The Democrats Snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory

The way I see it the Democrats won the political battle over the government shutdown, but as soon as they attacked the deal they committed an unforced error and gave Trump and the Republicans a victory.  Instead of looking like winners the Democrats became losers. How so? With the shut down the Democrats proved they were no longer comatose and were ready to fight Trump and that stance along with Trump voter buyer's remorse set the stage for huge victories in the off-year election.

On the governing side the Democrats achieved robust funding for the SNAP program, the rehiring of riffed workers during the shutdown and were guaranteed a vote on the Obama Care subsidies in December. The Dems have made short shrift of the pledge for a vote on the subsidies. but here they are wrong. The vote will place the Republicans at the horns of a dilemma. If they do nothing, the Dems will have the perfect issue for the mid-terms and if the Republicans compromise with a lower income limit and a minimum premium the Democrats would have achieved their major goal policy goal for the shutdown. The Dems win either way.

Thus, instead of vilifying the eight Democrats who broke the filibuster, they should in turn, commend them for their political savvy and common sense. Sometimes, in politics, you have to know when to take a win.  

The Rotunda Turns

This morning Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are the two most vilified people in the Democratic Party. Why? They had the temerity to stand up to the rush to eliminate the legislative filibuster in the Senate. However, my guess is that by next year or almost certainly by 2025 the Democrats will be erecting statues in their honor. Simply put, they saved the Democrats from themselves.

As the the old wag goes, "the rotunda turns."  In all liklihood the Republicans will seize control of the Senate either next year or by 2025 and then of a sudden the Democrats will be speaking endearingly of the 60 vote majority needed to break a filibuster. This would especially be true if the Republicans control the White House. Thus it would not be hard to imagine in a few years that both Manchin and Sinema will be receiving Profile in Courage awards.

My Amazon Review of Michael Kazin's "War Against War: The American Fight for Peace 1914-1918"

The Good Fight?

Georgetown history professor Michael Kazin wears his biases on his sleeve. As someone who was very active in the 1960s anti-war and radical movements, Kazin has written a highly sympathetic account of the anti-war movement that arose in the U.S. to keep us out of World War I. He organizes his history around the lives of four people who symbolized the broad-based coalition that worked round the clock in their anti-war efforts. They are the Southern segregationist Majority Leader of the House and Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Claude Kitchin; Crystal Eastman a social reformer who founds the Woman’s Peace Party and the American Union Against Militarism; Morris Hilquit the Jewish Socialist labor lawyer and politician form New York City and Senator Robert La Follette, the Wisconsin progressive filibusters President Wilson’s proposal to arm merchant ships. It was that filibuster that caused the Senate to adopt the cloture rules we have today.

Along the way we meet Crystal Eastman’s brother, Max who publishes Masses, future socialist Norman Thomas, auto magnate Henry Ford, social reformer Jane Addams and Roger Baldwin who would found the ACLU. All in all it was quite a broad coalition and in Kazin’s mind they worked a miracle to keep the U.S. out of the war as long as it did in countering a pro-war movement headed up by Theodore Roosevelt.  After all the Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat in 1915 and under the aegis of the German ambassador, Germany was running a vast terror network on the east coast. That network caused the Black Tom explosion in New York Harbor which blew up munitions heading for England.

He argues that were it not for the anti-war movement the U.S. would have entered the war sooner causing countless more American deaths. I would argue to the contrary because, in my opinion, a U.S. entry say in early 1916 would have likely shortened the war and prevented the carnage on the eastern front that was to come.

My criticism of Kazin’s work is that he ignores the broad forces of history that made U.S. entry into the war inevitable. The U.S. as a rising power couldn’t really stay out and a Professor Adam Tooze has taught us that during 1916 economic power was being transferred from England to the U.S. Simply put the U.S. had too much at stake in an Allied victory as the Allies were head over in heels in debt to the U.S. and the war was engendering an economic boom. It was only a matter of time for the “peace candidate” Wilson to tip his hand. That happened in 1917 when Germany renewed unrestricted submarine warfare, the Zimmermann telegram was published indicating German overtures to Mexico and Tsar Nicholas II abdicated making it easy for Wilson to say that the war was about democracy. Put in a geopolitical context, no U.S. president would allow a Europe dominated by a hostile Germany.

Nevertheless Kazin tells a good story about an era in American history that has long been forgotten.

The full amazon URL is: https://www.amazon.com/review/R28VC2VEWOSVZL/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv