Sinemanchin No More

Hello! It’s the weekend, this is The Weekender. ☕

One year ago, Democrats were going to pass a generation-defining set of legislative accomplishments. One year ago, President Biden was being likened to FDR. One year ago, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema were still negotiating.

And then reality set in, and the months began to slip by. Deadlines were set, and reset, and reset.

So we start August 2022 with a little bit of déjà vu — but the good kind. Or at least the okay kind. Democrats are back, with a new deal, containing some of the same stuff, and some different stuff, and this time Manchin is on board. 

Then, late on Thursday, we got the news: Sinema had received and accepted her sacrificial offering — an attempt to narrow the carried-interest tax loophole that had once been in the deal would meet its fate and be excised. In return, Sinema would support the legislation. 50 Democrats were ready to move a bill that required 50 votes.

If only Democrats could skip their year in the wilderness and step right from August 5, 2021 to August 6, 2022. But regardless, here they all are today, a little bit older and ready to finally introduce a reconciliation bill. Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says it will begin to move forward through its many legislative hurdles this afternoon.

Yes, a ton ended up on the cutting room floor. And yes it took a few deals with the devil to bring it to fruition. But more progressive members of the Democratic Party are expected to line up behind it — what choice do they have? And while the Inflation Reduction Act may not have quite the ambition of Build Back Better 1.0, or Build Back Better 2.0, or Build Back Better on the December day when Manchin finally said to hell with it, it still would be the most ambitious — by some measures, the only — bill addressing climate change to ever pass the Senate. We know better than to count chickens when they’re eggs, and this bill still has a long way to go. But 36 years after the Senate started thinking about climate change, it finally appears to be on the cusp of acting. 

— John Light

The Fake Electors Are The Key

Former President Trump has something like a Midas touch but for his own ego — anything that he comes into contact with immediately becomes about him, by some unknown process of ego alchemy. Just look at the fake electors scheme.

While it may seem like a quixotic bid by slates of local-level GOP officials to pretend that Trump won, it, in fact, has the Trump touch: it’s about him, and those around him. In Trumpworld’s thinking, the fake electors were “preserving” their votes — creating certificates for Mike Pence, Congress, the courts, random state officials, or whoever to select as the real, legitimate choice of the people. It was the final organizing principle for Trump’s effort to stay in power, having lost out in the courts, in public opinion, and in the election itself.

The fake electors scheme has drawn the focus of federal prosecutors’ interest — both in the form of subpoenas to the electors themselves and questions to former senior White House staff about the involvement of Trump and his attorneys in the effort.

It all highlights the point, and why the electors may have taken on such a key role for the DOJ: It’s not about the fake electors, really. It’s about the role they were meant to play keeping Trump in power — the fake electors opened the doors for the final array of schemes that Trump and his acolytes employed to do that.

— Josh Kovensky

Conspiracy Theorists Clean Up

Candidates who’ve lied about the 2020 election and pushed false conspiracy theories about voter fraud are now the GOP picks for governor, secretary of state and attorney general in Michigan and Arizona. And that’s on top of significant wins in Pennsylvania (gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano would also appoint a secretary of state as governor), Nevada (Jim Marchant is the secretary of state nominee), Kansas (Kris Kobach is the new secretary of state nominee) and elsewhere around the country.

It’s party orthodoxy that Donald Trump won the 2020 election and, by extension, that steps should be taken to limit the franchise in order to prevent another supposed Democratic theft going forward.

Seeking to overturn election results is a point of pride: “I’m one of those bad boys, 147 of us, who objected to the electoral count,” Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) said at CPAC last week, falsely saying that the scandalously bad Dinesh D’Souza film “2000 Mules” had not been shown to be full of lies. As Mike Lindell articulated at CPAC, voting machines steal elections, unless a Republican wins, in which case the illicit algorithm stealing elections was “overcome” by a wave of legitimate voters. “Over 54 countries have now been taken by the machines or are getting taken by the machines, and you never get to go back,” he added. “Venezuela, Australia — they’re gone.”

— Matt Shuham

“I don’t want to see the inside of your mouth.”

— Judge Maya Guerra Gamble speaking actual words of wisdom during far-right conspiracy monger Alex Jones’ Sandy Hook defamation trial on Aug. 2 in response to Jones offering to show her a hole in his mouth from a tooth removal to prove that he wasn’t chewing gum; he was supposedly massaging with his tongue.
 

Gamble wisely declined his offer.

— Cristina Cabrera