to be gained. Denying Biden his stimulus is something the Republicans would not budge on, it's key to 2022 for them to make him look as bad as possible.
It is not punching left to expect our progressive block we tried so hard to get into office to actually stand for something. This is the moment for them to do that and they didn't take it, again.
No, and the "Squad can force $15 into the bill" crap is magical thinking.
Yeah so was women's suffrage until women died for it, and civil rights with desegregation until people died for it, and getting the New Deal until the socialist party stood their ground and forced FDR to support it.
"Magical" is the word liberals tell you when it's outside of their desires, not when it's outside possibility.
All this would take is the progressive block actually standing their ground for the first time.
I did not say $15 was outside possibility. I said the idea that four people in Congress can click their heels together and raise everyone's pay is magical thinking, because it is. Dressing that magical thinking with references to the civil rights movement or women's suffrage doesn't make it any less magical.
Ten people, the deciding votes on a must-pass bill, trying to get a policy with massive popular support that the president ran on into a bill that it absolutely should not be excluded from by any logical conclusion.
Your concept of magic is exceedingly banal.
I agree with that (minus the last edit)! It shouldn't be excluded, and the fact that Biden and 16% of the Democrats in the Senate spiked it speaks to the limits of electoralism as a whole, not some conspiracy theory that the Squad is selling us out. We should focus on the corporate Dems that are actually selling us out, not doing their bidding by punching left at the Squad.
If the Squad said "no $15, no vote", the Dem leadership would look for moderate GOP support. Dems would cut a deal with Lisa Murkowski (who almost voted for the bill) or five Republicans in blue districts to water the bill down even further. The "moderate" GOP would chomp at the bit to water down the bill further to stick it to the left.
And they absolutely could not find that, because there is NO ground to be gained. Denying Biden his stimulus is something the Republicans would not budge on, it's key to 2022 for them to make him look as bad as possible.
It is not punching left to expect our progressive block we tried so hard to get into office to actually stand for something. This is the moment for them to do that and they didn't take it, again.