With only Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Angus King of Maine,  and Doug Jones of Alabama crossing the aisle to support a failed cloture vote, the Senate Republicans’ police reform bill was successfully filibustered by the Democrats. This will allow the Republicans to argue that they wanted to do something but their opponents wouldn’t allow it, and this will be true in the narrowest technical sense.

The GOP is getting a major boost by the headline writers at the Washington Post (Senate Democrats block GOP policing bill, stalling efforts to change law enforcement practices) while the New York Times does a better job (Senate Democrats Block G.O.P. Police Bill, Calling It ‘Inadequate’).

“Inadequate” is putting it mildly. Just compare what the Republicans were offering in the Senate to what the House Democrats are proposing:

The Republican bill would encourage state and local police departments to change their practices, including penalizing departments that do not require the use of body cameras and limiting the use of chokeholds. It would not alter the qualified immunity doctrine that shields officers from lawsuits or place new federal restrictions on the use of lethal force.

The measure that the House will consider on Thursday, the most aggressive intervention into policing that lawmakers have proposed in recent memory, would in effect eliminate qualified immunity, make it easier to track and prosecute police misconduct, restrict the use of lethal force and aim to force departments to eliminate the use of chokeholds.

The way to do this is to mark up a bill in the Senate Judiciary Committee where all members are allowed to introduce amendments, rather than bringing a piece of shit bill to the floor that has no prior input from Democrats. Mitch McConnell’s refusal to allow this is what caused the Democrats to shut down the process. Things might have been different if the Democrats could put any trust in McConnell to keep his word on how the procedure would play out, but that ship sailed a long time ago.

The truth is, the GOP is not going to pass a bill that is opposed by police unions in an election year, so their whole strategy is based on finding a way to blame Democrats for their own inaction. They’ll have a modest amount of success with this gambit, but it won’t change that the public is furious with the police and their defenders, and having their back right now is not a political winner. So, really, the Democrats don’t have much incentive to cave on this. The issues can be addressed to their satisfaction or they can remain unresolved and a potent weapon in their politicking arsenal.

The Republicans could try doing the popular thing for once, but they prefer to win in other ways than having the most public support.