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WASHINGTON (The Hill) Progressives are openly frustrated as the Biden administration flounders on issues across the board. But they are dismissing outright suggestions that previous party leadersor, worse, Republicanscould be the solution.

TheNew York Times, TheWall Street Journal, andThe Weekall devoted real estate in their opinion sections this week to potential big names, includingHillary Clinton, to replace eitherPresident Bidenor Vice President Harris on Democrats next White House ticket. The problem? They have essentially no new relevance or natural links to 2024.

Democrats have a rich history of bringing old-school politicians out of the stables for a comeback and having them get slaughtered, said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Campaign Change Committee. Not just Hillary Clinton in 2016, but Senate candidates like Ted Strickland in Ohio, Russ Feingold in Wisconsin, Phil Bredesen in Tennessee, and Walter Mondale in Minnesota, he added.

We need forward-looking leaders who stand for a new vision and not the politics of yesteryear that everybody hates, Green said.

The Timess most well-known foreign affairs columnist, Thomas Friedman, raised eyebrowswhen he arguedfor a Biden-Cheney general election ticket, in which Biden would theoretically push aside his current vice president, the first Black woman to hold that position, for Rep.Liz Cheney(Wyo.), a white Republican conservative and staunch anti-Trump lawmaker.

When Harris was asked about that prospect, she dismissed it nonchalantly, likening the question to senseless chattering from media elites.I really could care less about the high-class gossip on these issues, shetoldNBC Newson Thursday.

While Harris has never been top on progressives lists for a strong running mate, the thought of Cheney, who voted along GOP party lines during much of Trumps presidency, replacing her is too much for those on the left to entertain. They need to find new content to write, said Michael Ceraso, a progressive consultant and alum of Sen.Bernie Sanderss (I-Vt.) first national campaign.It can start by these writers moving beyond the past and imagining a future where progressive ideas are front and center.

In the Journal, whichhas promoted a Clinton candidacymultiple times over the yearsdespite its opinion pages overt conservative slant, Democrats last presidential nominee could present herself as change candidate. Douglas Schoen, a formerBill Clintoncampaign pollster, and Andrew Stein, a local New York official who has long been critical of progressives,wrote that Bidens troubles were piling up so severely that the former New York senator and secretary of State should step into the mix to fix them.

President Bidens low approval rating, doubts over his capacity to run for re-election at 82, Vice PresidentKamala Harriss unpopularity, and the absence of another strong Democrat to lead the ticket in 2024have created a leadership vacuum in the party, which Mrs. Clinton viably could fill, they wrote. She is already in an advantageous position to become the 2024 Democratic nominee. She is an experienced national figure who is younger than Mr. Biden and can offer a different approach from the disorganized and unpopular one the party is currently taking.

The wish castingor nightmare scenario, depending on how you look at itcomes as Biden faces arguably the toughest hurdles of his presidency to date. And progressives have been among the loudest to voice their displeasure.

Bidens Build Back Better (BBB) agenda is flatlining amid negotiations that have gone essentially nowhere, culminating in Sen.Joe Manchin(D-W.Va.) saying he would not vote for it late last year. Opposition from Manchin and Sen.Kyrsten Sinema(D-Ariz.) to changing the filibuster also has Democrats voting rights efforts on the ropes, causing public skepticism about the direction of the party.

Liberals are also dissatisfied with what they see as a lack of meaningful progress on police reform, student loan debt and climate change. All of that has led to a sense of aimless hypothesizing about what else could be out there, one senior progressive aide said. But few take it very seriously.None of this is real, the aide said. Its just no one knows what to do since voting rights is dead and BBB is in complete stall.

There is no hero that can save Democrats from themselves, another progressive strategist added. There is no amount of posturing future candidates that can help pass BBB or get pieces of legislation without full caucus support over the finish line, said Marcela Mulholland, political director of the left-wing think tank Data for Progress.We need President Biden and Sen. Manchin to come to a dealor Biden can spend his State of the Union address caucusing for candidate for President Kyrsten Sinema.

Those problems, as dire as many Democrats acknowledge, are further compounded by omicron, the COVID variant that the administration has not been able to effectively stop despite making some headway on vaccines and testing. The disappointment is borne out in recent polling. AQuinnipiac Universitypolltaken between January 7 and January 10 places the president at his lowest point to date in the survey, with 54% of registered voters polled saying they disapprove of how he is doing at this point, compared to just 35% who approve.

