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Threaten to vote against Pelosi unless a M4A vote is held. It is a prime opportunity to do follow through on those promises.
Progressives won’t have leverage again for awhile.
Do they actually have leverage now? That is, can the AOC-wing of the party keep Pelosi from being elected speaker if they force the issue, or do they still have too few votes?
If they don’t have the votes to boot Pelosi, we’re just talking about something performative.
Depending on the results in the last two seats, they would need 5-7 votes.
I really genuinely would not give a shit about this if it was just performative. But they have a real opportunity to express political power here, and there is no will.
I’m assuming Democrats lost 11 net seats, which would bring them down to a 224-211 majority. It looks like all Representatives vote between the nominees each party puts forth.
So I think they would need 7 (to make the vote 218-217 in favor of Republicans), and we’d have a Republican speaker. It looks possible, but I don’t think it’s a clear-cut decision. They don’t really have anything to win (Medicare for All isn’t passing the Senate, especially if the Georgia races go red) and Biden said he’d veto it if it gets to him – that’s all assuming it passes the House, which it still probably wouldn’t. As for what there is to lose, it’s a pretty bad look (to put it mildly) to vote with Republicans, I don’t know what damage a Republican speaker could do, and if they successfully force the vote but it doesn’t even pass the House that would be used as “too radical for America” bait for years.
The progressives have a clear opportunity to express political power. There are people demanding they use that to follow through on a campaign promise (get a floor vote on M4A). The response from the progressives to that demand is “No.”
Every single swing state Democrat who opposed M4A lost. Opposing health care during a pandemic is incredibly unpopular. Every Democratic M4A “no” vote is an open progressive seat in 2022.
There is no reason to make excuses for them. Leftists turning into pundits is exactly how you create the Obama phenomenon.
