Joe Manchin And The B-Word

As the For The People Act heads to a vote in the Senate, it seems likely to die at the hands of an expected Republican filibuster--and, with its death, quite possibly the end of representational democracy in the U.S., and the beginning of a new authoritarianism for which there is no real precedent in American history.  It seems safe to say, given political history in general and current events around the world, that there are enough foreign precedents to cause even the greatest optimists about our 200-plus-year old "experiment" with democracy to collapse into despair.  I should know.  I've been one of those optimists for most of my life, and I now seem to spend most of my waking hours fighting off despair.  As are most of us.

And our despair has a name. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Despite the fact that the Democrats, for the first time in my lifetime, have both unity and a popular agenda, and despite the fact that the FTPA is an especially popular part of that agenda, Manchin is bound and determined--as of this writing, at least--to allow both the unity and the agenda, and the FTPA in particular, to die on the altar of his perceived need for support from both parties in order to pass it.  More specifically, Manchin wants 60 votes from Democratic and Republican senators to allow the FTPA to even come up for a vote, based upon a rule--the so-called filibuster rule--that has no support in the Constitution, was created by accident, has a name based on a word that translates into English as "pirate," and has been largely used throughout its history in a series of attempts to thwart the progress of civil rights in America.

That's right.  Manchin is willing to sacrifice a genuinely bipartisan bill, a bill designed to provide maximum protection for democracy's most fundamental personal right, for the sake of maintaining a supermajority requirement that the Framers wanted to avoid at all costs.  Why?  Because of a political fiction that the filibuster rule promotes compromise and thereby ensures that the will of the majority in put into effect even in controversial legislation.

There's one problem with that fiction:  to wit, the fact that it is a fiction, and the history of filibuster usage proves it.  The lion's share of filibusters have occured within roughly the past decade, with the Republicans leading the way in using the rule to block progress of any sort for the American people.  Not surprisingly, especially given the rise of the use of filibusters in conjunction with the rise of the progress of the civil rights movement, this exponential increase closely tracks the emergence of the nation's first African-American President, and the changing demographics of a nation in which white people will soon be in the national minority.

And the majority of Americans see through that fiction, which is why they support abolition of the filibuster rule, on a bipartisan basis.  That's right.  Bipartisanship, the goal that the filibuster is allegedly tailor-made to support, should logically lead to the abolition of the rule.

Notwithstanding all of the foregoing, Manchin, defying any reasonable definition of common sense, continues his search for votes from his Republican Senate colleagues that will never exist.  There's no reason to doubt it; Mitch McCONnell, their leader, has effectively guaranteed it.  McCONnell is not someone whose word, as a general rule, should be taken at face value.  The exception, of course, is when it relates to his grip on power.  In this case, his word is as solid as the grip that the filibuster rule gives him on power.

And McCONnell has even been openly disrespectful of Manchin's efforts to bridge the Senate's partisan divide.  Recently, Manchin suggested several modifications to the FTPA designed to attract support from red-state Senators.  In the process, the only support he attracted was from Stacey Abrams, who already supports the bill in its current form.  No sooner did that support become public knowledge than McCONnell immediately shot the compromise down--and made a point about identifying the compromise not by the name of the man who proposed it, but by identifying it with Abrams.  This is yet another transparent appeal to white nationalism from a party that can only build a future around white supremacism.  Which means that this is the only message that Manchin should take away from this failed effort at bridge-building:  

All that matters to McCONnell about Manchin is that he's a Democrat.  All that matters to him about Stacey Abrams is that she's black.

And it gets worse, folks, as you go back and look at the history of Manchin and the filibuster.  Believe it or not, time was that he advocated at least making changes in the way the filibuster role worked, because even he was frustrated by the abuse of the rule and the way it prevented problems from getting solved.  I vividly recall one night a little over four years ago, as the then-Republican Congress was jamming through Paul Ryan's tax giveaway to the 1%, I was driving home and listening to the Senate debate and amend the monstrosity.  I heard Manchin begging for the Democrats' right to offer amendments, sounding like a hostage victim pleading for his life.  Even now, from time to time, he occasionally offers up a media bite about making changes in the rule, as he did recently.  And then, he retreats behind op-eds like this one.

In short, everybody's in on the nature of the game, and the current rules of the game, except (seemingly) Manchin.  Which is why it's time to take a hard effort to answer a simple question:  why?  Why does Manchin continue to seek partners for a dance Republicans don't want to do?