Worse, that trend has dropped significantly over the past year. In early February 2021, 50 percent of voters said they approved of Bidens job in office. For all the bad news for the party, however, some progressives see even more of an issue with other possible candidates who were splashed across opinion pages. They view Hillary Clinton and Cheney, in particular, as unacceptable options to bring the country toward a better future.

In The Week, meanwhile, writer Damon Linkeroffered another optionfor removing Harris from the ticket.The vice president, who spent much of 2021 battling her perception in the public, has been trying to turn things around. But with her polling about as grim as Bidens, some have openly considered the idea of the president ushering in someone else to replace her.

Linkerwrote that Maryland Gov.Larry Hogan, another Republican officeholder who reliably opposes Trump, could possibly switch parties and be selected as Bidens No. 2.Lets assume Hogan flips to the Dems, he wrote. And Biden continues to flounder. And Harris approval numbers continue to flag. And polls reveal Bidens surest path to broader popularity involves tracking away from the progressive left and boldly embracing the ideological center. If all of those conditionals line up just right, isnt Biden bound to dump Harris and tap Hogan instead?

Linker suggested, however, that not even he believes such a situation is at all likely.Progressives see these types of lists that puff up GOP figures or parts of past political dynasties as a mix of laughable and insulting. At best, they are deflecting from the goal of electing new Democrats who can actually move the ideological agenda forward, some suggest.

This is just one big distraction, said Kelly Dietrich, who leads the National Democratic Training Committee. All of this infighting and speculation is hurting our electoral prospects.

Democrats need to stop thinking that politics of the past can save us from the future, he said. The political world has changed, if Democrats cant acknowledge, and adapt to this new reality, I have grave concerns about the future of our Democracy.

Ceraso agreed, comparing the situation to star athletes who dont know when its time to get out of the game. These recommendations are akin to Michael Jordan coming back from retirement to play for the Washington Wizards, he said. Like Jordan coming back to play past his prime, we dont want or need these leaders to come back and take up the spotlight. Jordan didnt take the Wizards to the playoffs!

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Left laughs off floated changes to 2024 ticket - NEWS10 ABC

Images from the Jim Crow era in America are seared into the minds of those who lived through it, and of anyone who attended an American history class after the victory of the civil rights movement: side-by-side drinking fountains with signs reading white and colored; parks and recreation facilities separated into racial enclaves; small-town main streets with whites-only theaters, restaurants, grocers, and amenities.

Fortunately, all that ended by the mid-1960sor so we had thought. In recent years, segregation has been resurrected, but this time under the guise of racial equity. As I reported in late 2020, government agencies in Seattle, Washington, including the King County Library, King County Prosecutors Office, and the Veterans Administration, began segregating employees by race for diversity training programs, so that whites could accept responsibility for their own racism and minorities could be insulated from any potential harming [that] might arise from a cross-racial conversation.

This year, the new segregation has extended itself into new domains: public education and public-health policy. In Denver, Centennial Elementary School launched a racially exclusive Families of Color Playground Night as part of its racial equity programming. In Chicago, Downers Grove South High School held a racially exclusive Students of Color Field Trip as part of its own equity initiatives. In the words of Denver Public Schools officials, the administrators implemented the segregated program to create a space of belonging, which, they said, without a hint of irony, is about uniting us, not dividing us.

The new segregation has also been implemented in public health-care systems, with state and federal agencies denying Covid vaccines and treatment to individuals based on race. This trend began last year, when Vermont provided the vaccine to all members of racial minorities over age 16 but denied it for whites without specific age or health conditions. Later, New York State, Minnesota, Utah, and the federal government adopted health policies that explicitly discriminate against whites, rationing Covid treatments based on race. (After public outcry, Minnesota recently backtracked on this policy, and Utah announced that it is reevaluating its policy, but both Utahs and New Yorks arrangements remain in place as of this writing.)

The most common justification for the new segregation is that racial minorities suffer disparities that must be rectified through positive discrimination, which is presented as a solution for Americas historical racism. In practice, however, these policies often descend into illogic, cruelty, and malice. Minnesotas recently rescinded criteria, for example, would have prioritized Covid treatment for a healthy 18-year-old black female over a 64-year-old white male with hypertension, who, given the totality of circumstances, faces a much greater risk of serious illness and death. The new politics of race supplants the old science of medicine, with potentially catastrophic consequences for disfavored racial groups.

