It’s bad enough Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the Arizona Democrat, turned down the minimum wage hike with that oh-so-cute thumbs-down. Now she’s threatening to derail the whole Democratic agenda, insisting on archaic Senate rules that give Mitch McConnell and the Republicans outsized power.
“I think is a lot of people feel that this groovy, bisexual senator should be voting in a groovy way and not like a terrifying conservative,” Molly Jong-Fast says on the latest episode of The New Abnormal.
“Do you see a world in which Democrats can get her on board for filibuster reform?” she asks Senate veteran Adam Jentleson.
ADVERTISEMENT
“I definitely think that,” Jentleson answers. “I think she’s miscalculated a little bit. I don’t think she can afford to be out as far to the right as she is right now. Even [centrist West Virginia Sen. Joe] Manchin has started to shift a little bit. And so she’s kind of out on a limb.”
“Joe Manchin can say, ‘I am the only Democrat who can hold this seat, it’s me or a Republican’… and that’s valid,” Jentleson adds. “He’s generally a pretty reliable vote for most of the things we want to pass. He can be very frustrating, but it’s literally him or a Republican… Sinema cannot say that she’s the only Democrat who can hold that seat. There are other credible Democrats who could run in a primary and win the general election.”
Sinema’s fellow Arizona Democrat, Sen. Mark Kelly, is up for re-election in just two years. “For him to win, he needs to accomplish a lot of things. He needs to be able to go to voters and say, ‘Here’s what we did,’” Jentleson adds. “And so I don’t think that Sinema can tell Mark Kelly to go jump off a bridge... It’s just untenable to say, ‘I’m going to stand in the way of all the things that Democrats want to do because of my love for the filibuster’ in a purple state. I don’t think this is a long-term sustainable position.”
Then, former Stockton, California, Mayor Michael Tubbs talks about his push for universal basic income. And The Daily Beast’s Diana Falzone takes us inside Fox News, as staffers there lose their minds in the face of a challenge from an even crazier conservative network.
“They’ve dug in their heels. And now they’re going to give the viewers what they want, which is this red meat of cancel culture of Dr. Seuss or Mr. Potato Head,” she tells Jong-Fast. “Things will get even more, as the staffers say at Fox News, ‘Foxifized,’ which is the war on Christmas, the war on men. There’s always a war going on.”
Listen to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.