Given that the facts outrule a number of possible explanations, let's consider the ones that are left.

1.  Manchin is just heeding Tip O'Neill's mantra that all politics is local, and the provisions of the FTPA are deeply unpopular in West Virginia.

Initially, this seems like a pretty plausible explanation.  West Virginia, once a reliably Democratic state, has arguably become the most Republican state as defined by voting patterns.  Trump defeated Biden by nearly 40% of the state's popular vote, and Manchin is currently the only West Virginia Democrat currently holding statewide office.  It therefore stands to reason that Democratic priorities would poll badly in the Mountain State, and Manchin is just trying to maintain his unicorn status in its politics.

There's just one problem:  that's not what actual polls show.  In fact, they show that West Virginians not only support the FTPA, but also the COVID-19 relief bill enacted earlier this year, as well as President Biden's proposed infrastructure bill, which is also currently being legislatively hamstrung by Manchin's professed desire to find 10 Republican Senators who will sign "Kubaya" with him.  Numbers don't lie, folks, especially in this case, and here they are.

In fact, given the support that Manchin's bipartisan fetish has gotten support from another Democratic Senator, Kyrsten Sinema, here's a poll that shows the popularity of the FTPA in both West Virginia AND Arizona.  Specifically, among conservative voters.  Maybe we've been defining bipartisanship the wrong way, folks.  Maybe it shouldn't be defined by Republicans in Washington.  Maybe it should be defined by Republicans in the states you represent.  Seems like a pretty good idea to me.  How about it, Joe?

I'll ignore the crickets (or, this year, cicadas) that responded to that, and move on to the next possible explanation for Manchin's futile loyalty to the filibuster rule.

2.  Manchin is motivated to oppose the FTPA by the "whiteness" of his state.

Again, initially, a pretty plausible explanation.  Over 90% of the state's population is white, and many politicians in states with predominantly white populations have been known, in the past, to tap-dance around legislation that would have the effect of making it easier for people of color to vote.  And again, the filibuster rule has been used to block such legislation.  MSNBC contributor Joy Ann Reid has advanced this line of thinking about Manchin's position.

I like Ms. Reid's work very much and, in many cases, would tend to respect her thinking, but I'm not quite as certain as she is that Manchin's unwillingness to change the filibuster rule for the sake of enacting the FTPA is motivated by a desire to dog-whistle the white supremacist vote.  I say that not so much because of his recent willingness to accept a modified version of the bill, but primarily because of his willingness to support its companion legislation, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which, although also tethered to support for the filibuster rule, has seemed to me somewhat more determined and proactive than his views on the FTPA.  That doesn't seem like the posture of someone who is going out of his way to avoid offending hard-core white bigots in his state.  I'm open to changing my mind on this, but I'd need more practical evidence to do so.

3.  Occam's Razor:  Is this simply about the need for the publicity, and the corruption of the political press in abeting it?

If, as Occam's Razor holds, the simplest explanation is the one that is most likely to be true, than perhaps Manchin is simply trying to exploit his position as the 50th vote in the most tenuous possible Democratic majority to do what all politicians of any stripe crave doing:  getting their names in the press as often as possible, as more press mentions equates to more successful fundraising and, ultimately, to more political power.

This, too, is superficially plausible.  As the most conservative Senator in a government where Democrats control Congress, as well as the presidency, by the thinnest of margins, Manchin is incredibly well-positioned to turn his every trip to the men's room as a moment of national importance.  And, with regard to his ability to do so, he has an amazingly willing assistant in a national media environment where four decades of right-wing browbeating about liberal "bias" has reduced the political press from a forum of ideas and a search for truth into a balls-and-strikes, who's-up-who's down scorecard.

Once again, this doesn't completely stand up to scrutiny.  Playing the publicity game requires having an endgame, and Manchin doesn't seem to have one.  Or, if he does, or thought that he did at one point, McCONnell is bound and determined to take it away from him.  As I said, McCONnell would rather mention Stacey Abrams name than Manchin's.

So, what's left, folks?

4.  Blackmail.

Yes, I'll admit its a pretty ugly word.  But, since "Let's Pretend" went off the air a while again, we might as well admit that its on the take for discussion.

Especially when Twitter has posts like this.

Or this.

Or, worst of all, this.

None of this is proof that he's being blackmailed.  On the other hand, it's the only explanation for which there is no evidence to the contrary.  And, since democracy is hanging in the balance, maybe a few reporters out there can recover their journalistic muscles just long enough to see if this is in fact the answer.

