Sinema vérité

Politics Notebook #22: The former senator unleashes some truth bombs on progressive Democrats.

Kyrsten Sinema is having fun.

The former Arizona senator has been merrily trolling her erstwhile colleagues in the Democrat Party, an organisation she left in December 2022 in part because of irreconcilable differences over the filibuster. (The year before, I wrote about the tidal wave of hatred to which the left subjected her.)

Back then, progressives wanted to ditch the rule which requires 60 votes for certain legislation to pass the Senate. But that was when they had the Oval Office and a majority in the upper house. Now that the GOP reigns supreme at 1600 Pennsylvania and on Capitol Hill, progressives have declared the filibuster a pillar of American democracy.

They are furious with moderate Democrats for voting to continue funding the federal government rather than signing up to their quixotic (read: reckless) plan to shut down the Trump administration and with it a panoply of government services. They flamed centrists and threatened primaries, but were not prepared for a bombardment from Kyrsten Sinema, who began chucking truth bombs from her X account.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had professed her ‘deep sense of outrage and betrayal’ at Senator Chuck Schumer for spurning a filibuster and voting to continue funding the government.

Sinema set her sights, teed up a screenshot where AOC previously called for her and other ‘obstructionists’ to be primaried for ‘refus[ing] to act on the filibuster’, aimed a snarky ‘Change of heart on the filibuster, I see’ at her nemesis, and fired.

BLAM! Direct hit.

Congressman Ro Khanna accused Schumer of selling out the party and urged Americans to ‘stand up for the Constitution and our democracy’.

Sinema reloaded and chambered another screenshot. This one was from a 2021 op-ed in the Washington Post in which Rep. Khanna called for an end to the filibuster.

POW! Clean shot.

Another congressional leftist, Representative Pramila Jayapal, urged senators to vote No on cloture rather than ‘betray working families’, ‘give Trump and Elon Musk a blank check’, and ‘be complicit in the slashing of government programs’.

Sinema took to the skies and deployed another screenshot, in which Rep. Jayapal said the filibuster stood in the way of an assault weapons ban, codifying abortion rights, raising the minimum wage, and safeguarding voting rights. Sinema quipped, ‘Just surprised to see support for the “Jim Crow filibuster” here,’ referencing the Washingtonian’s previous characterisation of the parliamentary procedure.

WHOOSH! A brutal drone strike.

The radicals crawled out from the smouldering ruins of their credibility, defiant as ever. Rep. Khanna even insisted that, had the Democrats nuked the filibuster, the current debate would be academic because Kamala Harris would be president.

For one thing: sure, Jan.

For another: Kamala Harris worked hard to lose that election. It’s not fair to give the credit to the filibuster.

Sinema went in another direction with her response:

Popular take from the Left:

If [you] had eliminated the filibuster [and] voted for everything that the Left wanted, the threat of the filibuster being used by [Republicans] would never happen [because Democrats] would win every election [and] have a permanent majority.

What a breathtakingly undemocratic take.

Undemocratic, and unmoored from core liberal norms. The progressive creed states, ‘It’s okay when we do it’, and that is the ideology’s central organising principle: actions are judged not on their intrinsic merit or justice but on the political preferences of the person carrying them out. Everything is situational. When the filibuster stands in the way of progressive ends, scrapping it is the right and just thing to do. When the filibuster serves progressive ends, opting not to deploy it is an assault on democracy. This is the political philosophy of Humpty Dumpty: ‘When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

You might ask: what’s wrong with situational ethics? The left wanted rid of the filibuster, the centre stopped them, and since it still lives they might as well try to use it against the right. The objection is not to progressive hypocrisy — all ideologues are hypocritical — but to the suffocating sanctimony in which they marinade their every posture and pronouncement. Why, the things they advocate aren’t politics at all, just plain old human decency! Why can’t you just be nice?

It is the pretence at neutrality that is objectionable. See also the dispassionate legal analysts and professors of constitutional law who endorsed court-packing as a totally normal restoration of super normal norms when they thought a President Harris was on the way. They’ve since gone very quiet on the subject, which is strange for respected commentators and renowned scholars who definitely aren’t just partisan hacks.

Kyrsten Sinema was right about the filibuster back then and she’s right about it today. It is a necessary check on the foolhardy and illiberal designs of an impatient and implacable majority. That is true whether the Senate is blue or red and regardless of who occupies the White House at any given time. The left breathlessly declares this to be a time of crisis in which norms and conventions must be set aside to fend off a grievous threat to democracy.

The left says that about every administration it disapproves of. The left’s definition of a crisis is their opponents being in power. That Donald Trump is an arrogant, authoritarian demagogue with no regard for norms and conventions does not vindicate progressive crywolfery. All it does is draw attention to the horseshoe of US politics and the proximity of the leftist calk to its Trumpian counterpart.

Progressives and reactionaries share the same prickly impatience for process, both convinced that the wickedness of their opponents and the urgency of the moment make checks and balances a starchy indulgence. Anyone wishing to hew to principle is decried for failing to appreciate that these are times for action, not consistency.

Do not be browbeaten by these people. You are under no obligation to declare for one bunch of authoritarians or another. Stand your ground, hold fast to your beliefs, and, when they demand you choose a side, follow the example of Kyrsten Sinema, and toss some truth bombs at both of them.