I can feel it comin’ in the air tonight, Oh Lawd Phil Collins In the air tonight
Look, I’m no psychologist, so I’m not even going to try to isolate the event that led West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin to have his bad tempered little meltdown. But I do know that whatever inspired his his tantrum has inspired a blowback much more severe that he had imagined. Especially in a holiday recess.
The White House issued a blistering statement, making the most heinous accusation possible for a Senator, accusing him of negotiating in bad faith, questioning his word. The House progressives blasted him for his perfidy. And his own Senate Majority Leader plans to call the bill to the floor for a vote in January, forcing Manchin to officially put his name on a “NO” vote.
Worse yet, he screwed up at home with his constituents. In an interview with a West Virginia radio station, he let his white privilege show when he said that he objected to the child tax credit because poor families would use the money to buy drugs. And then he doubled down by saying that he opposed paid family leave because lower income men would use it to go hunting during deer season.
Manchin is a pariah, and he knows it. But Manchin has always reveled in the role of being the maverick in the party. But he always stayed in touch with his base, and kept his relationship with the party cordial and productive. But this time he violated those credos, and pissed off everybody. And he knows it.
Manchin desperately needs an off ramp from the cliff he has stepped to the edge of. And I know he knows it, too. Because tonight, Chuck Schumer held a closed video caucus conference to discuss the way forward, and Joe Manchin participated in the call.
This faux pas is going to cost Manchin, and he knows it. He has a lot of bridges to rebuild here. Schumer has made it clear that he will call the Build Back Better bill to the floor for a vote in January, but before that, he is going to call voting rights to the floor. And if the GOP obstructs it, he will call for a change to Senate rules.
If you’ll excuse my catechism, here’s where Manchin will pay his penance. Over the last few months, Manchin has expressed support for changing the Senate rules to return to a talking filibuster, meaning that a minority Senator has to take to the well and talk nonstop. He has also been supportive of requiring a minimum of 30 minority Senators being present in the chamber for the filibuster to continue. But Manchin continued to insist that once the filibuster was broken, a 60 vote majority was still required for cloture, which defeats the entire proposal.
Not anymore. That’s going to be Manchin’s penance. Manchin will agree to revert to a talking filibuster in the Senate, but when the filibuster is over, Manchin will agree to a simple majority vote to pass the legislation. In return, Schumer will call the Manchin written compromise voting bill to the floor for passage, followed by the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
In return, Schumer and the Democrats will allow Manchin to make some minor, face saving tweaks to the Build Back Better bill before the Senate passes it. The House will be overjoyed to get the vast majority of their bill passed, and will pass it there on to Biden for signature.
And that of Grand Canyon Barbie, Kyrsten Sinema? I see her as the Sarah Palin of Democratic politics. As a Green party candidate for Senate, Sinema promised to nuke the filibuster. As a Democrat, Sinema has been happy to ride Manchin’s coattails as a Blue Dog Democrat, even though Arizona is purple. But right now, Sinema is sitting at home, watching Manchin twisting in the wind, and the one thing she knows is that she doesn’t want any of that! She’s already had a state party vote of no confidence, and is looking at a state party sanctioned primary against her in 2024. She’ll play ball.
The Democratic party is a Big Tent Party, which means that everybody pushes and shoves to get their own agendas passed. But if it is going to work, everybody is going to have to compromise. That is the difference from the ideological purity of the GOP. With all of the nut kneeing, eye gouging, hair pulling spectacle of Democratic politics, the party will come together in the end to get the people’s business done. I can’t wait for the new year!
Man, I hope you’re right, Mr Murphy! I admire your tenacious optimism, amidst the awful damage being inflicted upon the nation by corrupt, greedy swine disguised as “lawmakers.”
Manchin’s so indebted to dark money (including over $1.5 million from GOP) that I fear his room to manoeuver is very limited indeed. This will be Schumer’s biggest test yet.
The reason I think like this is simple…Look at your own life experience…If you have a fight with people at work, say, and you’re sure you’re right, you’re in no hurry, let them come to YOU…But Schumer calls a caucus meeting to look at ways forward, and Manchin SHOWS UP!!! Why??? Theyll come crawling back, let them stew…Manchin fornicated the canine and he knows it, so now he’s throwung olive branches around…
AND he’s just gotten a valuable lesson on his ACTUAL place on the totem pole. I doubt he’ll make that mistake again.
I think Schumer is going to fail. Not because I want him to, g_d knows I don’t, but because two of the caucus are dug in so deeply with the GQP and dark money. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Tester out of MT may not be as bad as manchin and sinema but he has reactionary morons to deal with in his home state and he’s not the only one with this problem.
Would you settle the eff down until the actual vote? Schumer just called Manchin’s bluff and now the latter has to put up or shut up. He puts up, he’s a pariah forever with the Dems or a useful idiot who will be primaried if he jumps to GQP. He shuts up, he MIGHT be able to salvage something from this. As to Sinema, she’s slightly smarter than Palin ever was. Or do you not realize how little she’s been saying lately? Lesson is watch what they do, not what they say.
Manchin is in deep enough that he has no future in politics after the end of this term.
(What I’d like to see: Someone with a spaceship and a freight-level matter transmitter move his yacht to Charleston, WV, maybe right in front of the state capitol, and then park his Maserati on the rear deck where he holds parties.)
I’ll settle for sinking the yacht in the bay with no one onboard and all four tires on the Maserati slashed.
I played my small part by giving his DC office a couple of calls. But due credit must go to the West Virginia coal miners, who flat-out told him how BIG a mistake he has just made. THAT’S where the balance got tipped against him and he realized that he’d overreached. Treat him like you would Susan Collins: a blowhard who will do exactly what they are told when crunch time hits. The Trump era is over…time we started acting like it.
I think you’re right, Murfster, but the GOP is completely misreading this. They think Manchin just won a great victory. They don’t understand the Democrats. Manchin held a very strong hand, but he overplayed it … quite a while ago … about the time Sinema (not by coincidence) faded into the background. But it didn’t dawn on Manchin until maybe this morning.
Hey, I’m all for the GQP misreading the room. It makes things that much easier to overcome when the rubber hits the road.