The evolution of Conservative thought in my lifetime:
We already have 50 of them. They’re called Republicans. Even if by some miracle the Dems take both of the Georgia runoff seats, Joe Manchin will ensure the Democrats accomplish nothing in the next 2 years.
Not even close. There’s a huge difference between having just right of center policy beliefs as a member of a functional democracy vs. wanting to impose far right beliefs on the whole nation in a pseudo democracy.
And that makes no functional difference if he does not vote with the Democrats.
If he is demanding concessions and compromises for his vote, then he may as well be a Republican.
If the Democrats manage to take the senate (A really big if there), then they need to get rid of the filibuster, and pass legislation that will help Americans.
If they do so, then they may be rewarded with continued governance in 2022. If they do not, then most likely the Republicans will take back the senate, and probably the house too. The effects of their obstruction will be blamed on the Democrats.
The fact that he is willing to make concessions and compromises for his vote makes him fundamentally different from the current crop of Republicans.
Besides, isn’t making concessions and compromises the sign of a functioning legislative body?
Not if he’s playing the same game as they play, “You take a step towards me, and I’ll take two steps back.”
No, when the future of our nation rests on the uncertain hopes that one particular person negotiates in good faith, that is a sign of a very unhealthy and dying democracy.
He voted with Trump about half the time. Those tended to be on legislation. He voted against ACB, for impeachment, and so on. If Democrats win both Georgia seats, I predict Joe Manchin won’t hold up Biden’s cabinet nominees or any potential SCOTUS nominee.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t me saying Joe Manchin is a great guy and that I support his policy positions. What I’m saying is that we need to enlarge that segment of elected officials. We need more people like John Kasich, Joe Manchin, Claire McCaskill, Larry Hogan, Heidi Heitkamp, and Mitt Romney, as long as they are taking the place of people like Ken Paxton, Ted Cruz, Ron Desantis, etc.
Probably not, but it is legislative matters that concern me.
If a new healthcare bill is not passed, if economic relief, not just from the pandemic, but from the crumbling of our economic system that has been occurring for far longer is not passed, if tangible things that will positively affect the lives of Americans are not done, then the American people will likely turn back to the Republicans, who don’t give excuses as to why they couldn’t accomplish things, but just lies that they will.
I doubt that Manchin will sign onto killing the filibuster in the first place, which means that nothing will be done anyway. If somehow he does, or the filibuster is not applicable to a bill(like if it is done through reconciliation), then I still see him refusing to vote for it unless enough concessions are made to it to make it worthless as to actually helping the people.
Probably not relevant anyway, as picking up both Georgia seats is pretty unlikely, IMHO.
Well yeah, we need grownups in the room. I disagreed with nearly everything that Kasich ran on when he was my Governor, but at least he was able to govern well, even if not in a direction I would prefer.
What we really need to do is to bring back is pork barrel politics. People will be less likely to primary their senators for working with the other party when those senators can show the infrastructure and jobs that they have brought back to their state. As it is, there is no benefit, whatsoever, to working in a bipartisan way.
To be fair to Manchin, he has never tried to use his vote to extort concessions. Generally his votes with the “Republican” side have been where his vote wasn’t decisive to the outcome, e.g. Kavanaugh, Sessions, etc. My sense is that the votes how he thinks he needs to for his state, and in West Virginia that means being very selective about where you oppose the President’s position.
If you’re looking for a Democratic Senator to wonder “how does that guy keep getting reelected in such a deep red state,” though, I’d look at Jon Tester. From deep red Montana, and much more likely to break with Trump on key votes including all his Supreme Court nominees. Yet he won reelection in 2018 by about three and a half points – not a large margin, but not a squeaker either.
I agree that the filibuster will not be killed in a 50-50 Senate. Manchin was one of three Democratic Senators to vote against Harry Reid’s use of the “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster on non-Supreme Court nominations in 2013, so at least he would be consistent. It’s ironic though – if Manchin really is the sort of Machiavellian wheeler-dealer you’re projecting, he SHOULD kill the filibuster because then he becomes the indispensable vote on every bill. As it is, it doesn’t really matter whether he’s an “aye” or a “nay.”
That is not what I am saying, not at all. Someone doesn’t have to be a “Machiavellian wheeler-dealer” to prevent the business of the senate from going forward.
