How Do You Solve a Problem Like Joe Manchin?
The West Virginia Senator is a pain in the ass. He's also a lot of talk.
I'm Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If someone sent you this email - or you are a free subscriber - and you'd like to subscribe: you can sign up here.
Manchin Mishegas
This week for MSNBC, I, once again, wrote about the mercurial senior Senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin. In the piece, I argue that while “there is little Democrats can do to persuade, pressure or punish Manchin … that doesn’t mean Manchin holds all the cards. There’s only so far he can push back against the rest of the Democratic Party without harming himself.”
While I suggest you read the piece, the logic of the argument goes something like this. Joe Manchin is a Democratic senator in one of the reddest states in America (Trump won there by nearly 40 points in 2020). No other Democrat could get elected here. Manchin’s ability to hold his seat relies on his appeal to the state’s conservative, Republican-leaning voters, which means he a) can’t afford to look too liberal and b) can’t afford to look like he’s endorsing every item on the liberal policy agenda. That means there is little liberals can do to pressure or punish him. He doesn’t really need them and, in fact, the more he makes them angry, the better it is for burnishing his political brand of moderation and independence.
But this doesn’t mean Manchin has carte blanche to thumb his nose at the rest of his party. Theoretically, he could switch parties and join the Republicans, but I seriously doubt that would help him politically (he’d lose Democratic support and likely get primaried by a more conservative Republican) or that he would consider leaving the party to which he has long pledged allegiance. Beyond that, as Democrats succeed, so too does Manchin. If Republicans take back the Senate majority in 2022, Manchin loses significant influence as the Senate’s tie-breaking vote, as well as his committee chairmanship. He needs and wants President Biden to succeed.
All of this is a long way of saying that Manchin is a pain in the ass for Democrats, but his constant efforts in garnering media attention for himself should be taken with a grain of salt.
Indeed, as I note in the piece, “we’ve seen this movie before. At the beginning of the year, Manchin threw a brief fit as the American Rescue Plan wound its way through the legislative process, demanding cuts to the sprawling $1.9 trillion measure, including removal of a provision to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. After some rather inconsequential tweaks to the legislation, Manchin offered his support and even appeared on four Sunday morning news shows to tout it (one short of the elusive ‘full Ginsburg’).”
Manchin was playing the part of the moderate Democrat pushing back on liberals, but at the end of the day, he joined the rest of his party in pushing through President Biden’s first major piece of legislation.
I’ve long argued that Manchin will talk tough on the Democrat’s $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package. He might even force the party to pare down its size, but the bill will pass — because it’s in everyone’s interest to see it pass. No Democrats, including Manchin, gain from failure. Indeed, this is one of the underappreciated elements of polarization. In an era when mobilization is everything, and the number of crossover voters is becoming vanishingly small, Democrats cannot afford to fail in passing the key elements of their legislative agenda. It risks deflating Democratic support in midterm elections, which is absolutely essential to them holding on to their majorities in both houses. This is a losing scenario for everyone from AOC to Manchin.
Nothing that’s happened in the past week leads me to question my prior assumptions, and liberal angst over Manchin, while understandable, is also overwrought.
Manchin and the Filibuster
Of course, the bigger issue about Manchin for liberals is his continued refusal to support filibuster reform, particularly when it comes to voting rights. It’s this dilemma that makes Manchin’s recent actions on the issue of particular interest. Earlier this week, Democrats announced that they’d reached an agreement on a compromise proposal for voting reform. Interestingly the person who negotiated the deal is Joe Manchin.
According to the West Virginia senator, he is going to reach out to ten Republican senators to see if he can get their buy-in to the proposal. Manchin’s chances of success are about equal to me being the starting center for the Celtics this fall. Then what? In a smart op-ed today in the Washington Post, Norm Eisen and Norm Ornstein suggest, “ it seems improbable that he would be spending all that time on the legislation if he were not at least willing to consider reforming the filibuster to push his plan into law.” I tend to agree. And as the two Norms point out, there are plenty of paths to getting Manchin’s bill passed short of scrapping the filibuster altogether. Democrat could suspend the filibuster for voting reform measures, or consider proposals that make it impossible for Republicans to block legislation completely.
They include reducing to a majority the number of senators needed to open debate in the face of a filibuster; starting at 60 but creating a diminishing threshold for cloture, so that each successive vote on an individual piece of legislation ratchets down the number needed to move on to a final vote (giving the minority significant time to try to persuade the country of its point of view but giving the majority the right to a vote); or shifting the burden from the majority to the minority by flipping the numbers, requiring 41 votes to continue debate instead of the current requirement of 60 needed to proceed to a vote. If filibuster reform happens, some combination of the subject-matter carve-out and multiple other reforms is likely given Manchin and Sinema’s apparent inclination to preserve the rule in some substantial form.
I’m not foolish enough to predict that this will happen, but it strikes me as more than reasonable to expect Manchin will blink on filibuster reform if he believes Republicans are acting in bad faith.
I get why all of this frustrating for Democrats and arguably none of this Kabuki Theater is truly necessary. Manchin is hardly a lock to run for reelection in 2024 and even if he does I’m not sure that any of what happens in the summer and fall of 2021 will make much of a difference. Indeed, considering the continued polarization of the electorate I’d consider him a longshot to win again in West Virginia. But if these are the games Manchin needs to play, then unfortunately Democrats are going to have go along with it. In the end, they are more likely than not going to get most of they want from Manchin. It’s just going to be a slog to get there.
My advice is tune out Manchin for the time being. We’re deep in the sausage making part of the Democrat’s legislative efforts.
What’s Going On?
Amy Coney Barrett, who was nominated by a corrupt, impeached law-breaking president and confirmed on a party line vote weeks before a presidential election is concerned that Americans increasingly view the Supreme Court as a partisan institution. She said this in a speech honoring Mitch McConnell, the man who more than any other has politicized the nation’s federal judiciary. I can’t tell if Barrett is completely clueless or simply trolling us. I lean toward the latter but either way, she is just a tad full of shit.
Interesting piece in Small Wars Journal on why the culture of US military contributes to losing outcomes.
The votes have not yet been counted in the California recall election and Republicans are already complaining about voter fraud.
Facebook is awful … Part 45,819.
Michigan!
Here’s my recap of my weekend in Michigan — University of Michigan won, the Lions lost (shocking I know), and Dead and Company was solid. After a month of near constant travel, it’s good to be back! Our seats were pretty good for the Michigan game in that they weren’t actually seats and I was standing in the back of the end zone for the entire game (yup I took this picture!)