How is this kind of policy even possible? As legal scholars have made clear, all of these programs are blatantly unconstitutional: they violate the Fourteenth Amendments Equal Protection Clause and, additionally, the Civil Rights Acts prohibition against racial segregation. Nevertheless, the new segregation is slowly embedding itself in every domain of public policy. The gambit, for the progressives who support it, is to establish a new status quoso-called antiracist discriminationand to use their superior cultural power to intimidate the majority into acquiescence.

For now, they appear to be succeeding. Conservative groups, such as the Southeastern Legal Foundation and Parents Defending Education, have challenged the new segregation on legal grounds, but those cases will take years to wind their way through the federal courts. Meantime, progressives are likely to solidify their position and continue to normalize the policy of segregation for social justice. If they succeed, they will send the country backward, reviving old antagonisms and hollowing out the Constitutions civil rights protections.

Voters of all persuasions should be appalled by this development and work to subvert it. There is, no doubt, a strong majority of Americans who oppose state-mandated racial discrimination. Unless they speak out publicly against it, however, the new segregation will continue to spread through our institutionsthreatening the foundations of civil rights law and fundamental principles of American society and government.

Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. Sign up for his newsletter here.

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Woke Segregation and the Ghost of Jim Crow - City Journal

In a major setback for top-down, corporate-model business unionism, Teamsters United candidate Sean OBrien defeated Steve Vairma the chosen successor to Teamsters President James Hoffa Jr. by a two-to-one margin. The results were announced Nov. 18, with Fred Zuckerman, Teamsters United candidate for Secretary-Treasurer, and the entire OZ slate sweeping the elections for International officers.

Former Teamsters President Ron Carey and the Rev. Jesse Jackson lead a rally during the 1997 UPS strike

This was the first win since 1996 by a candidate for union president backed by Teamsters for a Democratic Union. After militant, anti-corruption leader Ron Carey won reelection to a second term that year, he went on to lead the successful UPS strike a year later. The strike pushed back attempts by UPS management to expand the lower-paid, part-time workforce.

OBrien, like the late Carey, is not a TDU member, but TDU supported the OZ slate as part of the broader Teamsters United effort. The president and the rest of the General Executive Board are directly elected by the rank and file.

A key issue in Vairmas defeat was the way the Hoffa administration handled negotiations with UPS in 2018. A majority 54% of the 250,000 UPS Teamsters voted against the contract, which created a lower pay scale for newer workers and allowed UPS to subcontract more work. But, applying the unions two-thirds rule, the bargaining team was able to declare the contract ratified, because less than two-thirds of UPS members voted to reject it.

The unions convention, held earlier this year, voted to eliminate the two-thirds rule in their constitution. A priority of the new team is reversing contract concessions at UPS when the current contract expires in 2023.

The break by the rank and file with Hoffa who has held the reins of power since 1998 is part of a broader trend in the working class, expressed by strikes and unionization drives. Workers want to fight, and they want and need fighting unions.

Teamsters Local 25 truck, in background, at Feb. 6 rally in Bessemer, Alabama to support union drive. Local 25 President and now Teamsters International President Sean OBrien arranged for the truck to be there.

Amazon: the existential threat

Taking on Amazon is a stated priority for OBrien. As president of Greater Bostons Teamsters Local 25, he has pushed City Councils in Boston and surrounding communities to pass resolutions calling on Amazon to adhere to specified labor standards; the union must be consulted before a new facility opens. Now, OBrien said, as a result of this [union] election, were going to be in a better position where we can use our influence to do that nationwide. (Boston Globe, Nov. 19)

During the union drive at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, OBrien drove a truck emblazoned with the Teamsters emblem to a rally in Bessemer.

In 2020 the union appointed a National Director for Amazon. At the Teamsters national convention in June, delegates passed a resolution stating it recognizes the existential threat of Amazon to our members and commits all levels of the union to unite with core platforms of member engagement, worker and community engagement, antitrust enforcement and policy reform, and global solidarity. (teamster.org)

One aspect of a multipronged strategy against Amazon is, according to OBrien, winning a good contract and reversing concessions at UPS. Our biggest selling point to potential members is showing in black and white what a union contract can do, he said. (Labor Notes, Nov. 18)

Getting rid of two-tier at UPS, where new hires starting pay is currently below what Amazon workers make, would undoubtedly help win Amazon workers to unionization. But there is a crying need for representation at Amazon now, not when the UPS contract expires in 2023. Organizing Amazon has a do-or-die urgency for organized labor comparable to winning against General Motors in 1936-37.

Hopefully, now that the election is over, the union will immediately move forward with the commitments made in June.

Amazon workers need the Teamsters, and the Teamsters union needs Amazon workers.

