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United States Capitol building
It’s difficult to overstate the incredible damage Senator Joe Manchin’s betrayal has inflicted upon President Biden’s presidency and the political fortunes of nearly every other elected Democrat in the House and Senate.
Manchin strung along the president and his own party for months to force massive reductions in the president’s plans to restore a thriving economy and improve the lives of all Americans before announcing he had no intention of supporting most of Biden’s agenda. In effect, Manchin delivered an entire truckload of West Virginia coal to Democrats for Christmas.
Voters already were impatient about delays in passing Biden’s legislation in the evenly divided 50-50 Senate. But the media never evenly divided the blame for that between the two parties. It always attributed the slowness to divisions among Democrats. That division was basically two Senators out of 50, more of a splinter than a split but still deadly.
Simultaneously, the media let all 50 Republican Senators off the hook for unanimously opposing the popular legislation Biden was elected by an enormous majority of Americans to deliver. Republicans didn’t want Biden to build back a better economy because it would produce “a win” for Democrats, which also would be a win for most Americans.
Filibuster Rules
Under Senate filibuster rules allowing Republicans to block Democratic legislation, Biden has to use a special budget process to pass his major economic recovery program without any Republican votes. It includes cash benefits for families raising children, free pre-school for children, lower cost prescription drugs, climate change legislation and much more.
But what can Biden and Democrats do now to prevent a single, self-centered, conservative senator from gutting their progressive agenda and possibly ending Biden’s chance of passing any more significant legislation for the remainder of his presidency?
At the moment, they have little choice. They must continue negotiating with Manchin as well as building pressure on him at home to support Build Back Better programs providing enormous economic benefits to the nation and for West Virginia, one of its poorest states. Among other horrors, failure to pass Biden’s bill will slash in half a tax funding the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund paying benefits to disabled coal miners in West Virginia.
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Compromise Proposal
Senate Democrats have already floated a compromise focusing primarily on extending the tax credit for American families, expanding childcare, lowering prescription drug prices and stepping up the battle against the growing devastation from climate change.
The toughest fight could be overcoming Manchin’s hostility to Biden’s tax credit for families with children even though it benefits 93% of children in Manchin’s own state. Like Social Security does for the elderly, it reduces childhood poverty while also providing monthly assistance benefitting nearly every other American family.
Ultimately, Democrats need to do exactly what Manchin has suggested. He’s said if Democrats want to pass more progressive legislation, they need to elect more Democrats. That’s why it’s important in November’s midterm election for Wisconsin to flip the Senate seat held by Republican Ron Johnson. Just one more Democratic vote in the Senate would immediately prevent Manchin from blocking the entire agenda of the president and the rest of the party.
Don’t believe everything you’re hearing now about how terrible Democratic prospects are in November’s midterms because the president’s party always loses seats in the midterms. In the midst of the most dangerous threat to democracy in our nation’s history, the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential election are not going to be normal American elections.
Frozen in Time
Republicans are frozen in time right now with a large portion of their voters refusing to accept President Biden’s clear and decisive defeat of their party’s former president. Even worse, elected Republicans tacitly support Trump’s attempt to remain in office after that defeat by sending a violent mob of supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol threatening the lives of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to stop them from certifying Biden’s election.
Shortly after that violent insurrection, a nationwide survey by the rightwing American Enterprise Institute, found two out of three Republicans believed Trump’s lies that Biden was not legitimately elected and 39% of Republicans agreed “the people” should battle election results they oppose “even if it requires violent actions.”
The threat to the future of America will not be over until both national political parties support free and fair elections and Republicans begin distancing themselves from the attempted violent overthrow of democracy by their former president and his dangerous supporters.
Fortunately, in Wisconsin and other states with permanently gerrymandered Republican legislatures, statewide Senate and gubernatorial races can’t be gerrymandered. House elections will be, which is why Republicans are confident they can win House control in the midterms through corrupt redistricting alone.
That makes Wisconsin replacing Johnson with a Democrat even more important in 2022 so the Senate can confirm Biden’s judicial nominees supporting constitutional rights and the rule of law.
