Joe Manchin Is Our Patron Saint

I confess. I have been among the multitudes crying out that Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin are DINOS. “What is this delusion that we hold a senate majority,?” I have lamented with the best of them? But the fact is that we do hold a senate majority, however slim and fragile and Joe Manchin’s genius lies in his ability to own the libs — which his Republican pals adore — while actually handing Democrats what they want and need. This is miraculous. I have seen the light and I didn’t need to fall off my horse or go blind for three days to do it, thanks to Tim Miller at The Bulwark:

Let’s start here. How does Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sound to you, Manchin haters?

Not great, I bet?

Well Saint Joe is the one man standing between you and Majority Leader Mitch doing everything in his power to tank the Biden agenda.

That alone would make a rational observer expect that it would be Republicans who hate Manchin for cock-blocking their dreams, while Democrats shower him with adulation. Au contraire, mon frère. Because Republicans care more about making libs sad than any policy outcomes. And Manchin gives the libs a very big sad. So the Republicans kind of love the guy.

That’s actually Manchin’s secret weapon. It’s what allows him to continue getting elected in a state that went for Donald Trump by 39 points. Thirty-nine!!! You got that right. The people of West Virginia watched the roiling catastrophe that was the Trump administration and a mere 29.69 percent of them thought that Joe Biden was a better bet.

And despite that, Democrats still have a West Virginia senator getting all Wild and Wonderful ensuring that Chuck Schumer calls the shots. This is a damn miracle. Genuine loaves and fishes shit.

If Joe Manchin hadn’t pulled off this biblical marvel, then there would be 49 Democratic senators and the party would be getting nothing. Zilch. NADA. Just ask Mitch. It’s all there in black and white and clear as crystal.

But because of Manchin, what are they getting in the infrastructure bill that’s ready to rock and roll?

• Billions for trains and public transit

• Replacing every lead pipe in the country

• $47 billion for climate change mitigation

• Electric vehicle charging stations

Noah Smith has the whole sermon if you want it. This bill marks genuine progress.

What about the reconciliation agreement Manchin signed with Schumer this summer?

It would include $1.5 trillion in spending! That is **double** the figure of the Obama stimulus that passed at a time when the Democrats had 57 senators.

This is no small thing. And it’s also no small thing that the schism between the progressive and centrist factions of the Democratic party puts us in a situation, once again, where we’re about to throw the baby out with the bathwater, or as it’s been more colorfully put, shoot the pony because we can’t have it and the unicorn. All alarms started sounding — or should have started sounding, if you were awake, when the bipartisan infrastructure deal passed the Senate and then the House progressives held up the bill, insisting that the reconciliation bill be passed first, that things were getting out of control.

This is why the Republicans laugh at us, because we stumble into stupid strategies and don’t act in unity as a party when it is in our best interests to do so. That we would even be having this level of discussion, let alone open conflict, in Joe Biden’s first year in office is simply beyond me. Simply beyond me. But I can’t say that it is original behavior or that I have never seen it before. There are some Democrats who either don’t grasp the big picture or who think that if they don’t shove the door open to the point of tearing it off the hinges, that somehow it’s not a victory to have gotten a foot in the door to begin with.

And speaking of Saint Joe Manchin, he has yet another miracle to perform. He says that he can find 10 Republicans to join the Democrats to vote for the Freedom To Vote Act. We wish Manchin better luck finding 10 righteous senators than Abraham had finding ten righteous men in Sodom. You recall how that ended in fire and brimstone and if the Freedom to Vote Act fails it will be catastrophic as well. Without it Republicans will likely gain control of Congress via voter suppression laws and “election-counting” laws in place in 18 GOP dominated states. It goes without saying that they’ll take the advantage in the electoral college. As authoritarian as this iteration of the GOP has become, is that a reality that you want to see? Trump in office wasn’t terrifying enough for you?

The following is from Heather Cox Richardson’s September 29 newsletter. My apologies I can’t provide a hotlink.

We are coming down to the wire for the Senate to pass the Freedom to Vote Act.

This bill was hammered out earlier in September by a group of senators trying to find common ground with conservative Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who objected to the sweeping For the People Act passed by the House. The Freedom to Vote Act pared down that larger bill but retained its most important pieces. It creates a national standard for voting rules and tries to stop voter suppression, modernizes voter registration, and replaces old, paperless voting machines with new ones that have a voter-verified paper trail. It slows the flood of money into our elections and ends partisan gerrymandering. It establishes strict rules for post-election audits.

This defense of voting is popular. A Data for Progress poll found that 70% of likely voters support the act. That number includes 85% of self-identified Democrats, 67% of Independents, and 54% of Republicans.

Manchin maintains that he can find 10 Republican senators to join the Democrats to get 60 votes, enabling the measure to overcome a Republican filibuster. But there is, so far, no sign that those votes are materializing, and every day that goes by brings us closer to having gerrymandered district lines hardened into place before the 2022 election. Indeed, the stonewalling by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) of Democratic attempts to lift the debt ceiling is wasting time that otherwise would be given to the voting rights bill.

If Manchin cannot find ten Republican votes, the measure will die unless the Senate agrees to block a filibuster on it, as it has done for judicial appointments. A simple majority cannot pass it, even though the 50 Democratic senators (who would make a majority of 51 if Vice President Kamala Harris were called in to break a tie) represent about 40.5 million more Americans than the 50 Republican senators. (The U.S. has about 328 million people.)

It is imperative that this bill become law. Without it, the Republicans will almost certainly regain control of Congress, and with new voter suppression and election-counting laws in place in 18 Republican-dominated states, they will likely command the Electoral College as well. Once installed in power, will this particular incarnation of the Republican Party ever again permit a Democratic victory?

Saint Joe has a lot on his plate. He’s performing his function and more. Things are getting done. Let’s see what he can do with the Freedom to Vote act and then we’ll know if it’s time to canonize the man.

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