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Progressives sweep Teamsters election time to organize ...

Illustration by Serge Bloch.

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The year 2021 demanded every bit as much from progressives as the difficult years that preceded it. Joe Biden replaced Donald Trump only after the outgoing president urged on a coup attempt and was impeached for the second time. In the face of an ongoing pandemic and the economic uncertainty extending from it, Biden found himself struggling not just with Republicans but also with corporate-aligned centrist Democrats who were disinclined to govern boldly. That set the stage for a year that saw progress come slowly and presidential approval ratings decline. Progressives had to fight to keep the administration from missing historic opportunities, while at the same time they championed an urgent racial justice agenda that faced a growing backlash, defended abortion rights, and struggled to save the planet. It wasnt an easy year, but these leaders fought the good fightand gave us hope for 2022. John Nichols1

Carol Anderson2

(Emory University)

The Emory University professor employs deep historical analyses to identify the roots of current crises, and in 2021 her voice was vital. In her latest book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury), Anderson revealed how the Second Amendment has been used to arm and empower white supremacists from the founding of the republic to the night Kyle Rittenhouse started shooting in Kenosha, Wis. And in a column for The Guardian on impunity, titled White Supremacists Declare War on Democracy and Walk Away Unscathed, Anderson explained why the Capitol insurrectionists felt so confident that they could attack the very underpinnings of our democracy. American democracys most dangerous adversary is white supremacy, Anderson wrote. Throughout this nations history, white supremacy has undermined, twisted and attacked the viability of the United States. What makes white supremacy so lethal, however, is not just its presence but also the refusal to hold its adherents fully accountable for the damage they have done and continue to do to the nation. The insurrection on 6 January and the weak response are only the latest example.3

Ai-jen Poo4

(Getty Images for Supermajority)

When Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke before the Houses approval of the Build Back Better agenda in November, she gave a shout-out to Ai-jen Poo, the Domestic Workers Alliance executive director who in 2011 launched Caring Across Generations to address the nations crumbling care infrastructure. A decade after the campaigns launch, its call to action, Care Cant Wait, echoes throughout the halls of Congress, as legislators propose to invest in a too-long-delayed expansion on the promises of the New Deal and the Great Society. And President Biden has embraced that campaigns proposals for federal investment in Medicaidwhich would expand access to home- and community-based services for people with disabilities and aging adults and provide caregivers with fairly compensated, union-protected jobs.5

Robin Rue Simmons6

(Teresa Crawford / AP)

The House Judiciary Committee took historic action in April when it marked up HR 40, the bill by Texas Representative Sheila Jackson Lee to establish a commission to study and develop proposals for reparations to Black Americans. But less than a month earlier, on March 22, Evanston, Ill., became the first US city to create a government-funded reparations program. The plan to provide grants to Black residents to address historic patterns of housing discrimination and segregation was spearheaded by Rue Simmons, who represented the citys predominantly Black Fifth Ward. Were not a unique city in Evanston, she said. We reflect the racial disparity across the nation. What makes us different is that we decided to take this first stepnot perfect, not complete. Now the executive director of FirstRepair, which advocates for local reparations, Rue Simmons explained in August that actual reparations, not just their study, can be enacted by cities nationwide. All it takes is determination, humility and an unwavering commitment to reparatory justice.7

Lori Wallach8

(Public Citizen)

When Covid vaccines began to be widely distributed, this veteran fair-trade activist recognized that getting Americans vaccinated, while essential, would not be enough to end the pandemic. People around the world would have to be vaccinated. Utilizing knowledge gained from her decades of work as director of Public Citizens Global Trade Watch division (a position she left in December to launch the Rethink Trade program for the American Economic Liberties Project), Wallach worked with the Our World Is Not for Sale network and others to advocate a waiver of global intellectual property rules that would allow for ramped-up vaccine production in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. And shes continued to put the pressure on the World Trade Organization, which shes argued must get out of the way.9

Shannon Brewer10

(Joy Asico / AP images for the Center for Reproductive Rights)

For the past 20 years, Brewer has worked at the Jackson Womens Health Organization, the Mississippi clinic at the epicenter of the fight to overturnRoe v. Wade. Should the Supreme Court reverse Roeand we have no reason to believe it wontBrewer, who took the helm of JWHO in 2010, just might be the last director of the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, which serves people from across the South, where access has been decimated in recent decades. But Brewer is far from alone. As she defends the Pink House, as the clinic is known, from a steady stream of anti-abortion zealots outside its building and a dizzying number of targeted restrictions on abortion providers (or TRAP laws), she does so with the support and admiration of next-generation activists from far and wide. As she acknowledged to hundreds of demonstrators in front of the Supreme Court as the justices heard oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization on December 1: Im realizing that even when you think youre doing this by yourself, there are so many people out here, fighting with us and continuing to fight with us. Regina Mahone11

