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A continuing source of black amusement is the consoling myth of "the record" and its close relation, the "history book." The "record" is the secular version of the divine scorecard. "Let the record show" "future historians" "indelible stain" "eternal shame" etc
Senior Ds routinely hide behind the idea of the record to obscure their ineffectuality and sloth. Reading Herrera Beutler's evidence into "the record," instead of fighting on, is a vivid example of a treasured D procedure: losing *but pointing to future historical vindication.*
They should not be so sure. There is no posterity for poltroons. History abhors losers and empty-gesture merchants. King Olaf the Fist Shaker does not exist. Any chronicle of 2021 will depict a cohort of D senators of scarcely credible weakness and mediocrity.
And right on cue, @SenSchumer. We lost but actually won in "the judgment of history" as if we elect these people to become mascots of history.
To repeat, withstanding the "test of history" is not why we elect politicians. We elect them to deliver results in the present. https://twitter.com/RepAdamSchiff/status/1360992898590851075
Counterpoint from @EJDionne:
I agree that perceptions of the past strongly affect the politics of the present. But such perceptions unfortunately have little to do with "the record". They have to do with power and its narratives.
The fatal error of the Obama administration was precisely to believe that the factual record (of economic recovery & health legislation) would constitute a political narrative. Ds got crushed in 2010 and did not recover ground until 2018.
"Disagreeable and exhausting adversarial politics is unnecessary, the record speaks for itself." The fetish of the record is an integral part of the modern failure of D politics.
"Americans don't want political and legal accountability for the GOP insurrection of 1/6. They want an official record of what happened." https://twitter.com/JakeSherman/status/1361408622870290434
