You have zero proof that this is true.
Your bias is showing badly.
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Yes, as we’ve come to expect from khyber900, a skillful and realistic analysis for which many thanks. We do have ahead of us a summer of relentless votes on one voting-rights issue after another, and on piecemeal parts of jobs/infrastructure and other major chunks of the agenda. And if it’s demonstrated that the Republicans will never accept anything–not budge an inch–maybe Manchin will change his tune.
But, as I said in an earlier post, if by sometime this fall Manchin hasn’t budged and is dug in, and it thus looks like the Dems are heading into the '22 midterms barren of further accomplishments, then they’re going to have to switch to an all-out defense of US democracy in its hour of maximum peril. And Manchin/Sinema will become fair game for Democratic attack, as betrayers of the cause. And the media is going to have to get into the act: No more babble about Manchin and Sinema as “moderate Democrats.” There was a major shift of northern public opinion in '63-‘64, as atrocities against Blacks in the Jim Crow South got more and more publicity. That’s going to have to happen as Republican state legislators put in place more and more drastic limits on holding free elections–as the danger grows that the US is turning into a Russia, a Belarus, or Hungary. Fighting for the survival of the US as a democratic nation will have to be the Dems’ last-ditch struggle.
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Of course I have no proof. This is a situation in which we’re stuck reading tea leaves and sniffing farts to guess what they had for dinner. I’m just voicing my cynical opinion. You don’t behave the way they are behaving unless you intend the result you’re predictably achieving.
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Joe Manchin is against the Voting Rights Act for a very simple reason. He is a racist. Now Biden should fire Manchins wife from the cushy job he gave her.
Nah, would rather replace a DINO with an actual Democrat.
Steve Bannon is an idiot who apparently thinks Manchin is an idiot.
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Manchin is pulling a Susan Collins, bitching and moaning right up until he caves and pulls the likes of Sinema and King with him. The way for the Democrats to play this is to understand he’s going to cave and ramp up the pressure until he does. I understand Schumer is going to tee up votes, he says one per week, all summer long that trigger filibusters. We’ll see, but if he’s serious it’ll turn up the gas to high.
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Dang Boy! I hope I never have to face you in court.
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Yep.
The man has ego bigger than Trump.
I was wondering about the timing if his op-ed. Right after Biden said some Dem senators vote with GOP. Manchin may be easily triggered.
Having said that, the bill has acquired riders that are unacceptable. It needs fixing before it can come to vote.
Are you willing to be held accountable for what the Republicans do if you get your way and we lose the Senate?
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Are you willing to be held accountable when we lose both the House and the Senate because Manchin is effectively blocking the entire Dem agenda?
If I get my way instead of you getting your way, and my way fails, then yes.
Now, will you answer the question yourself instead of trying to deflect?
Welcome from an emigre Iron Ranger.
Manchinology is almost as esoteric and unrewarding as old-fashioned Kremlinology, though there are some interesting journalistic analyses of him now circulating.
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When you ask a question that doesn’t lead with a false premise, I’ll consider it.
Easy to see why rednecks hate AOC; She’s female. Worse, she’s smart, female and Hispanic.
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I just ran across an article from over two months ago in the New Yorker that explains that this is certainly the case. The dark money aspect isn’t being brought up much by the media but is probably the biggest issue, and Manchin has been pressured on it, presumably by donors. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-the-koch-backed-effort-to-block-the-largest-election-reform-bill-in-half-a-century#intcid=_content-attr-2a-tny_9d4d53cb-2d12-4e45-b8de-6df4481f8e71_exp2-a-tny
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I don’t fully get the donors thing. I mean kinda, because corruption and staff welfare, but if he’s unlikely to run next time around, what’s he going to with that money anyway?
A simple stand-alone bill making election day a holiday instead of the 886-page monstrosity John Judis describes on the lead page could conceivably be passed by both houses before election day 2022 and greatly increase the prospects of a huge Democratic turnout. Simple, effective, comprehensible reform that the public would accept and be thankful for.
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One of the big reasons I’m as loyal to TPM as I am has to do, indirectly, with this argument. When Republicans were making the first big stink about requiring Voter ID, I wrote to Josh and asked if he could explain why Democrats were opposed to requiring Voter ID. I had one, everyone I knew had one, how big of a deal was it? Shouldn’t we just let them pass their Voter ID requirement laws and move on to other fights?
Josh actually responded to me and knocked a little sense into me. It wasn’t about me or my friends. It was about other people that weren’t like me. Sure, I had always considered myself to be empathic and I was a Democrat because I didn’t want to pull up the ladder behind me on the way up the socioeconomic ladder, but in some ways I was giving lip service to the ideals. In reality I wasn’t looking out for others, I was only being benignly neglectful. I wouldn’t actively hurt them, but I wasn’t actually trying to help them either.
What does all this have to do with your comment? Not much except indirectly. If we are only worried about helping or supporting the middle class or Liberal professionals, the idea of making election day a holiday sounds really good. The problem is, it does nothing to address the needs of the working class. Think retail workers, gas station workers, and service industry workers everywhere else. How does making election day a holiday help them? I don’t see that it does, and I believe we need to consider that before pushing for it.
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