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“Squad” Democrats failed on their biggest policy priority of 2021 Sunday when moderate Sen. Joe Manchin announced he won’t support his party’s massive reconciliation spending bill – but progressives still showed their power this year as they controlled Democrats’ agenda and dominated the political conversation.
“They lost on the infrastructure-reconciliation battle. But you shouldn’t think about this in terms of outcomes,” R Street Institute senior fellow for governance James Wallner told Fox News. “They were able to basically take a bad situation for them… and they were able to forestall defeat for months simply by objecting… and recognizing their leverage.”
Wallner said that in 2021, “Squad” members like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., became more battle-tested as legislators, potentially setting themselves up for future success if they learn the right lessons about how “to play the game well.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., speaks during a rally for immigration provisions to be included in the Build Back Better Act outside the U.S. Capitol, Dec. 7, 2021, in Washington. Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow progressives failed to enact their biggest policy goals in 2021, but they controlled the conversation in Congress.
(Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
SCHUMER HITS MANCHIN FOR FAILING TO SUPPORT BUILD BACK BETTER, MAINTAINS DEMOCRATS WILL ‘FIND A WAY FORWARD’
“I think they wielded a lot of influence at various points in the year. Now, they just have to use it in the right way and create a new environment in the future so that it can be more effective,” Wallner said. “If they think, ‘Oh, well, we didn’t win because we didn’t have enough votes and we just need to defeat people like Joe Manchin…’ That may be sufficient to kind of get them a little bit of what they want. But the most far-reaching stuff … that’s still…
Source : foxnews
