1/6 Is A Manchin Making Machine
Joe Manchin has become a thorn in the side of our Democratic-led government. We felt it acutely when he finally agreed to pass the anti-inflation bill that has both short- and long-term benefits. Hopefully it’ll do some good.
That bill was as dead as a door nail. But like Lazarus, it rose again, and when Manchin added his 50th vote, we cried in exultation. But this reminded us, again, how this one Senator can muck up the works.
And now I am wondering if we aren’t going to see more of this in the future.
Axios is carrying this news item today that reports on a Republican state Senator in Colorado.
From Axios:
“A state senator in Colorado is resigning from the Republican Party and becoming a Democrat, citing the party’s complicity in the Jan. 6 insurrection and 2020 election denial as the reason.”
This would be Colorado Sen. Kevin Priola. Like Senator Manchin, Priola is a moderate that has voted on a bipartisan basis but has also voted with Republicans 90% of the time. He has said that he will not alter the way he votes despite his new party affiliation.
Since January 6, there have been several of these defections, all in response to the insurgency and to the continued lying about a stolen election. I like to call these defectors “Mini Manchins”.
So 1/6 has become a Manchin-creating machine. More and more people are changing their party affiliations but not their minds.
Just what we always needed–more Republicans with “D” in front of their names.
1Will this return us to the pre-1948 days, when Texas, for example, had one Senate position reserved for a liberal Democrat, and one for a conservative?
If a person can’t agree with these words from FDR, they ain’t no Democrat.
“No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources.
Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order.”
“In these days of difficulty, we Americans everywhere must and shall choose a path of social justice…
The path of faith, the path of hope, and the path of love toward our fellow man.”
“Among American citizens, there should be no forgotten men, and no forgotten races.”
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much;
It is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
– all from Franklin Delano Roosevelt-
Can we just say no to Republicans who are only embarrassed by the Republican name, not how they vote?
2The lust for power, influence (money/lobbyist contributions) is what they’re after.. Sinema too.
3When it suits him, he will vote .
4I consider Manchin an out and out DINO.
5Sinema is an opportunist with easily negotiable virtue.
The problem with both Manchin & Sinema is that we (the Democrats) haven’t found their price to give us their votes. What do we need to give them in return for helping the Democratic agenda. Is it putting their name on a building or something more?
6Regardless of how conservative he is, as long as he believes in democracy, I think we need to make space for him in the current big tent. I think the best path out of the mess we are in will require repeated trouncing of the grand old MAGA party by everyone else. Once the racists and Xtian nationalists are driven back under a rock, the Democrats will split into a center-right part and a progressive party.
7TJ, the problem is that your question has no answer.
Sinema is a clear case of Dunning-Kruger, but that only makes her unpredictable.
Manchin’s cognitive deficit is more in situational awareness, but that only makes him more unpredictable. I continue to think that the final passage of the IRA was *not* Manchin’s preferred outcome, but he was outmaneuvered/stampeded. But each of his public statements indicates two things: 1. the fact that he is a fool; 2. the views (suitably garbled) of whoever last spoke to him.
8I don’t care what he changes to, he’s an R at heart.
Don’t give him one single vote. Let him demonstrate his devotion to D’s by voting for them until the day he dies.
9“More and more people are changing their party affiliations but not their minds.”
Thanks and troublesome some are actually doing this. I remember after the toxic Republican Bush Cartel years some ‘R’s’ were staying Conservative but thinking of running as ‘D’s’ just to get elected, and for the power and money and to gum up the works. They are extremists, corrupt, diabolical and relentless. They are the ‘Chosen One’s’ don’t cha know.
10Sen. Kevin Priola is, by nearly all non-Trumpy accounts, a nice, reasonable, traditional Republican. He has quit that party and joined the D’s … pointing out that he hasn’t left the Rs, the GOP left him.
He’s term-limited, so won’t be able to run for re-election. He already determined he wouldn’t have much of a chance in either party’s primary for the new US House district, CO-8. He didn’t jump forward for any of the state-wide offices.
So, what Priola is doing is making the pitch for other sane Republicans to not support any Trump disciples. And in next year’s legislature, he is pledging his vote for Democratic leadership of the Senate, making the Republican’s distant chance of flipping the chamber even more difficult. He’s not likely to join Democrats on a variety of policy votes — but if Ds have a 20-14-(Priola) chamber (as they do until the end of this year), his vote won’t make a great deal of difference on most matters.
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