“Biden is the One Who Can Get Things Done.”

How’s that working out?

EPA

Well, it’s official.

Any meaningful voting rights legislation is officially dead for the foreseeable future, after Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema voted with all 50 GOP Senators to prevent the Democrats from amending the filibuster in order to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

I mean, what’s left to say?

Honestly, I just keep thinking about the primary. I keep thinking about the discourse, and when we were told month after month that Joe Biden was the one who would be able to meet this moment. “Bernie Sanders won’t be able to get anything done”, liberals argued, “but Biden will. Biden’s the one who can actually get things done”.

At the moment, I’m frustrated enough to ask: how’s that working out, exactly? Are liberals still prepared to say Biden’s getting things done when a member of his own party enthusiastically stood up to join the GOP and yelled “aye” in a move that not only humiliated him, but far more importantly ruined any chances of passing voting rights legislation in the near future? Are liberals still prepared to say he was the right choice when Biden can’t even get members of his own party to support his agenda?

And see, that’s where it gets uncomfortable.

That’s where the loyal Democratic voters like to pretend there’s nothing to see, because acknowledging Biden’s humiliating failures means acknowledging that over fifty years in the Senate hadn’t prepared him at all to get anything done as the most powerful man in the world, or he never really wanted it to get done at all.

Biden never cared about the Build Back Better Act. He never really cared about voting rights. It’s easier to run on these things and trick people into thinking you actually care, than it is to go against the will of the moneyed interests and do what’s in the best interest of the American people. But it gets even more uncomfortable, because then loyal Democratic voters might have to acknowledge that there’s at least a possibility that Senators Manchin and Sinema aren’t acting alone. Perhaps the reason they’re continuing to go unchallenged is because none of their colleagues really care to challenge them, and might even like what they’re doing.

And then, of course, there’s the alternative that’s not any better: Biden’s so weak, he can’t even manage to get two members of his own party to fall in line.

With the House, the Senate, and the White House under their control, Democrats couldn’t even get voting rights passed.

But hey, Biden’s the one who can get things done right?

At this point, there’s nothing left to say. Democratic lawmakers deserve exactly what they have coming to them.

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