As Newsweek reports, “Senator Tom Cotton has accused Democrat Joe Manchin of double crossing the GOP after he came to an agreement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on a major energy and health care bill which includes $369 billion to address the climate crisis. The West Virginia Democrat’s decision arrived just two weeks after he previously objected to the full package and would only support the bills relating to health care and pharmaceutical prices.”
Let’s regard this in the most favorable — though highly unusual — light possible. That is, Manchin stuck it to the human turtle McConnell and the RepubliKKKlans — intentionally. Not only that, but let’s also assume this was an elaborate ploy to get the CHIPs Act passed in the process, which is why I say we should regard these latest legislative developments from a highly unusual perspective: At least one Democrat knows how to play political hardball to get things done, and that person is not Schumer. It’s Manchin. I may have accused Manchin of being a DINO a couple of times out of frustration, but I was never one to throw him under the bus for being a Democrat representing a very conservative state with fossil fuel industry interests. Manchin, nonetheless, has always been there for the party when it comes to the more important issue of electing Biden’s judges to the federal bench. So, the Democratic Party always needed to relax and take Manchin for what he is — a moderate Democrat. Not every member can be a raging liberal, and I always respected Manchin for his clear-eyed analysis of the state of the Senate. Namely, he repeatedly advised the party’s progressive wing that if they wanted to pass the legislation he could not back, then they should elect more Democrats. Absolutely! It seems that he understood the state of the political environment better than anyone in the party.
Of course, now they all love Manchin because he pulled a McConnell on the RepubliKKKlans, something Democrats could have never pulled off, much less imagine. Finally, it is good to have a Democratic senator that knows how to string the other side along to get their cooperation before pulling the rug out from underneath them. All that being said, let’s hope no other Democrats f*** up passing the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. That’s a 50-50 proposition because, as always, welcome to stupid America!