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The Sunrise Movement12

According to Bill McKibben, The Sunrise Movement is the most supple and smart political crew in the country, and these young activists proved him right in 2021, demanding that Democrats make climate justice a priority. When Biden moved in the right direction, Sunrise activists urged him on. When the administration wavered, or when West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin undermined efforts to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, they answered with protests and hunger strikes. The historic commitments to fund climate-sustaining projects in the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better plan illustrate Sunrises effectiveness. This movement wont bend to compromising Democrats or slow down until it wins approval of the Green New Deal, which New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey have reintroduced.13

Greta Thunberg14

(Sipa via AP images)

The unignorable voice on planetary climate catastrophe, Greta Thunberg, started early and has kept up her commitment. With statements as clear as they are persistent, she has returned us again to the facts when we avert our eyes. We dont have another world to live in if we lose this one, and for many the loss has already begun. We dont just need goals for 2030 or 2050, Thunberg said in a speech last year. We need them for every month of every year, starting now. David Bromwich15

Pramila Jayapal16

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Holding up the progressive cause while negotiating with centrist Democrats became crucial in 2021 as the Build Back Better Act wound its way through Congress, and that task fell to Washington Representative Jayapal. Some concessions to corporate-aligned centrists were inevitable, but progressives needed to hold the line long enough to make clear that their votes counted. Jayapal combined a moral visionespecially in advocating for immigrant rightswith astuteness and dealmaking skills. While the Build Back Better Act was stalled in the Senate by Manchin, its progress through the House remains a major achievement. Jayapal deserves credit for that as much as anybody. Jeet Heer17

The Brennan Center for Justice18

From revealing the anti-democratic impact of gerrymandering and voter suppression to identifying new threats to election integrity, Brennan Center staffers such as Wendy Weiser, Wilfred Codrington III, and Michael Li have been essential advocates for democracy during a year when it was under threat in states nationwide. Especially vital in 2021 was their exposure of how legislation enabling partisan interference in election administration is part of a broader election sabotage or election subversion campaign, a national push to enable partisans to distort democratic outcomes, as they described in a groundbreaking report. As usual, the Brennan Center is anticipating the next fight, even as it wages the current one.19

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Jamie Raskin20

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

The Maryland representative led the charge to impeach and convict Trump for high crimes against the republic, with a depth of knowledge that extended from his decades as a professor of constitutional law, and with a righteous passion grounded in his faith that no one is above the law. The tally of Senate votes for conviction was the highest in a modern-day presidential impeachment trialwith seven Republicans joining all of the Democrats. Do not doubt for a moment that this level of support for accountability reflected the legal and moral power that Raskin and his team brought to the prosecution of Donald Trump.21

Free Speech For People22

Although the Senate failed to remove Trump from office for inciting the January 6 insurrection, that doesnt change the fact that the former president violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies from public office any individual who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection. Free Speech For People has launched a national 14point3 campaign demanding that secretaries of state and other election officials bar Trump and his fellow insurrectionists from appearing on state ballots in 2022, 24, and beyond. Constitutional lawyer John Bonifaz, FSFPs president, promises, If [Trump] runs in 2024, we will go into court and argue that he has disqualified himself.23

Lina Khan24

(Saul Loeb-Pool / Getty Images)

Of all Joe Bidens best appointments, the most electrifying was that of legal scholar Khan, who has taken over as chair of the Federal Trade Commission. Her groundbreaking 2017 paper Amazons Antitrust Paradoxwhich The New York Times described as having reframed decades of monopoly lawand her academic advocacy for taking bold steps to address the emergence of new monopolies in the 21st century influenced Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and spurred a revival of interest in antitrust enforcement. Now, Khan is in a position to turn theory into practice. Katrina vanden Heuvel25

The UAW Workers Who Struck John Deere26

The pandemic and its disruption of the economy are sparking the biggest surge in labor activism in decades. This welcome resurgence of labor power is essential for redressing the core problem of American democracy: economic inequality. In a five-week strike, UAW workers from John Deere showed fortitude and solidarity and won major concessions, including cost-of-living increases. Jeet Heer27

