Where does it say that Republicans must go to the rescue of Democrats as they teeter on the edge of a cliff, seconds from falling into the Grand Canyon?
Last Friday evening, Biden’s presidency and Pelosi’s presidency were on the verge of metaphysical collapse. Just days after Democrats took part in midterm elections from Virginia to New Jersey to Seattle, it appeared that neither Biden nor Pelosi could get their $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Framework out of the House of Representatives Infrastructure (BIF) on his desk for signature.
As Biden’s approval numbers dropped, he embarrassed himself further by falling asleep at a global warming conference in Glasgow. He then denounced as “garbage” a Wall Street Journal article about his plans to pay illegal aliens $450,000 per person for the “psychological trauma” of family separation after breaking into America uninvited. The White House backtracked Thursday and said Tuesday’s “junk” was official policy that Biden was “totally comfortable with.”
Because the stakes are so high, Pelosi called a vote on the infrastructure bill for last Friday evening. With the slimmest of Democratic majorities since 1881Pelosi could afford to lose no more than three votes. If only four Democrats voted no, then 1,039-page BIF will fail in the House of Representatives and plunge Biden and Pelosi into even greater humiliation and political danger.
When the “yes” and “no” were tallied at 11:24 p.m., Pelosi had lost six Democratic votes! To their credit, members of the far-left “squad” stood firm in their neo-Marxist principles and voted against the bill because the even larger, more left-wing Build Back Better Act had not yet been passed. These Democrats made their threat and he kept it: :
*Jamaal Bowman New York
*Cori Bush from Missouri
*Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez New York
*Ilhan Omar from Minnesota
*Ayanna Pressley Massachusetts
* Rashida Tlaib from Michigan
So the infrastructure bill fell to the ground like a crumbling viaduct, right?
Evil!
In a truly astonishing and inexplicable turn, 13 Republican House members voted to pass BIF, giving Pelosi the majority she desperately needed, plus a safety margin of 10 votes. Biden’s dozen rebel Republican bakers also gave him bragging rights that his favorite bill passed with bipartisan votes in both the House and Senate. BIF passed the House in August, 69-30, with Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and 18 other Republicans helping to drag Biden’s 10% infrastructure, 90% Green New Deal, and social disaster across the finish line.
A total disaster.
It would be bad enough if Pelosi had enough Democratic votes to pass this bill. When Democrats posted a majority on the House electronic voting tally, some Republicans in marginal districts may have thought, “Well, BIF has passed. It’s too late to kill it. So why not jump on the bandwagon and cheer up some of the Democrats and Leftist independents back home?” This isn’t exactly Profiles in Courage territory, but you can understand a few of these Republicans trying to extract an opportunistic advantage from a fait accompli.
Similarly, if Biden had been popular and beloved, these 13 might have stood on firmer ground, just as Democrats in Congress did when they supported President Reagan’s budget cuts and tax cuts after he so elegantly survived the assassination of John Hinckley in March 1981.
But Biden is increasingly hated. Of the 1,000 registered voters USA Today and Suffolk University polled Nov. 3-5 only 37.8 percent approves of Biden as president, while 59% disapprove of him. Among independents, Biden’s numbers are devastating: 28%. 67 percent are opposed. When it comes to re-election, 64 percent – including 28 percent of Democrats – do not want Biden to seek a second term. If the 2020 elections were repeated today, respondents would vote by 40%. for Biden and 44 percent for Trump (margin of error: +/- 3.1%).
Biden “was wrong on everything he touched on,” Lynda Ensenat of Louisiana told pollsters.
“Almost no one likes Joe Biden right now,” reads a graphic on Monday’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Thirteen Republicans smelled the stench of defeat around Biden and said, “Sign me up!”
Biden’s up-to-date best friends could be forgiven if they traded their votes for something of value, like an agreement to remove five or six of the most odious aspects of the vastly inferior Build Back Better Act (BBBA). Or maybe Pelosi’s announcement to extend President Trump’s income tax cuts through 2024. Or maybe a declaration that the southern border wall is infrastructure and needs to be completed with the resources to do so. Or maybe an ice cream cone for every “yes” vote for Republicans. Or something. Or whatever. Instead, these 13 Republicans saved Biden and Pelosi from total political devastation in exchange for absolutely nothing.
This fiasco is reminiscent of last month’s fiasco Democrat rescue operation in which McConnell recruited nine other GOP senators to aid Democrats pass an extension of the national debt limit.
Again, this was offered as a beautifully wrapped gift in exchange for nothing. Indeed, Schumer didn’t even have the grace to thank McConnell for betraying his own party. Instead, Schumer denounced “Republican edge-maneuvering” and otherwise publicly beat up McConnell like an abusive husband punching battered bride.
If House Republicans had remained united and buried BIF in their own ashes, the highly harmful BBBA would also have been crushed among pieces of crumbled concrete and twisted rebar. In tiny, Biden’s entire legislative agenda would be a dusty, twisted wreck.
At this point, in the face of the holistic disaster that has unfolded in his first less than ten months in office, a heavily bleeding Biden will face two choices:
First, retreat to Delaware, go down to Biden’s bunker in Wilmington, and spend the rest of his presidency letting his grandchildren play with the blonde hair on his legs.
Second, stay in the game by calling McConnell and GOP leader Kevin McCarthy of California to the White House. Biden could have told them, “OK, guys. You have me against the wall. I can’t get anything out of Congress without your help. I need Republican votes to get important bills on the desk because the makeup of my party stands in the way. I need you at the table so we can craft bipartisan legislation that will get GOP votes so I can pass it. What do you need from me so that we can move forward together?”
This conversation will not turn Biden into the reincarnation of Ronald Wilson Reagan. However, it would move it from 90 percent of the way to Venezuela back to 55 or 60 percent. If these 13 Republicans remained unchanged, Biden would have no choice but to break Bill Clinton’s mold and govern like the centrist Democrat he promised, not what he delivered: Hugo Chavez without the follies.
Such a scenario would be far more attractive than Biden’s ongoing march toward American socialism. This march continues, with a much springier step than even on Friday afternoon. And for that, America can thank House GOP leaders McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana for not predicting this glorious mess or giving their members a tighter grip to prevent it from happening. Their job is to count GOP votes and, if necessary, reinstate those who have erred, especially to defeat the far-left president’s second-biggest legislative priority. McCarthy and Scalise have failed spectacularly at this basic task.
And of course, Biden would have been completely cornered and willing to make a deal if it weren’t for the implosion on Friday night by a 13-person group Republican Cave Club: :
*Don Bacon from Nebraska
*Brian Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania
*Andrew Garbarino from New York
*Anthony Gonzalez from Ohio
*Jan Katko New York
*Adam Kinzinger state of Illinois
*Nicole Malliotakis from New York
*David McKinley of West Virginia
*Tom Reed from New York
*Chris Smith from New Jersey
*Fred Upton of Michigan
*Jeff van Drew from New Jersey
*Don Young from Alaska
Biden’s Baker’s Dozen and Republicans like them need to be taught a lesson: the GOP owes Democrats nothing. The appropriate response to Big Government socialists who constantly scream terrible lies about “racist, sexist, homophobic Republicans killing grandmas” is not, “Let’s be nice.”
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research.
