The Game Of Politics Where You Shoot Your Own Party In the Foot

There is nothing more dangerous to the American body politic than a self-absorbed self-destructive Senator. Forget Representatives, forget Governors, forget corrupt judges, forget most Presidents (Nixon, Harding, and trump are the exceptions, and remember Nixon and Harding earlier served as Senators).

Via Allan Smith at NBC news:

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said Sunday that he will not vote for S.1, known as the For The People Act, the massive elections and ethics reform package Democrats have proposed.

The announcement immediately imperils the bill, which is universally opposed by Republicans and would require elimination of the Senate filibuster to be passed. The legislation was passed in the House this year.

"It's the wrong piece of legislation to bring our country together and unite our country, and I'm not supporting that, because I think it would divide us more," Manchin said on "Fox News Sunday." "I don't want to be in a country that's divided any further...

In an op-ed published Sunday in the Charleston, West Virginia, Gazette-Mail, Manchin argued that any federal voting legislation must have bipartisan backing, and he said he would not vote to kill the legislative filibuster, as some have said is needed to pass voting reforms.

"The truth, I would argue, is that voting and election reform that is done in a partisan manner will all but ensure partisan divisions continue to deepen," he wrote. And in speaking to West Virginians, "I cannot explain strictly partisan election reform or blowing up the Senate rules to expedite one party's agenda."

So because the Republicans are the sons-of-bitches who refuse to be bipartisan and work with Democrats to pass meaningful legislation, Senator Manchin has decided... to side with Republicans and screw the Democratic Party.

And he's going to get away with it because the Democrats can't secure enough votes to hold a simple majority vote to get rid of the Cloture/Filibuster rules to make it harder for Republicans to obstruct, and because the nature of the Senate makes it difficult for party leadership to rein in the "mavericks" who enjoy making a mess without having to pay the consequences.

You might understand why a lot of Obama-hating Republicans despised John McCain when he killed their effort to nuke ObamaCare back in 2017. But in that situation, those same Republicans failed to give McCain - or the rest of the country - any sane alternative to replace what they were about to destroy.

What Manchin - alongside Arizona Senator Sinema who also doesn't seem to get the crisis - is allowing to happen here: He's preventing the Democratic Party from passing laws that would override and stop the Republicans at the state level from suppressing voter turnout that would otherwise favor Democrats. He says he'll support the John Lewis Act which is also up for consideration, but he doesn't seem to get that the Republicans will pull the same obstructionist stunt against THAT bill and talk Manchin into dismissing it as "too partisan" as well.

All it takes is one Senator holding up the whole thing. Where a President is a singular office and thus answerable to the national voters, where the House is so large a body with a basic majority vote policy that trouble-makers most times either quit after a few terms or have little impact on stopping things, just ONE fucking Senator can filibuster or hold or delay everything and never face any punishment because the state they're from won't hold them accountable for their sins.

And so we're back to where things won't get done. Again. Things like alleviating college loan debts or raising the federal minimum wage or job protection laws or anything that would actually HELP Americans here and now.

We're also back to the high risk of Republicans rigging the 2022 midterms, making sure that just like in 2010 they are able to seize at least partial control of Congress and ensure a Biden Presidency enjoys no further success. Denying "victory" at the expense of people's lives.

Only this time, it's the entire electoral process at risk, one thing that could directly affect the Democratic Party - Manchin's own fucking party - in the near future. It won't be to another era of inertia, it'll be to a darker round of Republican misrule with even harsher tax cuts for the rich, even harsher anti-abortion laws to hurt women, and more attempts to kill off any affordable health care.

And if the Republicans have their way - without Manchin and Sinema or any other self-serving Democrat stopping them - the Democrats the American people will never see an honest and fair election ever again.

Goddammit. This is why I can't go full Democrat. There's too many fucking cowards running the party that's also ruining the country.