One of the big selling points for Team Biden was that he had the networking skills that Obama lacked.
Biden knew how to do ‘asks’, he had the right ‘touch’ (I know the jokes write themselves) with fellow members of the Senate because he had been there forever and he would be able to work with Democrat moderates and Republicans.
Instead, despite the sham “unity” and “healing” speech, this is playing out just like Obama’s third term.
The White House is treating Senator Manchin like garbage and it’s ignoring Republican Senate members. Even those that were eager to work with the White House. It’s a dumb, arrogant strategy, especially since the GOP is divided, and Biden could have gotten the votes of guys like Romney for a song.
But this is a replay of Obama’s hostility, arrogance, and unilateralism. It’s also the clearest sign that this is Obama’s third term.
That doesn’t mean that Obama is calling all the shots. Rather what we know of as the Obama administration was not just Barry, but the staffers and advisers around him who brought a particular character and tone to the administration. The glib lefty condescension, disdain for working with anyone else, and conviction of their own infallible genius were qualities inherent to Obama, but also to the people around him, and now those same people are running the show.
It’s also the clearest sign that Biden isn’t.
Biden is an arrogant jackass, but he wouldn’t have dispatched Kamala Harris to undercut Manchin as some sort of power move. And he would have taken the opportunity to break away some Senate Republicans. But Joe’s out to lunch. He’s not running his own administration and has yet to even do an extensive interview. The Obama people are. And that means we can expect a literal rerun of those eight years except amplified by the greater power and radicalism that the years since then have brought.
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