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DDonald Trump’s favorite insult to political opponents within his own party is “Rino” – Republican in name only. By such logic, Senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona are the epitome of the Dinos, two elected Democrats whose fierce resistance to Joe Biden’s social agenda threatens / threatens to upset his entire presidency.
Their standoff with the progressive wing of the party over the price of Biden’s ambitious reform agenda has become almost more of a danger to his legacy than anything Republicans, currently a narrow minority in both houses of Congress, can on him. to throw.
This resistance – and threat – to Biden’s national ambitions is now set to continue into October as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sets a new October 31 deadline for the House to pass a major bill. Law on infrastructure spending after a week of negotiations. massive plan to overhaul social and environmental policies in limbo.
Progressive Democrats in the House refused to vote on the influence of infrastructure bills in negotiations on a separate bill that contains huge spending on issues of increased access to child care, help with school fees and major action on climate change.
Analysts, meanwhile, question whether senators’ resistance to the agendas Biden directed and won an election is more rooted in a need for political self-preservation.
Manchin is a moderate Democrat in a state where the governor’s mansion and both legislative chambers are controlled by Republicans; Sinema is considered vulnerable in Arizona where she won the Senate seat previously held by Republican Jeff Flake before he decided not to run again. Both face tough re-election challenges in 2024.
Meanwhile, New York magazine’s Intelligencer coined a phrase for the oversized power that rests in the hands of two otherwise mundane Democratic resistance fighters: Manchema. “In fact, they are holding the president’s priorities hostage to their personal whims,” wrote the author of the article, Sarah Jones.
“This is not a new story in politics. But their stubbornness in the face of contemporary challenges reveals the bottomless void of their brand of centrist politics. “
Manchin, 74, has served in the US Senate since 2010 and has become a controversial figure under the Trump administration by allying himself on several key votes and even playing with the former president’s unprecedented endorsement for re-election. If Senate Democrats were frustrated with him then, it turned to impatience when the party took control of the chamber in 2020 but became dependent on him for every vote so Vice President Kamala Harris could break a tie 50-50.
Manchin has always insisted he was not against Biden’s desire for social reforms, but balks at the $ 3.5 billion cost and has indicated he would be comfortable with it. $ 1.5 billion. Last month he called on Democrats to “hit the pause button” for more negotiations.
“I could say I’m against this and that and all. I am for a lot of things. I’m also for putting up guardrails, ”he told NBC’s Meet the Press.
Sinema made headlines in 2018 not only for becoming Arizona’s first Democratic senator for more than two decades, but also as the chamber’s first openly bisexual member. Yet despite being from the same party as other Arizona senator Mark Kelly, who ousted outgoing Republican Martha McSally in last year’s special election to make her the first time in 70 years that the state was represented in the Senate by two Democrats, it took a much more conservative stance on several issues.
In March, she angered her colleagues with a thumbs-down gesture in the Senate as she voted against increasing the federal minimum wage.
Unlike Manchin, Sinema, who rarely gives interviews, has not publicly indicated which parts of the $ 3.5 billion bill she opposes. As an indicator of her importance to the process, she has become a regular visitor to the White House, securing more time in front of the president and senior Democratic leaders than any other senator with just three years of tenure.
In Arizona, Democrats have grown tired of Sinema. The state’s Democratic Party has passed a motion promising a vote of no-confidence if it votes against the bill, while some members are preparing a main challenge.
In Washington, Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono summed up the frustration of Congressional Democrats. “Me and others are waiting for Kyrsten and Joe to tell us what they like and don’t like, and then we can do it,” she said.
Manchin, meanwhile, drew the personal ire of the Senate’s most prominent progressive, former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, in a recent interview on ABC’s This Week.
“Is it appropriate that one person destroys two laws?” ” He asked. “It would really be a terrible, terrible shame on the American people if both bills went down.”
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