Working around the Senate Parliamentarian

The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled this evening that a minimum wage increase can’t be included in the COVID relief bill and passed through reconciliation. Senate Democrats will find a way to work around this, and there are plenty of avenues for making it happen. It just won’t happen overnight.

In the meantime we’ll have to put up with the media insisting the Democrats are doomed, and that there is absolutely no way they’ll ever be able to pass anything. We’ll also have to put up with liberal pundits blaming the Democrats for not waving some simplistic magic wand to fix it all. And we’ll have to put up with the doomsday fatalists who insist that “all hope is lost” unless something “happens right now.”

Sometimes it feels like the hysterical reactions to a minor or temporary setback are more injurious to our cause than the setback itself. If you’re running around insisting that you’re going to lose no matter what, then you’re very likely to indeed lose, even if you had a clear avenue for winning. Let’s be smarter and more strategic than that.