Back in February, Emma Vigeland (left) and Sam Seder (right) of “The Majority Report with Sam Seder” revealed just a few tidbits of the personal grifting and campaign corruption that influenced “classical liberal” Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s obstruction of the progressive “Build Back Better” agenda in 2021. Video courtesy of The Majority Report with Sam Seder.
NOTE: Nazia Saeed, a Human Resources professional living in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, contributed significant research and writing for parts of this article.
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In October 2021, a video of protestors confronting Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) in a public bathroom stall went viral on social media.
The protesters focused on Senator Sinema’s intransigence on immigration policy. But they also made rambunctious declarations against Sinema’s efforts to block President Biden’s 2021 “Build Back Better” domestic political agenda.
Senator Sinema joined Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Republicans (GOP) in the US Senate to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure bill in September 2021. The mainstream press hailed the Senate’s passage of the infrastructure bill as a victory for bipartisanship in the post-Trump era’s hyper-partisan political milieu.
But Sinema, Manchin, and a small group of “moderate” Democrats in the House of Representatives pushed for separating the infrastructure bill from the larger 2021 reconciliation package that Biden and progressives in Congress advocated.
The problem for Sinema, Manchin, and the other “moderates” in Congress was the original strategy of passing both pieces of legislation together.
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US Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) in 2023. Photo image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
Initially, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and the progressive caucus in the House balked at Sinema and Manchin’s attempts to pass the more conservative, corporate-friendly bill without the larger reconciliation bill.
However, Senator Sanders eventually made a deal with moderate Democrats in the Senate and progressives in the House of Representatives to pass Sinema and Manchin’s infrastructure bill. The Democratic Party designed the strategy to overcome the filibuster in the Senate and the thin majorities they held over the GOP in both Congressional chambers.
The idea was to vote as a block in both chambers to prevent Republicans from obstructing Biden’s expansive domestic agenda. Instead, Sinema, Manchin, and moderate Democrats in the House abandoned the reconciliation bill – betraying Senator Sanders and progressive House Democrats after accomplishing their pro-corporate political goals.
The reconciliation bill included tax hikes on the wealthy and large corporations. But the corporate donors bankrolling Sinema and Manchin made it clear that raising taxes on the wealthy was unacceptable.
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President Joe Biden delivered remarks on his economic vision on Wednesday, March 31st, 2021, at the Carpenters Pittsburg Training Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Photo image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
The 2021 congressional fight over President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda is not the first time classical liberals like Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin, and President Biden have betrayed American progressives.
There is a long and sordid political history in the US of deceived and betrayed slave abolitionists, leftist women suffragists, and civil rights advocates after placing their faith in mainstream liberals. Classical liberals are politicians, social activists, or academic theorists who advocate for the government to intervene on behalf of citizens to prevent legal harm or physical injury.
Classical liberalism also recognizes that private businesses cannot perform public services such as law enforcement, public education, health care, national security, and sanitation. However, classic liberals also seek to limit the government’s powers to prevent threats to individual freedom and private commerce.
A major historical problem with liberal politicians and activists is they will quickly turn on left-wing progressives if opportunities for political advantage, economic gain, and social advancement present themselves.
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Margaret Sanger and her sons Grand and Stuart Sanger. The illustration is from Sanger’s 1920 book “Woman and the New Race.”
A perfect recent example of this phenomenon is former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton helping conservative democrats in Congress and New York State oust progressive Congressman Jamaal Bowman in the June 25th primary contest for his 16th congressional district seat.
For our VALKYRIES series, today, we will focus on Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) and historical tensions between White feminists and the African American civil rights movement.
Margaret Sanger was pivotal in the American struggle for women’s liberation and reproductive rights. She dedicated her life to advocating for birth control and challenging the societal norms that restricted women’s reproductive autonomy.
Sanger’s activism led to the foundation of organizations that evolved into Planned Parenthood. Despite her progressive views on women’s rights, critical historians are lambasting Margaret Sanger for her association with eugenics, a controversial movement advocating for controlled breeding to improve genetic traits in humans.
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Margaret Sanger.
Despite Margaret Sanger’s role in advancing women’s rights, criticisms of her legacy underscore the ongoing challenges of reconciling feminist goals with racial justice imperatives.
The suffrage movement for White women, while pivotal in securing voting rights and reproductive freedom, was reluctant to address systemic racism that marginalized Black women. This dilemma highlighted significant disparities in the pursuit of gender equality and racial justice amongst liberal White women.
There was an intense fear amongst the educated class of White suffragists that genetically “inferior” and socially unsophisticated Black men would achieve civil rights before superior White women gained equality. The civil rights struggle for Black Americans also encountered entrenched racial discrimination from other prominent “classical liberals” in US history, like Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003).
Daniel Moynihan was an American politician and diplomat who served as an advisor and UN Ambassador to former President Richard Nixon from 1969 through 1974.
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Daniel Patrick Moynihan, in 1969, after joining the Nixon administration as an advisor to the President. Photo image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
Mr. Moynihan represented New York as a US Senator from 1977 until 2001.
However, the former diplomat and Senator is notorious for theorizing the socio-economic concept of “benign neglect.” By promoting “benign neglect,” Moynihan legitimized the desires of President Nixon, conservative Republicans, and other “classical liberals” in Congress to begin defunding urban social welfare programs.
“Benign neglect” abetted every future US President’s efforts – Republican and Democrat – to eliminate the public health and welfare programs of the New Deal (1933-1939) and the Great Society (1964-1965). Daniel Moynihan’s policy recommendations also helped germinate the theory of fiscal conservatism and austerity, even during US periods of high inflation and social upheaval.
Despite the efforts of some contemporary “classical liberals” in the mainstream media, like MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell, to laud his career accomplishments, Mr. Moynihan’s legacy provides social and economic validity to the decades-long efforts to “deconstruct the administrative state.”
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Kyrsten Sinema in 2018. Photo image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
Progressives should not have been surprised when President Joe Biden allowed Senator Manchin, Senator Sinema, and a group of “moderates” in the House of Representatives to break apart and DESTROY Build Back Better.
Biden is the quintessential Blue Dog “moderate Democrat.” In 2021, he formed alliances with other “modern Democrats” and conservative Republicans in Congress to frustrate grassroots demands for political reform and economic relief after the COVID-19 pandemic. President Biden’s gas-lighting of the public regarding his weak efforts to preserve the progressive policies in Build Back Better perfectly defined his thirty-six-year career as a national politician.
As the US Supreme Court openly collaborates with Steve Bannon’s desire to “deconstruct the administrative state” and reelect Donald Trump in November, American voters can thank “classical liberals” like Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin, and Joe Biden for the impending fall of American democracy in five months.
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