That body language…!! WTF goes through heads like that?
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As Progressives, we’ve waited long enough, if an elected official can not, will not represent the wishes of their constituents, time to say good bye, move on to the next. We’ve played the “waiting game” long enough, the time for change is NOW.
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Right on;
Power to the People.
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I am as frustrated as everybody else is with Manchin (indeed, as a DC resident who’s being denied full 14th Amendment citizenship by his stupid crusade to make common cause with fascists, I am even more frustrated than some). But West Virginia went 68-30 for Trump/Pence in 2020. Short of unmaking West Virginia because it’s unconstitutional, there is not going to be a Democratic senator from there whose name isn’t Manchin. And the difference between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell isn’t nothing.
This just popped up on my Guardian feed. For the life of me, why do old & done Democrats hate the American people? Shut your pie hole, step back, and let the ELECTED do their work. I’m so f@ck’n tired of the Democrats circling the wagons and start shooting each other. Damn it!
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Or nearly as powerful. Sinema doesn’t own the military industrial complex in Az. like McCain did.
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Is Stacey Abrams old and done too?
I don’t love Manchin’s proposal, but I’ll take it. Mandatory early voting, a federal holiday for election day, automatic voter registration – this is stuff we’ve been fighting for for decades. And looking at it from a coldly utilitarian perspective, all that stuff brings in more voters than the voter ID part will disenfranchise.
It’s not everything I wanted, but are you familiar with the expression about the perfect being the enemy of the good?
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I’ll take it over nothing, which is what Manchin made sure we’d get if we don’t take his “compromise”. I’m sure Obama and Abrams agree.
Doesn’t make me dislike Manchin any less.
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Abram’s support is what McConnell is pointing at to call Machin’s proposal a trap. The GOP is at this point referring to it as Abram’s proposal. I’m sure Obama backing it will roll right in.
McConnell seems to be trying to keep his caucus in line by attacking calls for bipartisanship as a partisan plot. By all accounts it seems to be working. So doubt we’ll be getting even that much.
With any luck Manchin will be pissed enough after to actually reconsider his position on the filibuster instead of just whispering that he might behind closed doors.
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We get it, you’re a Centrist Democrat and Progressive Democrats make you uncomfortable. You don’t need to convince me or anyone else, we get it.
P.S. Did you hear that Koch bought another house in West Virginia, it’s a Manchin.
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There isn’t a Democrat named Manchin right now. For all intents and purposes he is indistinguishable from a Republican where it matters.
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With the new Jim Crow voter suppression laws, there won’t be one next time around, either. Manchin and Sinema need the John Lewis Voter Rights Act and the For the People Act just to continue to be viable.
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Exactly. You know who’s going to axe the filibuster and pack the supreme court if they ever have to? Yertle & co. In a fucking heartbeat they would.
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If they cared about maintaining liberal democracy in the U.S. in the long term more than they did about maintaining their own immediate power in the party they would fully support both these acts.
I’d add that if the Dem establishment cared more about maintaining liberal democracy in the U.S. than about preserving their Third Way ideology they’d be whipping Manchin and Sinema harder instead of using them as cover and as an excuse for inaction and appeasement.
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I’m curious: what leverage do you think the Dem establishment can use to “whip” them? Manchin certainly doesn’t need and probably doesn’t want other Democrats to come to WV to campaign for him. For the people who voted for him, his refusal to sign on to Democratic bills is a feature, not a bug. And the threat of primarying him is about as empty as threats get: sure, they could probably get all twelve WV Democrats to vote for somebody else–and that somebody else would lose to Qanon McCoalmine (R) in a landslide.
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The usual: denying his state pork and stripping him of his committee assignments (esp. Appropriations). Will that set him up for a loss to a Republican or prompt him to (re-)cross the aisle? Probably. Will anyone care if the Dems make up the difference in one other state with a Dem who actually cares about the future of democracy? No.
Moderate, pragmatic Dem centrists are taking a very short-sighted view regarding Manchin. He’ll help get the Dems a few judges they might not otherwise get, but his obstinance regarding securing basic voting rights and getting rid of the filibuster means that that won’t happen in the future.
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