Awful Democrats: Their VERY OWN Thread

The Nation is fairly progressive in the Bizarro World of political discourse, and this attack has been building for a while now.

On Sunday, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin published a 1,000-word op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail to explain why he was knifing Black Americans in the back and voting against the For the People Act, which is aimed at stopping Republicans from disenfranchising Black and brown voters. Manchin also used the space to defend his refusal to reform the filibuster. And he made his now de rigueur calls for bipartisanship, while again offering no theories or plans for how to achieve it beyond wishing for 10 Republicans to magically transubstantiate into moral beings.

The op-ed in question:

https://www.wvgazettemail.com/opinion/op_ed_commentaries/joe-manchin-why-im-voting-against-the-for-the-people-act/article_c7eb2551-a500-5f77-aa37-2e42d0af870f.html

Unfortunately, we now are witnessing that the fundamental right to vote has itself become overtly politicized. Today’s debate about how to best protect our right to vote and to hold elections, however, is not about finding common ground, but seeking partisan advantage. Whether it is state laws that seek to needlessly restrict voting or politicians who ignore the need to secure our elections, partisan policymaking won’t instill confidence in our democracy — it will destroy it.

I just began John Boehner’s memoir which just came out. He spoke of the House Bank scandal of 1991. He and some other n00bs were hated by the old timers for airing dirty laundry. JB got dumped on and threatened by both sides, but went ahead and did what was right because it was what was right. This seems to ring similar. Manchin is doing the right and difficult thing…imo natch.

It has been said by much wiser people than me that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Well, what I’ve seen during my time in Washington is that every party in power will always want to exercise absolute power, absolutely. Our founders were wise to see the temptation of absolute power and built in specific checks and balances to force compromise that serves to preserve our fragile democracy. The Senate, its processes and rules, have evolved over time to make absolute power difficult while still delivering solutions to the issues facing our country and I believe that’s the Senate’s best quality.

Boehner had a lot to say about power as well. A lot.

I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act. Furthermore, I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster. For as long as I have the privilege of being your U.S. senator, I will fight to represent the people of West Virginia, to seek bipartisan compromise no matter how difficult and to develop the political bonds that end divisions and help unite the country we love.

American democracy is something special, it is bigger than one party, or the tweet-filled partisan attack politics of the moment. It is my sincere hope that all of us, especially those who are privileged to serve, remember our responsibility to do more to unite this country before it is too late.

I’m with him until this last bit. It’s not too late. There’s no war against American democracy. That is a bullshit media trope created by people who don’t pump their own gas.

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Manchin’s take was reasonable.

I used to believe that people like him and Kyrsten Sinema were sort of rotating villains to prevent the party from succumbing to the proclivities of their extreme elements in the same way that a Mitt Romney does for the right. However, in this instance, Manchin appears to be voting his conscience and is the only person who remembers that democrats fought for the filibuster a few years back.

The attacks on Manchin are fun and I wouldn’t be surprised for him to simply switch parties. He certainly wouldn’t lose his seat if he did so.

However, it’s even more fun when I hear people say if he doesn’t back the party, they will simply primary him and get a ‘real progressive’ who will do what they are told…which, to anybody who thinks about it for more than a few moments, knows would result in a further to the right republican taking his seat.

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Bing and go.

That’s very astute. For many the perspective there is a right vs left dynamic is long gone, there are two parties which are both controlled by corporate pandering politicians.

The problem for either of the parties is when one of them get all three branches of Government their supporters start asking why nothing they promised ever gets delivered, which is when they start rotating in some villains to block their own party and the supporters all say “if only we could be as unified as the other party who always stick together”.

But this perspective seems to be become more common.

https://twitter.com/Rasmussen_Poll/status/1401625057785430016

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Yeah it’s occurred to me that if it wasn’t Manchin, it would probably have to be someone else. Tastes great, less insane.

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“The Left’s War on Their Own”? Since when has Joe Manchin been one of the Left’s own? He’s considered to be one of the last of the blue dogs. That’s why he got elected- albeit only by 3%- in a state that went 68.6% for Donald Trump.
Would a post about Senator Murkowski be titled the “Right’s War on Their Own” ? No, because in the context of the Republican Party of 2021 nobody would consider her to be on the right, just as nobody would consider Manchin to be on the left of the Democrats.

