Today’s Edition: Democratic showdown in the House.

August 24, 2021

          President Biden faced growing calls from allies to extend the date for withdrawal from Afghanistan.  After France, Germany, and the U.K. asked Biden to delay the departure of U.S. troops, U.S. negotiators floated the idea of extending the withdrawal beyond August 31st. The Taliban quickly declared August 31st as “red-line” date for evacuation. According to the Taliban, the presence of U.S. troops in the country after that date would “provoke a reaction.”

The difficult situation was made more difficult by leaks from senior U.S. military advisers saying that the military had given Biden only until Tuesday to make a final decision on extending the withdrawal date. See CNN, “US military gives Biden a deadline to decide on extending Afghanistan evacuations.” It is always difficult to negotiate with your adversary when your own military advisers are leaking information about internal discussions regarding withdrawal. While having a deadline for a decision is reasonable, blabbing that fact to the press is irresponsible and seems designed to force Biden’s hand.

          Scenes from the withdrawal continue to provoke anger on both sides of the partisan divide. Although the pace of evacuations has increased substantially, the number of Americans in Afghanistan is uncertain at this point. The Air Force has already evacuated 30,000 Americans from the Kabul airport, with 20,000 more awaiting flights. The U.S. has more than 230 planes dedicated to the airlift evacuation, which is “already one of the largest in Air Force history. The largest operation to date remains the airlift of personnel during the evacuation of Saigon [in which] the U.S. airlifted 50,490 evacuees to safety.”

          The chaos of the early days of the evacuation is undeniable, spurred by the near instantaneous collapse of the Afghan army. The situation has stabilized over the last week, though the criticism has not. Two respected commentators have noted that, despite the scenes of chaos, the U.S. military secured the airport and has succeeded in evacuating Americans at a rapid pace. Professor Heather Cox Richardson notes a comparison between the loss of life in the evacuation and the loss of life in the U.S. over the last week:

          Interestingly, much of the U.S. media is describing this scenario as a disaster for President Biden. Yet, on CNN this morning, Matthew Dowd, who was the chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004, noted that more than 20,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan without a single loss of an American life, while in the same period of time, 5,000 Americans have died from Covid-19 and 500 have died from gunshots.

          Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo makes a similar point in his editor’s blog, “Notes from the Press Paroxysm as the Evacuation Flights Continue,” as follows:

          And yet as far as I know not a single member of the US military has died or even been injured in this operation. In fact, it doesn’t appear that a shot has even been fired in anger against them. We don’t judge military victories or defeats by body counts or casualty lists. But surely this [fact] figures into the equation. The US withdrew its forces according to plan. It then reoccupied the civilian airport in Kabul. Since last weekend the US military operation at Hamid Karzai International Airport has overseen the evacuation of more than 40,000 people, and it continues at a rapid clip. So about 36 hours of confusion and then a fairly orderly and rapid airlift over the last week.

          Of course, despite the stabilization of the evacuation process, the U.S. must conduct an investigation into every aspect of the Afghanistan war, from inception to the initial chaos of the withdrawal. Several readers have complained that I am too strident in my defense of Biden. That is not my intent; I am trying to counsel perspective in evaluating the success or failure of a withdrawal from a twenty-year war. In large part, the media has failed miserably in providing that perspective. For a discussion of that failure and an excellent review of the history of the Afghanistan war, see Dan Rather in Steady, “In the Middle of History.”

          Several readers recommended an essay by Sarah Chayes, a former NPR correspondent who lived in Afghanistan for a decade. Her essay, The Ides of August, is measured, contemplative, and uncommonly insightful about the Afghanistan war. I highly recommend her Chayes’ essay to you and thank the readers who urged me to read it. Her essay provided a helpful lens for understanding the current situation in Afghanistan. Spoiler alert: there is more than enough blame to spread across four presidential administrations—with plenty left over for the Afghan government.

Moderate Democrats try last minute maneuver to force vote on bipartisan infrastructure deal in the House.

For several months, Democratic leadership patiently waited as moderate Democrats stripped Joe Biden’s infrastructure priorities to a bare minimum bipartisan bill. The leeway granted by Democratic leadership for the bipartisan negotiation was always premised on the express, explicit, and public condition that the bipartisan bill would be voted on only if the larger budget reconciliation resolution was voted on at the same time. Now that moderate Democrats have completed their bipartisan bill, they are shocked—shocked!—to learn that Democratic leaders are sticking to the framework that allowed the successful negotiation of the bipartisan bill. See HuffPo,” Nancy Pelosi In Showdown With Centrist Democrats Over Infrastructure Bill.”