And then, perhaps the American people can decide whether voting rights, the filibuster rule, or anything else should be allowed to be held hostage by those whose only fighting cause is their own power over the rest of us.

Is Evangelical Christianity Destroying America From Within?

Recently, in writing about the current situation in the Middle East (which may change at least slightly for the better, with the formation of a new Israeli government), I touched upon my unhappy past as a fundamentalist Christian.  I did so to use it as a jumping-off point into a broader discussion about religious extremism, by both Israelis and Palestinians and its sad contribution to the escalating violence in the Holy Land.  On further reflection, specifically with regard to religious extremism, the escalating partisan divide within our own country, and the extreme tactics being deployed in the process, merit my returning to what is personally a very sore subject for me.  

I do so not purely for autobiographical purposes, but to comment on the contribution that fundamentalist Christianity has made both to the Middle East crisis and the crisis affecting democracy within our nation.  It should be painfully obvious by now that here in the U.S., hitherto the platinum standard for the world for the functioning of a free and open society, democracy is no longer a given.  For all of us, it's no longer a question of whether we will continue in the future to call ourselves a democracy.  It's increasingly a question of whether we can call ourselves a democracy right now.

One way to understand democracy is that it is a contract among the citizens who live under the protection of its laws, by which the citizens agree to openly debate their concerns and proposed solutions for the nation's needs, and then submit to a formal neutral process--in our case, the election of public officials to act on the outcomes of those debates in the form of periodic elections conducted in an open and fair process.

But that contract is slowly accruing a lot of "fine print" that effectively defeats the fundamental goal of democracy--to give every citizen an equal share of power and an equal say in the direction of the nation.  And, however partisan it may be for me to say this, it is painfully clear that the authors of that "fine print" are Republicans in state houses and governor's mansions all across the country.  By now, whether in print or on electronic media, you have seen accounts of how GOP-controlled states are changing election laws to not merely protect, but to advance the interests of white nationalists in keeping people of color out of the corridors of power.  But it goes much further than that.

These states are making it legal for anyone to openly carry firearms, regardless of their background or makeup, run over protesters if feeling "endangered," and enter a private business without needing to take any pandemic-related precautions.  For a detailed and (as of the moment) comprehensive list of these sledgehammer blows to your constitutional rights, take a look here.

These disgusting efforts to undermine your freedom and mine share many things in common, but perhaps the worst of these commonalities is a complete untethered connection to the reality you, me, and the rest of us actually wake up to every day.  Voting restrictions in the absence of voter fraud.  The denial of protection for peaceful protestors, based on an entirely personal perception of being menaced.  The threat of increased gun violence, making a mockery of any alleged conservative concern for the "thin blue line," as if their response to the Jan. 6 insurrection wasn't enough of a mockery.

And, as we have all seen over the past twelve months, an utter disregard for the realities of medical science.  Republicans at every level of government, in every corner of the American landscape, have treated the reality of a deadly airborne virus as something that can be stopped by their personal feelings about science and the alleged liberal "bias" of those who study it.  They have willfully ignored the fact that viruses have no politics, no agenda, no allies or adversaries.  They just have the same will to live that all living beings have.  And, in the case of viruses like the COVID-19 virus, its will to live is stronger than your body's ability to fight it.  The result?  Hundreds of thousands of Americans dead.  Millions more with their health compromised.  And all of us living with a lessening sense of our ability to face the reality--the sheer raw fact--of a common enemy that doesn't care how you feel about it.

On a personal basis, the rejection of medical science by so many allegedly adult, educated fellow country-people has come close to breaking my faith in the ability of Americans not merely to agree on politics, but to even agree on facts.  Without the latter, political agreements, and even a political system in which everyone has a stake, simply are not possible.

And yet, I shouldn't be so terribly surprised.

Why?

Because I spent the first twelve years of my adult life in the belly of the beast that has swallowed the Republican Party whole, and is now threatening to do the same to the United States.  Specifically, evangelical Christianity.  I know how it operates.  I understand the nature of its appeal.  And I understand why the political power it has accumulated over the past six decades must be destroyed.  And, to begin my explanation, I must indulge in a tiny bit of what I promised earlier I wouldn't touch:  autobiography.

