And what is very clear when you look at the timeline is that he did everything conceivable to prevent there from being a vote on a 15 alignment, minimum wage, everything conceivable. And I think that even the moderates need to be really clear eyed about where the blame lies, because this is a real this could be a really radicalizing moment for a lot of Democrats who take for granted that while Biden Biden's doing his best. You know what we heard through the entire Obama administration?

I like Obama. He's a good guy. If he couldn't get this done, it must have been because it was impossible. Oh, gosh.

Lieberman, what's he to do? You think? You know the free world, but I guess there's nothing he can offer Joe Lieberman so they can freakin get health care, you know? And it's that there's got to come a moment where we properly attribute blame. And when you have Evangelia Paul in this moment doing this little dance, but it itself obscures the truth that the reason she didn't hold up the vote on the minimum wage is because of Joe Biden in his administration, not because of an unwillingness to go toe to toe with Joe Manchin.

That helps ultimately the fiction advance. So where do we go from here? That's the question I'm supposed to ask of our guests, because it's difficult to answer.

Oh, OK.

Well, I mean, I think that that really is the main question.

OK, so apparently most of these actors involved, including Joe Biden, say, well, we're going to try again. You know, we're we're going to we're going to get something at some point, which, you know, is it is a profound moral, systemic failing that the minimum wage will remain and what is it, seven?

Twenty five an hour yet a federal level through like a minimum the end of this year. Right. Even in even in the most optimistic scenarios where they pass a minimum wage hike, it's still going to take time to actually come in.

Theoretically, the votes are there to get something like a lower minimum wage hike.

I mean, there is a debate about whether we should take that, whether the left should take that.

But I I think right now, I think with the control of the Senate, with Joe Manchin, the party in control of the Senate, by which I mean just Joe Manchin of the Senate, I think I would take 12 over seven. Twenty five.

Yeah. So that is a really interesting point, Virgil, because again, look at the posture of this and I'm sorry to be like so in this I'm writing about it right now that this is what my brain is attached to. When we were having a conversation about the amount of the checks there was in negotiations. Fourteen. Is it two thousand. OK, when we were having a conversation about what the unemployment benefit should be, is it going to be three hundred or four hundred, three hundred for a longer period of time.

Four hundred for a shorter period. It was a negotiation about the amount.

Right. Hmm. But pretending that there was this procedural obstacle cut off any potential negotiation around the level of the minimum wage. Yeah, it was an absolute bar to any further discourse, which is strategically brilliant if you do not want to raise the minimum wage. Right. Because Krysten Sinema, of course, we all know has supported minimum wage increases. Yeah, Joe Manchin in the context of this very conversation, said, well, I before I 11 dollars minimum wage.

No, he's already set the floor either.

And as insulting as that is and as much as I don't think we should settle for that, as much as I think that if Democrats really cared, they would have been pushing for a twenty four dollar and then maybe we could be settling on a fifteen dollar. Sure. It's important to note that the possibility of negotiation was there. If it was just about Manchin and cinema. Yes. But again, the Biden administration very adeptly cut that off at the pass, which I think reflects it's more evidence that they had no sincere commitment at all to a fifty dollar minimum wage and that we need to place the blame where it lies.

I'm playing the world's smallest violin for mansion and cinema, but like they are truly scapegoats in this whole kerfuffle. And the blame really should be put at Joe Biden's feet, because when you do that, you also realize that you're full of foolish to think it's going to be any different during the next budget reconciliation process. And even more foolhardy to think that necessarily even going to have the chambers of Congress majorities in the chambers of Congress next time around after you know who they will not.

Yeah, that's exactly it. Because the Bomaderry made the ruling, the White House came right out with a statement saying, OK, well, thanks for your advice, but we're going in a different direction on this one. Then it's still on the table and we're still negotiating it.

Right then it's still, you know, turning the turning the screws. Right. But the fact that they capitulated right out the gate, you know, it's very telling.

I think you're completely right about if you'd like to hear more. Remember, you can subscribe at Patrón dot com slash Bad Faith podcast for five dollars a month to get our full back catalogue of episodes with some sweet, sweet stuff, including this one, including. Including and especially this one, if you like, that if you didn't like this, weather's better. Keep the faith. Keep the faith.