It It seems like it should be clear to almost everybody that Manchin is not going to support strong enough filibuster reform to enable his Freedom to Vote legislation to get an up or down vote. Once the BBB and the hard infrastructure bills were decoupled, then most of us knew the BBB bill was not going to pass in any form. The holdouts either are held prisoner by the power of the paradigm or they now realize he was not going to help pass any significant legislation including voting rights / democracy legislation . Based upon that experience, it should be clear to all that “negotiating” with Manchin on strong enough filibuster reform to enable democracy / voting rights legislation to get an up or down vote is a waste of time. This was confirmed in a Daily Kos diary.
For those who say that there is nothing to lose, we might as well continue to negotiate with him, I ask why they don’t support negotiating with republicans on the same issue. There are things we don’t attempt because we know that we can’t do them. It seems clear that there are only two forms of filibuster reform that would enable voting rights legislation/ democracy legislation to get an up or down vote: (1) best alternative: eliminate the filibuster- but this won’t happen (2) a carve out for democracy/ voting rights legislation.
If we don’t get democracy/ voting rights legislation passed, then we will not only make it unlikely for us to hold either the White House or either chamber of Congress, but we make it likely that we will lose our democracy. In such a situation, the argument that the bill will be undone the next time republicans have both chambers of Congress fails. First, by passing such legislation, we make it more likely that we will hold at least either one or both chambers of Congress or the White House and that blocks such legislation being undone . Second, is it bad if we enable legislation to pass the Senate with a simple majority? Third, even if it got undone later, for some period of time we stopped or slowed down voter suppression and protected our democracy and doing so for a short time is better than not doing it at all. Fourth, perhaps the legislation to undo it might be hard for them to pass even if they held both chambers of Congress and the White House. After all, apart from the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy, what else did they pass ? Besides blatant efforts at voter suppression and ending democracy might not be as popular with a handful of republicans as we might imagine.
Right now, on balance, Manchin (and Sinema) are a net negative for us. It is imperative for us to pass this legislation. Whatever they are willing to do is not as important as the damage that they are doing to our brand with our voters. Many of our voters are not experts about the procedures of the Senate and they don’t know much about individual democrats in Congress. They know that we are in the majority and they know we didn’t pass the legislation we ran on and they will see that we didn’t stop voter suppression and protect their right to vote. Expectations come with being in the majority. We can try to inform them about Manchin, Sinema, and the filibuster, but the best way to do that is for the other democrats in Congress and especially in the Senate to call out Manchin and Sinema in front of the press and on television. That will get attention. Anonymous senators giving mild complaints about Mansinema won’t get it done.
If Manchin leaves, we are better off as we can make the argument easier that this is why we could not pass what we wanted , we needed two more real democrats. If he doesn’t, we can still make it clear to our voters why we didn’t pass what we wanted.
Will Manchin change his position? It’s extremely unlikely. However, nothing was going to make that happen. It can help us get the votes we need through the next election. If Manchin switches parties or becomes an independent and caucuses with the republicans, he will not win re-election. He voted to convict Trump and against the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and for the American Rescue Plan and against repealing the ACA. He can’t win a republican primary. He may have already lost too many votes from democrats to win the general election, but if not then after a large number of even moderate democrats in the Senators call him out on television and not anonymously, he will be done with the Democratic Party . He won’t have any political future in the Democratic Party.
This guy deserves to be shamed every day in public for the rest of his life after what he said to defend opposing the Child Tax Credit given his lavish lifestyle and what he was born into.
He is refusing to do what is necessary to defend and protect our democracy. This is more important logically than any other single issue. This is about retaining our democracy. It can’t be overstated how important this is to the future of the country. Things that we would not imagine doing for other legislation no matter how noble , we must carry out. We must leave it all out on the field for this issue.
Tuesday, Jan 11, 2022 · 3:54:57 AM +00:00
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While I personally might not agree with every comment, in my view every comment I recommend (which is all save one) makes a compelling argument or supports a position well. President Biden did call out Manchin and Sinema, but he needs to do so now on a regular basis in prominent ways. Still, I don’t agree with castigating or casting aspersions upon President Biden who seems to have been thrown under the bus by a lot of democrats even though he has been much more progressive than would have been expected of Joe Biden.