Cori Bush28

(Alex Wong / Getty Images)

Too many members of Congress are satisfied to say the right thing and then bemoan the barriers to actually getting the job done. Not Bush, the first-term Democratic representative from St. Louis. In July, she was fighting inside the Capitol to extend the federal moratorium on evictions that was established in September 2020 and previously extended four times. When Congress failed to act, Bush joined activists who slept overnight on the steps of the Capitol in order to convince the Biden administration to extend the protections. The White House responded, temporarily saving millions of Americans from the threat of losing shelter during a pandemic. When the Supreme Court overturned the moratorium, Bush teamed up with Elizabeth Warren to write legislation that would give the Department of Health and Human Services permanent authority to enact eviction bans during public health crises. We didnt sleep on those steps just to give up now, Bush said.29

Nadarius Clark30

When Clark beat three-term conservative Democrat Steve Heretick in Virginias House of Delegates primary this past June, his victory in Novembers general election seemed preordained, given the heavy Democratic tilt to his district, which encompasses parts of Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Chesapeake. Endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, Clark ran on a thoroughgoing platform of health care, education, and police reform. But then came the red tide, which swept away even the few incumbents perceived to hold safe seats. Clark won nonetheless, 56 to 44 percent. At 26, he is the youngest Democratic delegate in Virginias history and the first African American to serve the 79th District.He is also the opposite of the losing former Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffewho is, of course, white, wealthy, and more than twice Clarks age. Clark wont criticize McAuliffe or other Democrats. Still, his message carries an implicit critique of campaigns conducted from on high. Being deep in your community, you can combat lies, he told me. We dont teach critical race theory in our schools. Education was nonetheless his top issue, he added.We did something our district hasnt seen, including knocking on more than 40,000 doors between the primary and the general election. You have to show up, Clark stated. Joan Walsh31

The Rise of Dreama Caldwell, by Joe Troop32

A banjo-wielding social justice activist, Troop writes songs in the tradition of Woody Guthrie. As the Grammy-nominated leader of the folk ensemble Che Apalache, which includes players from Argentina and Mexico, Troop has always written songs that are musically and intellectually compelling. That was surely the case with his 2021 single The Rise of Dreama Caldwell, a searing indictment of the cash bail system told through the eyes of a real-life Alamance County, N.C., woman who could not afford to pay bail and ended up in jail. Caldwell eventually became a criminal justice reformer, an activist with the Down Home NC rural organizing project, and a county commission candidate, as Troop recounts in this story of how she stared a sick system point blank in the eye, / And vowed come hell or high water, one day shed watch it die.33

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These Progressives Fought the Good Fight in 2021and Gave Us Hope for 2022 - The Nation

Left: Rep. Pramila Jayapal; Right: Sen. Joe Manchin(Mandel Ngan/Pool; Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

After Senator Joe Manchin delivered the likely death blow to Build Back Better, House progressives responded alternately by declaring him a liar, proceeding as if negotiations were ongoing, and calling on President Biden to enact an unspecified series of executive actions.

The call for executive action is seen as a Plan B to achieve the same results by bypassing the normal legislative process. In reality, its a way to try to put pressure on Manchin and keep the legislative path alive.

If you read Representative Pramila Jayapals Washington Post op-ed closely, however, its pretty clear this is a big bluff by progressives. In her piece, Jayapal makes the standard pitch for the radical spending package (laughably, she now tries to argue that the spread of Omicron brings a renewed urgency to pass the bill).

She eventually writes, We are calling on the president to use executive action to immediately improve peoples lives. Taking executive action will also make clear to those who hinder Build Back Better that the White House and Democrats will deliver for Americans. The [Congressional Progressive Caucus] will soon release a plan for these actions, including lowering costs, protecting the health of every family, and showing the world that the United States is serious about our leadership on climate action.

Reading the fine print, its pretty clear that there are no executive actions available that would be the equivalent of Congresss authorizing trillions of dollars in spending and new government programs. Progressives could call for various actions related to green energy or drug costs. But the reality is that if the action is legal, it is not likely to come anywhere near what Build Back Better was trying to do. And if it actually approximates Build Back Better, it can in no way be constitutional.

If it were simple for Biden to somehow enact his entire agenda with the stroke of a pen, Democrats would not have wasted months trying to pass something into law.

It is ironic, however, that as much as progressives like to talk about the need to protect democracy, they are awfully quick to jump toward doing things unilaterally when they dont have the votes to pass their agenda.

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Progressives Are Bluffing on Build Back Better via Executive Action - National Review