Well, did you, or anyone, seriously expect Republicans to support a bill which was too left-wing for even some members of the Democratic caucus, like Manchin and Sinema?
As long as Democrats are unable to come up with a version that has unanimousl support from their own party, they aren't in a position to blame Republicans for the lack of progress...

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 3 2021 10:20am

Republicans never even tried. The group of 5 or so Republicans submitted a 600B bill to Biden which was laughably inadequate.

Yes, we are in a position to blame Republicans when they aren't coming to the table. It's not on Democrats to compromise at all costs. It's on Republicans to come to the table and negotiate in good faith, which so far none have.

Saying something is "too left-wing for Manchin" is not exactly a good barometer. He's the furthest right member of an already center-right party.

This is ridiculous. Democrats have the majority to pass legislation they want without any Republican support. The true crux is that Democratic leadership seems unable to come up with a piece of legislation which is palatable both to the staunch progressives in the House (e.g. the squad) and its center-right Senators (Manchin, Sinema, potentially also Tester and Kelly). It's ludicrous to expect Republicans to bail the Dem leaders out of this predicament.

Pretty partisan framing. It's up to Republicans to actually come to the table. Proposing a reasonable bill that most Democrats can get on board with is not an unreasonable expectation nor is it expecting them to "bail out Democrats".

What you're doing right now is trying to draw the "reasonable middle" as the half way point between actually governing and stamping your feet like a toddler. It's time Republicans grow up and treat the government like a job for adults.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Mar 3 2021 10:49am

Significant chunks of the Dem caucus are unwilling to come on board with Manchin's and Sinema's vision of what this bill should be. Even if we put partisanship and political consideration aside for a moment and focus exclusively on policy - what makes you think this situation would get any easier if the bill was moved further to the right by Republican input?

Even good faith Republican proposals would shift the bill to the right and thus be a total non-starter for at the very least one third of Congressional Dems. And again, that's only in terms of policy; if we add political calculus to the mix, it's clear that the idea of a "bipartisan middle ground coalition" which tells the far-left and far-right forces in Congress to suck it is just not realistic.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 3 2021 10:56am

and the reason for this is not because there's just soooo many Democrats on the far left. It's because all Republicans are voting with the far right, even the 5 that came to the table with a garbage proposal.

No, the reason is that there genuinely is a yawning gap separating the parties on policy. This is not a case where compromise would be easily within reach and Republicans are just obstructing for the sake of it.

Democrats have shown a continuous willingness to come to the table and compromise, and Republicans have shown they are not willing to come to the table. Democrats are a spectrum between the middle right, center right, and a small contingent on the center left. If Republicans can't come away from the far right and work with at least a portion of the other party, that's not the fault of Democrats. It's a pretty serious indication they are incapable of governance.

You didn't pay attention under Obama so I get that you aren't used to this yet, but this has been the position of the Republican party since 2008. We had party memos leaked instructing them to vote against Democrats no matter the circumstance. There is not a significant gap separating the parties. When Obama's appointments actually came up for a vote they passed with overwhelming bipartisan support. The issue is that Republicans are not interested in governing.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Mar 3 2021 11:14am

You're living in a fantasy world.

Anyone claiming that only a small contingent of the present-day Democratic party are left of the political middle, and only center-left at that, must be stuck in the politics of the 2000s. The Democratic party zoomed left on a wide variety of issues over the past 10 years. Positions which were well within the mainstream of the party back in 2008 or 2010 are nowadays considered racist/fascist/classist by its base.

And then again, even if what you said was 100% true, it would be really convenient that Democrats have the necessary majorities to not be reliant on any Republican votes. It was their pitch during the 2020 campaign: gives us the WH and majorities in both chambers of Congress, and you'll get your stimulus checks and lots of other sorts of good governance. American voters gave them their majorities, but so far, Democrats failed to deliver on their promise. The only area in which they have noticeably improved on Trump is the optics produced by the administration. Maybe the policy will follow eventually, but as of right now, they have not delivered in this regard.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Mar 3 2021 11:31am