          Moderate Democrats have resorted to the equivalent of political hostage-taking by threatening to vote against advancing the budget reconciliation resolution unless the bipartisan infrastructure bill is allowed to proceed without regard to the fate of the reconciliation resolution. Speaker Pelosi has called their bluff and will put the reconciliation resolution up for a procedural vote later this week, daring the moderate Democrats to vote against Biden’s grand agenda. See The Hill, “Pelosi sets up risky House vote to deem $3.5T budget approved.”

          Observant readers will detect the impatience in my tone in describing the actions of moderate Democrats. Guilty! Moderate Democrats have played into the obvious gamesmanship of Republicans. Passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill on a separate track will remove all leverage for passing the reconciliation resolution. That would undermine Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, and Democrats across the nation.

I hope that this drama is nothing more than political posturing. If it is not, moderate Democrats may form the shoals on which Biden’s legislative agenda will founder. If so, their vaunted efforts at bipartisanship will have the opposite effect they intended: Rather than returning Congress to a functioning institution, they will ensure that Congress is a graveyard for legislation.

I also hope the moderate Democrats will think long and hard before they make good on their threats to vote against the budget reconciliation resolution.  If they do the dirty work for Republicans, Democratic voters will not soon forget or forgive their betrayal of Biden.

Anti-vaxxers vs. vaccine hesitancy.

          In response to my comments yesterday about the term “anti-vaxxer,” a reader sent a link to an article that discusses the use of the term “vaccine hesitancy” to describe “delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccination despite availability of vaccination services.”  See Science Direct, “Vaccine hesitancy: Definition, scope and determinants.” If you want a deep dive on the use of the term “vaccine hesitancy,” check out the article.

          The article sent by the reader prompted me to consider further how we should describe people whose refusal to take vaccines is based on political ideology—not health concerns. The Kaiser Family Foundation has collected data on the characteristics of people who oppose vaccines. See “KFF Covid-19 Vaccine Monitor: June 2021.” If you look at only one chart in the KFF report, check out Figure 2, which breaks down vaccination status by twenty-three subgroups. The results contained in the graph at Figure 2 shocked me—though they should not have.

          Among the twenty-three subgroups, the highest rate of vaccination is among Democrats (86%). The lowest rates are among Republicans (52%) and uninsured (46%).  Putting aside the uninsured (who cannot afford vaccines), the strongest predictor of vaccination status in America is political party affiliation. Let me repeat: The strongest predictor of vaccination status in America is political party affiliation—not age, race, sex, education, religion, health status, or urban/rural location. The Republican Party has become an anti-vaxxer party because Trump and the right-media have instructed the GOP base to refuse vaccines on political grounds.

          The scariest part of the Republican anti-vaxxer platform is that the GOP cannot undo the damage it has wrought. Several days ago, Trump told a crowd at a rally that he had received the vaccine and encouraged them to do so. The crowd booed Trump for making that statement. See MSNBC, “Trump booed for telling Alabama crowd to get Covid vaccine.” Those who booed Trump did so on political grounds, not because they had legitimate hesitancy about the safety of the vaccine. Their opposition to the vaccine is part of the culture war that the GOP ignited in a last-ditch effort to maintain their grip on power.

          The growing anger among vaccinated people against those who refuse to take the vaccine for political reasons is justified. Anti-vaxxers are threatening our economic recovery, threatening the health of unvaccinated children and immune-compromised people, and making healthcare unavailable to others who have acted responsibly. To the extent that the GOP is planning to run on an anti-vaccine / anti-mask platform in 2022, they are making a profound political and moral miscalculation.  

Concluding Thoughts.

  There is good news embedded in the vaccination rates. If vaccine refusal is a marker of loyalty for members of the GOP base, then 52% of Republicans have put their health ahead of GOP anti-vaccine propaganda. The divide over vaccines may have replaced loyalty to Trump as the primary determinant of party identity. Although the number of unvaccinated among the Republican Party is too high, the fact that half the party has broken ranks with its leaders is a hopeful sign for Democrats and those who believe in science.

          Talk to you tomorrow!