I mean, “it’s impossible” just means that the death of the republic is inevitable so, yeah, giving up really isn’t an option here. If Manchin’s truly immovable then come at it in some other way, but there’s no point in anything else if this isn’t done somehow.
JoshL
2680
So the options are “give up” and “Biden says magical thing to Manchin”?
Perhaps I’ve misread you, because I thought that’s what you were saying.
JoshL
2682
Well, I do think it’s hopeless. But I think saying “if only Biden would support voting reform!” is missing the point. Biden has nothing to do with it. It’s Manchin that needs to support voting reform. He doesn’t. Probably the only people he listens to are his donors, and maybe his constituents. I doubt they support voting reform either, so I don’t know what you do.
This would suggest that he might be open to having a dumptruck full of money backed up to his door. I’d be game for that if it got the job done. Or Armando’s SEAL team option. Or, you know, both.
The dream of democracy is going to be drowned in the bathtub of moderation.
What Democrats have to do is govern moderately from the top and paint their opponents as radicals from the bottom - which they are. The reason the GOP is so hyper-motivated is that they already accept that their opponents are fundamentally invalid and their average voters see the Democratic party as an existential threat. The point is that even as they drown the democracy baby the GOP voters are thinking they’re saving the family. Unless some kind of conflict is in fact inevitable, the Democrats need that grass roots work to show the average GOP voter not that they are wrong but that the GOP is actually the radical party.
It’s annoying to try to understand the motivations of the other side from their internal perspective, especially when they don’t care a fig to understand the reverse, but that’s the more annoying balance of politics right now, where we have to kowtow to their foibles and not the reverse. And as you see with the march of nationalism going on in Britain and now other countries, what the Democratic intelligencia have to hammer away at is why, exactly, should we continue to exist in the same country with apparently radically different views about social organization, values, economic and political franchise and association, ect; because ultimately these political entities really are about nation-states, not empires, and increasingly the forces that bind America together do not look like free and willing association but like a bad marriage nobody can escape.
There would almost certainly be PNexit or GOPexit or SExit (that’s clearly the best one!) or TXexit (not bad? TEXit?) movements if they were feasible in US politics.
OTOH, let’s not be hasty! 2022 is a long way away. But Democrats do need to understand that voter suppression is asymmetric with voter support, and the Democrats that support strongly voter rights are helping weaken their positions in their own states while their own party is being suppressed in GOP states.
One potential point of optimism is that people like Biden’s programs and ideas. Even large groups of GOP voters like the idea of taxing the rich, or infrastructure.
That might not be enough to get them to vote Democratic, but it might be enough to get them to sit at home and not come out.
Honestly, that is not the same as protecting voters rights, which may be the only thing to keep this Democratic experiment going, but it might buy us more time.
Timex
2687
The “magical thing” to say to Manchin is going to bed to be something along the lines of, “this deal is going to have some SWEET stuff in it for West Virginia.”
Then he just gets replaced by a Republican.
The only way we can solve this problem is PA and NC voters have to pick Dem Senators , and nothing stupid happens elsewhere that isn’t in our favor.
Then you have 52 Senators , and the moderate and loon become irrelevant.
I think Manchin needs two things to vote for the bill.
- Some sweet stuff for West Virginia.
- The ability to say to his voters “Look, we tried all we could to work with the GOP, but they wouldn’t work to a compromise. I’m going to vote with the Democrats, but here are the things I did to keep to stop the Far Left Progressive trying to run our country too far to the Left”
So, we’ll have some law that does what we want, but it will look like something the Left really wants is left out of to, so that Manchin can crow about how he took down the Far Left and the AOC and Bernie’s of the Democratic Party (Because he is a moderate).
Honestly, we should just start with a bill so much Far Left Crazy stuff, just so that Manchin can vote against it and be a hero/moderate.
If he wants to be the John McCain of the Democratic Party, that votes enough with the Dems to get things done, but sometimes puts a thumb down on the crazy crap, I say let him.
Greg Sargent has an op-ed on this.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/18/manchin-voting-rights-partisan-issue/
No, he does not offer a solution but he does provide a tiny handhold to cling onto:
(From the concluding paragraphs:)
Which brings us back to Manchin’s big error. The idea that even his intermediate proposal might win 10 Republicans seems very hard to believe. And his demand that broader reforms must also win 10 Republicans is out of touch with the reality of today’s GOP.
This will have dire consequences. As Ari Berman points out, keeping the filibuster imposes a supermajority requirement on expanding voting rights, even as GOP legislatures are dramatically restricting them everywhere on a majoritarian basis, rendering this “total asymmetric warfare.”
It may be that Manchin does anticipate that Republicans can never be won over, after which he might more seriously entertain ending the filibuster and acting. But if not — if Manchin believes Republicans can be enticed to meaningfully protect voting rights — he is consigning us to a near-term future in which their fate will be shaped by precisely that sort of asymmetric warfare.
Here’s the bottom line: Protecting access to democracy will indeed require a partisan solution. That is, such protections will be implemented almost entirely by one party, if not entirely by it, or they won’t be implemented at all.
I’m not sure how much evidence Manchin (or Sinema for that matter) require to understand that Republicans are incapable of being good faith partners. It probably doesn’t matter. In Manchin’s case at least he can’t be seen as overtly partisan, no other Democrat can win his seat. But, given that, it’s far better to enact something to protect voter rights (and democracy itself really) than it is to win re-election.
I’m a lot more worried about Sinema than I am Manchin. Manchin is rational. You can do business with Manchin. Sinema is just a completely out there loon. If I was given the choice to have a Dem succesfully primaried, it would be Sinema before anyone else. Arizona can elect better.
Manchin’s “big error” is not sacrificing his career for filibuster reform right now. It might be the right thing to do, but it’s not likely to be something he’s willing to do.
Laying this at the feet of Manchin feels disingenuous. Instead, I prefer to blame the pieces of shit in Maine and SC who chose to re-elect fascists Susan Collins and Lindsey Graham.
I’m not convinced sacrificing his career is even necessary, or a given. He could easily have made this a bits and pieces game where they hack away at the filibuster, him getting concessions each time and making a big deal of how he doesn’t want to, but he just has to do what’s right for his constituents and the Republicans weren’t willing to compromise.
Instead, he’s mostly just stuffed his head in the sand and got nothing for anyone.
And by extension, it’s the fault of the entire GOP for being a bunch of authoritarians and bootlicks, but Manchin’s basically the only one who even might do something about it.
This begs the question - does Manchin own a horse he’s particularly fond of?
I think his career is done no matter what.
Unless the loon is on board nothing can be done, and Manchin knows at least the loon isn’t going to do it.
