“Democrats are afraid to talk about why we’re fighting about what we’re fighting for,” said Tré Easton, a progressive strategist. “It was exactly the kind of values-focused rebuttal that I want every Democrat to sound like.”
Another lesson of McMorrow’s speech, said Rebecca Katz, a senior adviser to Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, is that voters are searching for authenticity and passion rather than lock-step ideological agreement.

Adam Jentleson, who served as an aide to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the 2011 debt limit battle took a political and personal toll as the nation’s credit rating hung in the balance.

“The markets were moving based on statements we put out,” Jentleson recalled. “I ended up with back spasms out of stress. It was a hell of a ride.”

Next year’s battle could be “potentially much worse,” he said, because the Republican caucus has pushed further to the right since 2011. “I’m just glad I won’t be there.”

Easton noted that Biden’s job approval ratings have dipped in recent months, specifically with African Americans. And while many factors account for that decline, including rising inflation and Democrats’ failure to pass federal voting rights legislation, confirming Jackson might help stop or slow the president’s slide.

“This is one of the few things that he specifically can control,” Easton said.

“The filibuster is an impediment to basically every priority Democrats have campaigned on for the last decade. We’re seeing it with voting rights. We will likely see it with reproductive health protections,” said Tré Easton, deputy director of the progressive communications firm Battle Born Collective.
When asked if the politics of the filibuster could hurt vulnerable moderate Democrats in a general election, Easton argued that the filibuster currently advantages Republicans by letting them block legislation popular with most voters without facing any consequences. He suggested Democrats stand firm on the issue, even if challenged.

In response to Sen. Toomey’s attempt to boycott a committee vote on President Biden’s Federal Nominees, Adam Jentleson, Executive Director of Battle Born Collective released the following statement:

Democrats “spent Biden’s period of maximum political capital basically just waiting around” for an agreement that never came on the social and environment bill, lamented Adam Jentleson, a progressive strategist and former top Senate aide. Presidents often have the most momentum in the first year or two after taking office.

Many Democrats, wary of risking that nomination should they suddenly lose the majority, want faster action.

“Anything they can do to speed up the process would be good,” said Adam Jentleson, a progressive strategist and former top Senate aide.

“The Fed is clearly headed in this direction one way or the other,” said Adam Jentleson, a former top Senate aide who is coordinating support for Biden’s three nominations. “What’s the point of picking a huge fight over this if you’re just going to get another nominee who may not have made the same statements on the record but has the same views?”

The storied reputation of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” — not only in American culture broadly, but in the United States Senate specifically — continues to shape how we discuss and perceive the mechanisms by which federal legislation lives and dies. Former Senate staffer and filibuster-reform advocate Adam Jentleson opens his book “Kill Switch” by crediting the status of the filibuster as “the Senate’s most famous feature” to the influence of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” This famous feature persists even in the face of other, more urgent democratic principles.

“This is exactly what Biden needs,” said Adam Jentleson, who was a top aide to the longtime Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and one of the many progressive activists pushing for Breyer to retire before the midterms in case Democrats lose control of the Senate. “The full Democratic coalition worked together to make this happen, and the confirmation process is a chance to further unify and energize all Democrats.”

“It’s a necessary but not sufficient condition for the kind of turnaround Democrats will need to survive 2022,” said Adam Jentleson, a veteran party operative who was a top aide to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). “It’s not a panacea, but it has the potential to bring the party together and post a major win, which we need.”

“All I’ll say is that she created the circumstances she now finds herself in,” Tré Easton, the deputy director of Battle Born Collective, a progressive advocacy group, told Vox via text message regarding a potential primary challenge to Sinema. “The people of Arizona deserve better — either from her or another Democrat.”