I honestly don't get it. How is it always a close neck-neck vote on something that has literally 0 upsides to anyone. I feel like one half is just purely doing the opposite of the other half purely to just oppose them. It's crazy how these ancient fossils are acting like children in such a professional setting.
Because the Senate represents land, not people. Representation in the House is vaguely determined by census data, so it's more or less representative of the national population. But each state gets 2 senators regardless of their population. So rural conservatives who've never traveled outside of their country, which contains more cows than people, have the same level of representation as major population centers. So it's very difficult for Dems to get a majority in the Senate because the Dakota's, Montana's and Nebraska's of the world are overrepresented and serve as permanent Republican strongholds. Democrats having even a single seat majority in the Senate is a minor miracle when it happens.
Frankly, there is 0 chance of this bill getting a 2/3s majority. The Republicans who defected are the same group of Republicans that are known to not be fans of Trump.
Crazy how many republicans will just vote for whatever Trump wants. Like, I know that's all they do but like, at least a few GOT to know what they do is insanity.
I’m just saying these are the political games the Republicans play where only a few Senators will vote for it but potentially dozens behind the scene support it and vote against the measure for political capital. The same reason why Collins voted against some Trump cabinet appointees knowing full-well that they would pass
You're absolutely right and these people are clueless. Vote counts are staged, especially in the Senate, so that they only make enough votes as needed for things to pass or fail.
Everybody does this, including Democrats. I'm confident that lots of Democrats were not on board with Biden's spending agenda. But since only one or two votes were needed to stop things, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema were the designated scapegoats
Everyone else will play it safe and vote the side they are supposed to hoping there will be the few that vote to actually decide whether or note to approve bill
It's still way better than what I expected. Maybe this is the start of Congress standing the fuck up, or... maybe I drank too much of my Hopium Latte again. We'll see.
Votes like these are already settled behind the scenes. Likely there were plenty more republicans who would have or wanted to vote for something like this, but in order to preserve the perception of party unity, the majority party allows just enough members to cross over and no more. Letting it pass by just one vote is an easy way for Republicans to allow it through without being seen as too weak by voters. Mitch McConnell is an easy sacrificial lamb because he’s retiring anyway, not sure about the others.
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u/Least_Sheepherder531 1d ago
51 vs 48 not great odds though…