I’m not saying that he’s some master planner or king of duplicity, I am saying only that he is not reliable to vote with the Democrats.
Exactly, as long as the filibuster is in place, and his vote doesn’t matter, his seat is much safer. If he had to actually take a stand and be the last vote for or against a measure, then he would actually have to make a hard choice that may affect him politically.
I always come back to the same question, and I know there is no answer. But, does Donald Trump actually believe he won the election? Maybe that’s not even a meaningful question, but I just always wonder whether people like him are lying to us, or lying to themselves.
I think he does.
He is the sort of person that thinks that reality is shaped by his beliefs, and looking at his life, he has quite a bit of validation to that mindset.
He probably also believes that he is a better golfer than Tiger Woods, that he could take Dan Gable in a wrestling match, that he is the bestest president ever.
He also believes that cheating is part of the game. He believes that the Democrats cheated, and he knows that he cheated, and it is a matter of let the better cheater win.
I’m not saying its likely to happen, but I think moderate Dems need to have some breakpoint issues that would cause them to support nuking the filibuster. If the GOP filibusters a restoration to the VRA (which I think is all but guaranteed), that would be a reason to nuke it. Whatever compuction people have about Senate norms, the right to vote is fundamentally more important, and from a purely self-interested perspective wanting to give your own voters the opportunity to vote for you without having to face racially targeted voter suppression is more important.
You are right that Manchin personally benefits more from nuking the filibuster in a 50-50 senate. I think this could be a case for the other Dems to make to him if we wind up in that situation. I think it might have been a tough sell when the Dems had 59 votes because the moderates didn’t want to vote to give the 50 most partisan senators the right to ignore them - but this is a better opportunity to make the case to them. I agree with you that Manchin and other moderate Dems aren’t these power-manic machiavelians. They definitely do angle to be the swing vote here and there to get some wins, but at the same time I do think they tend to oppose things like ending the filibuster out of a deep-seeded and sincere worry of making things too partisan. I’m just hoping they realize that you have to be grounded in the real world and when the other party is fine with disenfranchising their voters they need to be willing to break some relatively minor norms to protect them.
This. He cheats. He ignores the law if he can get away with it (and so far he has). He assumes everyone is like him-- in it for themselves.
Nah, I think he knows that everyone is not like him; he assumes that if people aren’t cheating, they’re not trying to win, and that’s just their tough shit if they lose.
That’s the modern ethos of the Republican party. It’s how they view competition. If you can break the rules and get away with it, awesome. What matters is winning. What matters is power. In their world, you either have power, or you don’t. You are either dominant, or you are dominated. You are either predator, or you are prey.
No, Republicans like Trump know that some people follow rules, that some people have ethics - and in their mind, that it is a weakness that can be exploited. It’s the same logic that a sociopath uses to scam people out of money, cheat their brothers out of an inheritance, steal from a spouse, embezzle from an employer.
Cheating means winning, and winning means cheating. Survival of the fittest. There is no “right” and “wrong” as you and I understand it. What’s “right” is whatever it takes to improve your level in the hierarchy of in the food chain.
This is what most people fail to understand about the Republicans - what I’ve been trying to get across in all of my so-called “unhinged” rants. They - do - not - give - a - fuck - whether you live or die. In fact it’s better that we die. We’re out of their way then.
This is also why they embrace violent rhetoric, why they love death threats. They think in a violent manner. Their worldview is violent. If you think you can find middle ground with these fuckers, bwahahaha…okay.
Trump is a psychopath, or more technically has Antisocial Personality Disorder.
Psychopaths do not attain the sense of affective empathy that normal people begin to develop around the age of 2-3. Affective empathy is what allows us to conceptualize another person’s emotional and mental state. Psychopaths, consequently, have a tendency to assume other people are the same as them. Trump isn’t projecting his tendencies on to other people because he’s lying. He’s doing it because he genuinely believes everyone else is like him, that they lie and cheat routinely, and so his position is that the only difference between him and Joe Biden, or Barack Obama, or Jake Tapper or Katie Porter or you or me, is who’s more skilled and lying and cheating. He also assumes that everyone else has the same insecurities he does, which is why he insults everyone; childish insults really hurt him, and so he assumes they will hurt others. The fact that a well adjusted adult laughs off his insults is literally beyond his capacity to understand.
I point that out to people but they keep saying it.