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Jen, I am so happy that you’re zeroing in on this feature of the vote, because I think we need to engage in a little education about, Congressional Politics 201. Not just the 101, not just who voted the wrong way, because I think that leads you in the wrong strategic direction. As you pointed out, there were 8 Senate Democrats who voted with Republicans, and you might say, well, damn those 8 Democrats. The problem, and if only they hadn’t voted the wrong way, we would have been fine. But, as you point out, they’re all retiring or not out for re-election. Well, that’s odd. Well, why are they all retiring? Was nobody else interested in capitulating as well? And the answer is this. The way this actually plays out for these hard votes is the Senate Democratic leadership is talking with everybody, they agree on a plan, which is, we’re going to capitulate, we’re going to surrender, but they also know the blowback is going to be bad. And so, there are a group of sinners, it’s certainly more than 8, it might be 16, it might be 24, it might be more, who all say, yes, the plan is to surrender. Who is going to do the surrendering? And then they pick the 8 members who are retiring or not up for re-election.

So Mark Warner is a good example of this. He is big mad today, and he’s voting against the capitulation. We all know Mark Warner in Virginia was moving towards surrender. But he’s up for re-election next year. He doesn’t want a primary challenger, so he is somebody who voted against it and can claim that he’s not capitulating. John Hickenlooper, same deal in Colorado. We know he’s in the capitulation caucus, but he’s up for re-election, so he can’t afford to vote against it. So, I do think it’s important for all of us to drive home the point. This isn’t the problem with 8 Senate Democrats. This is a problem with the Senate Democratic caucus and its leadership.

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https://contrarian.substack.com/p/incandescent-rage-ezra-levin-on-the