I got involved with evangelical Christianity in the middle of my freshman year at Oberlin College, a school that, although avowedly secular at the time (and now), had its roots in Christian revivalism.  I was, for reasons better saved for any memoirs I might publish, at a directionless point of low self-esteem in my life.  This, coupled with the narcissism that comes all too naturally with being a baby boomer, made me ripe for a theology that effectively told me that I could be part of a spiritual elect, with a special inside knowledge of the realities of the universe, and all I had to do was put my common sense and tolerance in deep storage, and tell everyone that I'd been "born again."

Sad to say, I was hooked.  That's how low my self-esteem was.  But, again, it's also how strong my narcissism was.  Let's be blunt:  it takes a phenomenal amount of narcissism to believe that you've somehow stumbled onto everything you need to know about everything, provided that you accept being force-fed a line of allegedly biblical theology that is often shallow at best and dishonest at worst.  After all, finding all that out, as others have done before you, takes what John Houseman used to describe on Smith Barney commercials as good-old-fashioned hard work.

And, after all, isn't it easier just to believe?  Especially when you've got all of these supposedly credentialed pastors, TV hosts, and whatever else they may be telling you how special you are?  Of course it is.  After all, it's not like any of these people would abuse the tax-exempt status to lead you down a dead end in your life while they are using your blind obedience to help pry open the doors to power in Washington, D.C..

Right?

Wrong.

I have to admit that, in my case, it took my twelve years to come to terms with the fact that being a born-again Christian was just denying me the ability that everyone should have:  to chart my own destiny, to learn how I might fit into the world around me and do the hard work of fitting in, by getting outside of myself and into the world around me.  As arrogant as it my be for me to say this, in the end, it was my intellectual abilities, the things that brought me to Oberlin in the first place. that saved me from a life of being nothing more than an empty vessel for the craven designs of the evangelical Christian movement and its leadership.

But not everyone's that lucky.

A combination of underfunded educational systems and exporting of livable-wage jobs have left millions of people without a reliable means of support.  Without hope for a better life for themselves or their posterity.  Without a clue as to how to make their lives better.

What better fodder for a system that offers the keys to the Kingdom of G-d in return for unquestioned belief, plus 10% of your meager financial reasons, than these people?

So it has been over the past four decades that the Grand Old Party, supposedly the party of Lincoln but in fact the party of money, has been gradually taken over by the boomingest business there is in Main Street America, in what we like to call the "heartland"--fundamentalist theology.

Is it any wonder that so many Americans are untethered from the most basic facts necessary for their immediate, personal survival?   Doesn't matter.  They're covered in Jesus' blood.  Just ask them.

Is it, for that matter, any wonder that politics has ceased to be about the art of compromise, because one party is filled with people who believe that they have the answers to everything, and that everyone who disagrees with them is not merely a political enemy, but also a spiritual one?  It shouldn't be.  This outcome was forecast a long time ago by none other than the later Mr. Conservative himself.  Take it from here, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona.

Evangelical Christianity is the reason--I would go so far as to say the sole reason--that American democracy is at the brink.

Can we walk it back from there?  Honestly speaking, I don't know.  I wish I could respond with an unqualified "yes."  But history is not an encouraging guide.  On a macro-level, history is a litany of empires that thought they had what it took not to crumble, before they crumbled.

I will go so far as to say this.  It cannot happen, and it will not happen, unless millions of Americans can be deprogrammed.  Until they can be weaned from the easy nectar of false theology.  Until they can look the harsh realities of contemporary American life--a burning planet, a historically oppressed people, a kleptocratic economy, and other external facts more powerful and dangerous than any internal feelings--right in the eye, and stop pretending that they're part of a spiritual elect that doesn't need to care about anything except the Rapture.  

The Rapture, in fact, is why they were so enthusiastic about Trump's pro-Netanyahu policies toward Israel; they saw those policies as speeding up the time when they can be in Heaven and forget about everything else.  I can assure you that it is not about their feelings concerning Jews.  I regret not saying more about this in my earlier post.  I hope that I can successfully make amends here.

The deprogramming needed would, to be successful, have to be a massive undertaking.  I don't know if it can be done without tremendous upheaval, and that is putting it as mildly as I can.  And the hour is very late.  Democracy is hanging in the balance.  How much longer can it hang there, before it falls and is replaced by a theocratic autocracy?

I don't have any comforting answers.  I hope and pray with all my heart that it is enough to ask the question.  If you care about the future of the America you've taken for granted, I hope you will start to ask it as well.  And I pray that, together, we will come up with answers that renew our national democratic contract, a contract without elites and built around objective truth.

After all, as Will Durant once said, a great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.