Manchin and Sinema Must Face 'Consequences' for Stalling Voting Rights, Democratic Rep Says

[KPN]

47. "Negotiations are possible, pressuring or punishing them is not." Maybe, maybe not.

Have we tried or even hinted at the latter?

I'll be frank with you. In my view, acting on "good stuff in it" thinking is a larger part of what has put us (us being middle and working class) in the socio-economic position we find ourselves in today -- unaffordable education, unaffordable health care, gross inequity in income distribution, millions of adult children living with their parents, many millions more needing to live with multiple room-mates in order to afford rent, the average adult today not being able to see a comfortable retirement future for themselves and all of the social problems and, yes, hatreds, that go along with those things.

So all of that plus, of course, the current threats to basic democracy and of potential right-wing authoritarian governance make Manchin and Sinema pretty damned frustrating.

As for M and S taking "a walk to to the GOP side" maybe they'd become I's instead in which case they could choose who to caucus with; and maybe they'd choose to caucus with Ds. Or maybe they wouldn't walk at all?

There's a lot of venting going on here at DU. Venting has a role to play in personal well-being. But that aside, as a consistent Democratic Party voter up and down the line for 50 years now, I'm entitled to my views on what position the Ds should take. And I should be able to state them without ridicule as some here at DU tend to do in response to those of us who are frustrated over what frankly has been a 50 year backslide in economic well-being of the middle and working class; a backslide that seems too-often related to a tendency to settle for less, triangulating and/or an overly cautious mindset when it comes to playing hardball.