Sometimes you have to step back from the swirl of shocking, bureaucratic and intrusive vaccine mandates and the legislative wrestling match in Congress to see what is really going on. Here’s how I see it.
Political control by one party is bad for our country because it shuts down an inclusive debate over ideas.
Decades of gerrymandering have created too many congressional and state legislative districts that are a slam-dunk win in the general election for one or the other party.
That means the seat is won or lost in the primary where the more extreme candidate too often prevails and then heads to the nation’s or state capitol to vote for legislation that pleases the extremists who put that candidate in power.
The few dozen competitive seats in Congress are closely watched because the more moderate candidates can prevail.
These seats flip back and forth between Republicans and Democrats, often by slim margins. And the elected officials often are the deciding votes on legislation. They are more important because they must listen to constituents across the spectrum and can demand more sensible policy.
Sometimes a Democrat will hold a seat in a deep red district or state, like Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia, and therefore exert leverage to pull legislative initiatives back toward the center.
Why is this important now? Because the U.S. Congress is on the threshold of passing a hugely destructive multi-trillion dollar social-welfare spending bill written to appease the demands of the socialist extremists in the Democratic party. And the only way it could even be considered is with a bribe of connecting that bill to a separate bill on infrastructure spending.
To get the massive welfare entitlement bill over the finish line, Speaker Pelosi will have to force a lot of moderate members in swing districts to walk the plank and vote for it. They’ll cite polls that cherry pick popular parts of a bill to sway them. But if moderates take the bait, they will likely lose their seats when they face voters next year.
It has happened before. In 2010, when Obamacare was on the brink, Speaker Pelosi convinced hold-backs in her caucus to vote for the bill, with President Obama calling them individually to say they would be sorry for the rest of their careers if they stopped the bill from passing.
They took the bait, and later that year, 63 Democrats lost their House seats.
The same thing could happen again in 2022 to moderate Democrats if they cave and vote for the monstrous Build Back Better big government socialism bill the Speaker is trying to jam through this week. She needs the votes of virtually all of these moderates to get it done.
The bill is absolutely terrible. The deeper you dive, the worse it gets. Progressives say they aren’t getting everything they want, but will cave and vote for it in the end.
Independent thinking is needed here. If the moderates were as strong as the progressives, they could prevail and save the country—and save their seats to fight another day.
Pray they see the light.
