Charles Pierce: Joe Manchin's Argument Is as Far Removed From Reality as W. Virginia Is From Neptune

[babylonsister]

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a36652823/joe-manchin-op-ed-for-the-people-act/

Joe Manchin's Argument Is as Far Removed From Reality as West Virginia Is From Neptune
He is marching into some very unfortunate historical company.
By Charles P. Pierce
Jun 7, 2021


The Reverend William Barber, official preacher man here in the shebeen, has announced that, on June 15, he plans to lead his Poor People’s Campaign in a march on Senators Joe Manchin and Mitch McConnell. By now, Manchin’s appalling decision not only to continue to embrace the filibuster—the primary barrier to any attempt by Congress to counter the national campaign by the Republican Party to destroy the franchise for millions of American citizens—but also to vote against the For The People Act even if it ever came to a vote, has been chewed up and spat out by practically everyone who’s read his misbegotten op-ed in a West Virginia newspaper.

I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act. Furthermore, I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster.

You can drive a coal train through the holes in Manchin’s logic, and his basic argument is as far removed from our actual political reality as Wheeling is from Neptune. That latter consideration is what is going to bring Rev. Barber to his doorstep next week. Not that I believe Manchin is enthusiastic about the FTP Act’s elimination of partisan gerrymandering or its campaign-finance provisions, either, and I also think he’s still frosted that Vice President Kamala Harris criticized him on a West Virginia TV station for his absurd devotion to illusory bipartisanship. The reasons no longer matter. Criticizing Joe Manchin over these positions has moved into that category of futility that also includes criticizing a hound for howling.

But it’s worth noting that Manchin is marching proudly into the ranks of earnest past politicians who’d like to do something about equality under the law but who, gosh darn it, found themselves unable to do it. He will stand with all those Republicans in the late 19th century who abandoned equality under the law for the defense of Gilded Age economic policies. He will stand with all those Democrats who pronounced themselves paralyzed by their dependence on a bunch of racist Southern politicians who now have aircraft carriers named after them. And he will stand with the politicians in both parties who decided in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s that the Civil Rights Movement had Gone Too Far and politely embraced the backlash that, eventually, today, has us one small step away from modern Jim Crow politics.

Maybe he’s content with that. It is more than possible that Joe Manchin simply has got his, and the hell with the rest of us. His support for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a less sweeping bill, is primarily camouflage, since I can’t see enough Republican senators supporting that to get it passed, either. His op-ed is so threadbare that it’s compelling evidence that he’s not even really trying anymore. He cannot be so myopic and detached not to be aware of the political reality. Just last week, he pronounced himself baffled by the Republican refusal to authorize an independent investigation into the events of January 6. He’s just a babe in these woods.

[Blue Owl]

1. Munchkin is high up there in my top 5 least favorite Democrats ever

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. He has the top spot in my list of least favorite Democrats EVER! n/t

[Turbineguy]

2. Neptune?

That means it's closer to Uranus.

[Faux pas]

4. Kicketty Kickin'

[Seasider]

5. Manchin has effectively signed his death warrant with Democrats.

He makes Joe Lieberman look like Bernie Sanders. I can’t see him getting much support from the DNC when he’s up reelection. He may even get primaried by someone like Ojeda.