>

GG sucks, but I can understand that it wasn't as obvious back then as it is now.
Democrats aren't a monolith. Pretending the absurd "rotating villain" idea holds water, rather than that Democrats are individuals who have different perspectives and different constituencies, only serves to demoralize Democratic voters, which, in turn, only serves to help elect Republicans. Which is GG's general objective these days.
The theory is simply false. Senate Democrats are more liberal than they were in 2010. They wouldn't have gotten 48 votes to abolish the legislative filibuster back then, like they did a year ago. Hell, Tester wouldn't have voted for it 12 years ago, either.
When they passed the ACA, the Senate had:
1. Max Baucus (D-MT)
2. Evan Bayh (D-IN)
3. Robert Byrd (D-WV)
4. Kent Conrad (D-ND)
5. Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
6. Kay Hagan (D-NC)
7. Tim Johnson (D-SD)
8. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
9. Joe Lieberman (D-CT)
10. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
11. Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
12. Ben Nelson (D-NE)
13. Mark Pryor (D-AR)
14. John Rockefeller (D-WV)
15. Jon Tester (D-MT)
16. Jim Webb (D-WV)
For practical purposes, that's 16 Joe Manchins. We're now down to two (Manchin, and Sinema). Of those listed, only Tester is still in office (and he's willing to vote for things now he wouldn't have voted for then), and only two other seats are still held by Democrats (Byrd's & Lieberman's). The remaining 13 seats have all flipped to Republicans. Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, and South Dakota all have two Republican Senators now.
The truth of the matter is, we just need more Democrats in office. Not that they're all equally good or bad, but even a bad Democrat is better than the best Republican. Manchin and Sinema have both voted for bills and nominees that every, or nearly every, Republican has voted against. Each additional seat means additional paths to passage. It's just math. Assuming partisan votes, with 50 Senators, there's only one way to get to 50 votes. But with 51 Senators, there are now 51 ways to get to 50 votes. With 52, there are 1,326(!) ways to get 50 votes. At 53, it's 23,426, and so forth.
The Democrats, who have caved on so many things, MUST NOT cave on this matter, not even a little. They must not negotiate, they must not accept anything less than a clean raising of the debt ceiling, just as they did during the Trump administration. >

The GQP has tried this a couple of times and the Dems have never caved.
Even McConnell knows this is a losing strategy. >

Someone explain all of this to Joe Manchin

“We have to work together. It has to be bipartisan and it has always been bipartisan as far as the debt ceiling,” Manchin said. “I think what we have to do is realize we have a problem, we have a debt problem.” >

Good god, if only we had gotten one more senator...