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So instead of taking a look at the content you got stuck in the thread title? :roll_eyes:

Not sure what thegrio is all aboot, but this is one of their contributor’s take on Manchin:

OPINION: Black voters who elected Democrats to do something deserve better, and White moderate Dems seeking bipartisanship with white nationalists are a threat to our health and safety.

Riiiight off the bat, I’m thinking Joe Biden and and that KKK Byrdie guy.

U.S. Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) stand in the way of justice, freedom and democracy, and pose a threat to the lives of Black people.

Manchin and Sinema have made it clear they refuse to join fellow Democrats in removing the filibuster, a Senate rule that is found nowhere in the Constitution and requires 60 votes to pass a bill. White supremacist lawmakers once used the tool to uphold slavery, kill anti-lynching legislation and block civil rights. The filibuster cements white minority rule for Republicans and is a procedural roadblock to passing crucial legislation to protect Black Americans.

So, the GOP is in the minority but still in charge?

Joe Manchin is a wealthy man who represents a red state that ranks at or near the very bottom of the country in health care, education, economics and infrastructure, with over 900,000 poor and low-wealth people — 45% of the population, according to Rev. Barber.

Meanwhile, Kyrsten Sinema is a former progressive from Arizona — a state Biden won thanks to mobilization from Native American and Latinx voters. And now she provides cover for white male supremacy.

Sure, because Pelosi knows she can’t get her massive wishlist rammed through the Senate because they don’t have the seats to do it. So, the old fallback is divisive rhetoric.

Much is at stake for Black America if these senators get their way. Aside from the For the People Act, the entire Biden agenda hangs in the balance.

Nah. The entire Biden agenda hangs in the balance because they don’t have the seats in the Senate. This is just more of the same old, “If you’re not with me, you’re racist” line of weakminded antilogic.

Not to mention very wishful thinking:

As if he were speaking today, King also understood the role of the Senate filibuster in blocking civil rights. “The vast majority of people in the United States would vote favorably for such a bill,” he said in 1963 on civil rights legislation. “I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting. They won’t let the majority of senators vote. Certainly, they would not want the majority of people to vote because they know that they do not represent the majority of American people. They represent in their own states a very small minority,” he added.

OK, so thegrio is an illiterate joke of a website. My bad for bringing it into the forum, but…nah. All this talk about MLK and MX and the Civil Rights Act and no mention of this:

Who tried to block civil rights act?
When the bill came before the full Senate for debate on March 30, 1964, the “Southern Bloc” of 18 southern Democratic Senators and lone Republican John Tower of Texas, led by Richard Russell, launched a filibuster to prevent its passage.

gtfooh, David Love. You crazy.

Black voters who elected Democrats to do something deserve much better than this. White moderate Democrats seeking bipartisanship with white nationalists are a threat to our health and safety. They are getting in the way and getting on people’s last nerves, and nothing less is on the line than our lives.

Sher, because if you have to have an ID to vote you might just explode because of the vaccine implant. :roll_eyes:

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Oh and this:

Just as supporters should not pretend that the filibuster was created to produce bipartisan harmony, critics should not pretend that the filibuster is both a historical accident and a linchpin of systemic racism. Let’s tell the true story of the filibuster, not a pat story that serves the ideological purpose of one side of the debate, but the messy convoluted story that reminds us democracy has always been difficult to maintain.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/06/07/lets_get_our_filibuster_history_right_145882.html

I considered the OP…
No, seriously, I had already read those articles (and about a hundred more) speculating on Manchin’s motives, whether he will come around, and the conclusion is
a) nobody knows
b) probably not.

Probably he just means what he says :man_shrugging:

Come around to what? Doing what he thinks is wrong? Why would he do that?

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Munchkin [sic] doesn’t get elected to the Senate by his Senate Democratic Party compadres, he gets elected by his state electorate. He knows the way the winds blow.

In defense of the title, when a argument is weak, it needs all the window dressing it can get.

I guess this is the projection thing that has been figured out to counter the infighting in the GOP. Pretty lame.

There is in-fighting in the Dem party and in-fighting in the Repub party, and the degree of each case is roughly the same. I have my own idea on how it will end from what I read, but that is neither here nor there.
In 5-10 years, there is a high chance we won’t recognize the D and R parties from what they look like today.

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If you say so.

You brought it up, let’s hear this theory.

Ha ha. Nice try.

Thanks, what’s so funny though? How will it end, in your opinion?

What about when a article is off? :joy: