Progressives have recently been complaining that President Biden isn’t doing enough to end the filibuster, including members of Congress and progressive media figures. These complaints are typified by this tweet by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, but similar complaints have been made by Reps. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY14) and Mondaire Jones (D-NY17).
In general, these arguments go something like this:
Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) could force Senate Democrats to scrap the filibuster but are choosing not to do so
Therefore, putting pressure on Biden will lead to him putting pressure on Senate Democrats to abolish the filibuster and allow the passage of legislation that progressives support
While I fully agree on point (1), it’s plainly not the case that Biden can simply force an end to the filibuster, and even if he did there would be no guarantee of progressive legislation passing.
The Green Lantern Theory
Ezra Klein wrote a very interesting article in 2014, arguing that many pundits and commentators followed the Green Lantern theory of the presidency — “the belief that the president can achieve any political or policy objective if only he tries hard enough or uses the right tactics.” Either the president can persuade the American people to take their side, or they can cajole Congress into doing what they want. Klein details why this isn’t the case for several reasons, including the rational self-interest of members of Congress (especially those not of the president’s party) and the way public opinion often sours on issues the president supports publicly.
For example, Lyndon Johnson was famous for his ability to coerce members of Congress into voting for his bills, both by promising them favors and by threatening them if they crossed him. Progressives argue that Biden should apply the same technique to recalcitrant Democratic Senators like Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to get them on board with scrapping the filibuster.
There are a couple of problems with this analysis. First, Johnson was benefitting from a landslide mandate in 1964. He enjoyed massive margins in Congress, in contrast to Biden’s razor-thin ones, so there was simply more room for error. The median voter back in the median member of Congress’ district was probably a Johnson supporter, so there was an incentive to vote with the president. Second, as Klein notes, Johnson lived a very different political era where polarization was much lower than it is today, increasing cross-aisle voting in Congress.
The votes just aren’t there
Contrast the situation in 1965 with that of 2021. The pivotal Senate Democrat is Joe Manchin, who hails from a very conservative state. The median voter there is a Republican who voted for Trump twice, so there is an incentive for Joe Manchin to oppose Biden and most national Democrats publicly in order to appeal to right-of-center voters who dislike Democrats in general. In fact, being attacked by progressives is probably good for Manchin because it shows conservative voters that he’s not just another typical Democrat. Manchin can’t be credibly threatened with a primary from the left, because any other candidate (even if they did beat him) would lose the general and cost Democrats a crucial seat.
Arizona isn’t nearly as red as West Virginia, but the median voter is still fairly conservative and so the same logic applies to Kyrsten Sinema and various other Senate Democrats hailing from tough states1.
Due to polarization and the incentive to not give Biden any wins that the Democrats can run on, no Republicans are going to vote to scrap the filibuster, and at the end of the day that just means that the votes aren’t there. You can try to cajole moderate Democrats into tossing it, but they’re smart people and have likely calculated what’s in their best interest politically already. Some may want to hide behind the filibuster to avoid having to take tough votes2, others may genuinely believe that it’s a good idea on the merits. But at this point, they’ve made up their minds. There’s no rational reason for Biden to waste time with pointless intra-party fights in which loss is predetermined, and no point in activists yelling at the president for something that’s out of his hands.
Though non-Manchin Democrats are less immune to primaries than he is, the redder their home state is, the less they have to worry about one.
Even in a world without the filibuster, moderates could still vote down progressive policies they see as too extreme — just look at what happened with the $15 minimum wage amendment to the American Rescue Plan, which passed via reconciliation. The point is that abolishing the filibuster doesn’t guarantee passage of progressives’ priorities — they’ll still need to find the votes for them.