Our right and responsibility

Continuing the last post, this Indivisible article on the CPC voting block notes that "this leverage only matters if progressives use it." The then proceeded to give a couple of examples where they did so successfully as I noted in my last post. 

One key difference with Tea Party tactics, and those used by the recalcitrant corporate Dems like Manchin and Sinema, is that the CPC only prefers to use this tactic constructively, before a proposal is finalized prior to passing. They prefer to not be like the Tea Party, and our aforementioned corporate Dems, and use it destructively to hold up passage of a Bill if key provisions are not in it. However the latter option is on the table should the former option not work. We've seen some cases where it did not and the latter option was ignored.

And that is why some of us progressives are pressing the caucus to use the latter approach to enact the legislation that the caucus has already committed to but which the establishment in their own Party is fighting against, e.g., Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. Using the former approach they appear to have gotten some concessions from Biden and the Party toward those goals, but not enough to make a difference in time to save a lot of lives or the planet. The caucus knows what it's going to take and such referenced policies are it. 

The article concludes that these tactics should be used when it comes down to a partisan vote on the Democratic side, and especially when the policy is in the Overton Window. That means when a policy is supported by a majority of the voters. Given examples like the above, which poll well within that window, we the voters must use whatever pressure we can to hold the CPC to using the later option to get it done if the former does not work. This is how politics works by the CPC's own standards. 

We just have to hold them to it. It's our solemn right and responsibility as citizens granted to us by the Constitution and demanded of us by our patriotic duty. We're not going to let any of the establishment's negative framing about us prevent us from fulfilling that sacred duty.  (US flag waves in the wind to the music of God Bless America in the background.)