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.
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