The Secretary of Labor can’t get confirmed. Her own party is blocking her.

Normally, this wouldn’t be worth commenting on, even though Julie Su is not only fully qualified but also is actually doing the job right now. The Democrats, as we all know, are their own worst enemies and always have been. Rather than focusing on their opponents, they spend most of their time in office eating their own young. It’s been going on so long now, it’s acquired the force of tradition.

Republicans, never the party to discard a weapon, are taking advantage of this tendency. It’s about to be an election year, after all, and dark money’s been running anti-Su attack ads and slapping up billboards in every vulnerable Senator’s state. “Julie Su wants to turn the lights off in West Virginia” reads one, and what could be more silly? But people believe it.

About election years: Did you ever notice that it’s always either a vital election year or it’s about to be one? When I was a kid we used to take a break just after a new president got into office, but that went away with George Senior and his War On Broccoli. Today, there’s no time between getting elected and worrying about being voted out for anyone to do any governing.

The absurd part of this is, she’s just the Labor Secretary. She’d have no real power if confirmed, and even if she did, she’s running Labor as we speak as Acting Secretary. Doing a pretty good job of it too, if record low unemployment numbers and spiking workforce participation have anything to do with it. (Which of course they don’t; that’s the free market doing its own thing in direct opposition to what the regulators at the Fed are trying to achieve. No federal department can ever have much impact on the economy, aside from starting crashes. Certainly no double-digit positive impact.)

A strong president willing to do battle for his chosen nominees would ride roughshod over opposition, especially as tentative as this is. If he had to, he’d make a deal across the aisle, strengthening a sometime ally like Murkowski by throwing her some budgetary pork or a policy bone. A canny infighter would emerge from any such struggle looking stronger.

But the simple fact of the matter is that Su isn’t Biden’s pick. She was forced on the Administration by the powerful Asian-American faction in Congress, and he’s not about to do battle for someone he doesn’t even really want. Instead, she’s being sacrificed on the altar of free advertising. Campaigns can now point to her stalled confirmation in a Democrat-controlled Senate and say, convincingly if not truthfully, “It’s not enough; we need more.”

Meanwhile, Republican dark money is being spent at an alarming rate. (It’s the Democrats who have virtually unlimited funds; Republicans lag them significantly in both dark and open campaign funding.) In a year when primary funds are being split between a record number of minor candidates such a depletion of resources only benefits the front-runner, who’s a known loser.

Which is of course why the fight’s going on in the first place: Republican party officials want to lose the presidential election. It’s the easiest way for them to rid themselves of both the former incumbents, arrange a weak V.P. as their opposition in 2028, and de-fang outsider DeSantis (who will lose badly) to make way for a loyal party insider candidacy. Democrats, meanwhile, need the immediate win so they can continue to appear helpless for another four years and blame the Other Party for their own failings while accomplishing absolutely nothing.

Meanwhile, the country continues to spend twice what it takes in from taxes and thus careens ever closer to a complete fiscal collapse.

Sure; let’s keep fighting over whether we confirm Su. There’s nothing better to do.

---

You can send cash to PayPal in order to help support us, set up a subscription donation at Patreon, or buy us a coffee. Remember: Today’s dollar will only be worth 84 cents tomorrow, so donate now while it’s still worth something!

Besides, you know if you don’t donate to us, you’d just end up piddling the money away on rent and groceries.