Progressives are from Mars, Manchin is from Venus – Politico
With help from Renuka Rayasam
CONGRESSIONAL LOVE LANGUAGES The 1992 best-seller Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus looks today like a reductive exercise in gender stereotypes. But set the retrograde cliches aside: The book accurately conveyed a central truth that might help congressional Democrats as they stare down a brutal fall. Relationship breakdowns happen when you and your partner are communicating on your own terms, rather than trying to find common ground despite different frames of reference.
And lately, Democratic centrists and progressives are not only talking past each other, they are also doing so in two separate languages. So while the binary Mars-Venus frame doesnt work for gender, it might just teach the two camps inside President Joe Bidens party how to live under the same roof without the stakes of its big tent flying away in a gust.
Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Mich.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) are pictured on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. | Joshua Roberts/Getty Images
The first lesson comes from Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). She told POLITICO on Friday that she has the votes within her 96-member bloc to stop the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill from clearing the House next week unless a multitrillion-dollar social spending bill also moves ahead. People want to see us fight for them, she added.
This is Mars talk, more or less. Progressives are willing to risk short-term legislative failure if it connects to their deeply held policy principles because theyre motivated by the fight itself.
Centrists, on the other hand, are from Venus. Heres how Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) addressed the social spending bill in a recent ABC News interview: No one is talking about inflation or debt, and we should have that as part of the discussion. I cant understand why we cant take time, deliberate on this, and work.
Centrists like Manchin would prefer long-term legislative stasis to a short-term failure if it gives them more time to socialize their goals. Theyre motivated by the act of outreach, however performative it may look to their colleagues on the left.
Can Democratic leaders please both fight-for-whats-right liberals and talk-it-through centrists? Possibly, but it would require a conversation about the $550 billion infrastructure bill that bridges this Mars-Venus divide.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) leaves a hearing on Capitol Hill. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
Each wing would have to accept the others needs for the whole party to get what it wants. And based on Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinemas recent ultimatum to Biden about walking away from the social spending talks if the House infrastructure vote fails as soon as next week, the chances of that acceptance arent looking good.
The second lesson comes from Reps. Cori Bush (R-Mo.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and other progressives who, after the Senate parliamentarian ruled against including immigration reform in the social spending bill, urged their party to push past the rules referee. Top Democrats can and should ignore the parliamentarian, Omar tweeted. The parliamentarian must be overruled, Bush tweeted.
This isnt going to happen, but theyre illustrating a classic element of progressive communication: Always try to move the range of acceptable outcomes.
Think of this as the progressive version of what original Mars/Venus author John Gray described as the cave that Mars denizens retreat to when theyre under pressure. A trip to the cave doesnt necessarily accomplish the goals of Mars natives, but it lets them blow off steam that later helps them communicate better.
To that end, the Democrats left flank is going to naturally want to clamor for bigger and bolder resistance after a defeat like the one they got dealt on immigration. That venting is valuable and is likely to be followed by a come-together moment for the party when the time is right.
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PUTINS PARTY WINS BIG IN DISPUTED ELECTION Russias ruling party on Sunday secured a landslide win in a vote that has been dubbed the most repressive since Soviet times.
With some 85 percent of ballots counted as of early today, United Russia which backs Russian President Vladimir Putin had won 50 percent of the vote, appearing to lose some seats in parliament but paving the way for it to retain its majority.
Three days of voting an extended period the authorities claim is meant to prevent a spread of the coronavirus, but critics argue facilitates vote-rigging brought with it a litany of violations.
In Moscow, results from electronic voting had still not been made public after 12 hours, a delay that critics decried as a sign of tampering.
And as in previous elections, footage shared on social media showed brazen ballot stuffing and harassment of observers. At least one new tactic also surfaced the use of pens with disappearing ink, presumably in order to correct ballots after they had been cast.
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CALL MY AGENTS Bob Woodward and Robert Costas Peril, which will be published Tuesday, is the last of this summers flood of books about the end of the Trump presidency. Among the others: Michael Wolffs Landslide, Carol Leonnig and Philip Ruckers I Alone Can Fix It, and Michael Benders Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost.
Washington, D.C., book agent Rafe Sagalyn called the Woodward/Costa book a market test of whether there is still an appetite for Trump era books.
The Trump-related book has been a staple for a few years, but there are signs of fatigue, esp after the 3 bestsellers from last month, Sagalyn wrote in an email to Nightlys Renuka Rayasam.
Sagalyn and two other books agents that Nightly spoke with still werent quite sure what comes next for political book publishing. Agents dont think Biden will juice the publishing industry in the same way. Its hard to envision a Biden book full of the kind of salacious gossip thats made Trump books so popular over the years.
Trump was a singular, horrific figure, Gail Ross, president of the Ross Yoon agency, told Nightly. The aftereffects are just extraordinary.
Ross and Elyse Cheney, the agent who repped Leonnig and Rucker, each separately predicted that the next generation of post-Trump political books will be more issue- and idea-oriented and less focused on the occupant of the Oval Office.
We will use the term political book more elastically, Ross said. People are reading more during the pandemic or at least buying books to fill their Zoom background shelves.
Ross just sold a book from Sherrilyn Ifill about being on the cliff of democracy. Policy books can be as successful as the scandal book, she said.
Cheney said shes been obsessed lately with the idea that civilization is collapsing and that Big Tech executives hold as much power as the president. She would love to see more books about the behind the scenes worlds of Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, though she admits Silicon Valley tends to be less dishy and transparent than Washington.
The relief of not having Trump in office is being able to think about things on a bigger scale, Cheney said. Or being able to think at all.
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Progressives are from Mars, Manchin is from Venus - Politico
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