Six months into Biden’s Presidency two other players have cast a shadow over the forty - sixth Presidency - the conservative Democratic Senator Joe Manchin and as expected the Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. Traditionally this is the time period that the incoming Presidency can achieve the most. Trump, or at least McConnell, had affected the tax cut in favor of the rich and by this time had appointed over two hundred Federal Judges. Obama introduced Obamacare and managed an economic crisis while Biden, who has the most ambitious agenda of them all, has his Covid Act and economic recovery.
The empathetic Biden has stuck to the rest of his vision whIch runs the gamut from infrastructure, social services such as child care, immigration to voting rights. However from the woodwork has emerged a little known Democratic Senator, Joe Manchin, from a blood red State who is putting a brake on transformation, while McConnell has vowed that his one objective is not to allow any Biden legislation to pass through the Senate. Last and certainly not least as of June 2021 is Donald J. Trump, who while he is planning his resurrection from the dead, is simultaneously facing the worldly prospect of jail time and transforming the Republican Party into an anarchist shambolic cult.
To a lesser or greater extent all these dramatis personae are living in lalaland except of course Mitch McConnell who is nonplussed believing he is playing the Biden Presidency like a fiddle. But even he can get overconfident. He is being unintentionally aided and abetted by the new kid on the block Joe Manchin who by insisting on bipartisanship could thwart any possibility of moving the needle of the Democratic legislative program. He could singularly alter the whole narrative of this era and help set America on a new path by going along with the party.
Biden, meanwhile, is articulating his great vision both domestically and on the world stage. The forty sixth President needs no reminder that all his lofty ideals need to be translated into legislative reality. Biden’s domestic and global dreams are being stymied by the dysfunction in Washington, which is business as usual. Trump looms large over all this as the world awaits the revival of the Trump circus hitting the road again
What can break this logjam? The simple answer is Joe Manchin.
THE OTHER JOE - JOE MANCHIN
Joe Manchin is the man who refuses to go along with the the Biden plan as presented and to toss the filibuster which McConnell is banking on to halt the Biden dream. Manchin, the Other Joe, is infuriating the Democrats and all their pundits who forget that if he wasn’t there the Dems would not be in the majority. The fact that he is there at all is nothing short of a miracle. Trump carried West Virginia in 2020 by nearly forty points. Joe Manchin is the only State wide elected Democrat in this crimson red state. He has occupied State elected positions since 2001 including being a wildly popular Governor from 2005 to 2010 which year he was elected to the Senate. He has triumphed in two further elections. So it is fair to say he knows the Republican electorate’s mind.
Manchin’s central guiding principle, not surprisingly, is bipartisanship. He has gained endless experience at the latter since there are not too many Democrats in the West Virginia that he has led and served for two decades. It also stands to reason that he has to be pretty conservative, not supporting abortion being a stalwart of guns for starters. His social conservative credentials are regularly renewed in the Senate where he even voted for Judge Kavanaugh’s elevation to the Supreme Court. He is not in the lead to eliminate fossil fuels as West Virginia is one of the chief producers in America. To add to his bent he is a traditionalist in the truest sense being a great upholder of the Senate’s filibuster.
So Manchin has navigated his electability as a Democrat by being a social conservative and also being highly skilled at creating consensus and compromise. What the Other Joe doesn’t quite get is that there is a wide gulf of the behavior, actions and motives of the Republicans in the Senate versus those elected in a State where everyone is close to the voters and the legislators either deliver or don’t. The West Virginian Senator must have realized the polarization that has taken place in the Senate as compromise has becoming more and more impossible. He has consequently left the slightest wiggle room as he hits a brick wall again and again. Manchin’s current position is that the For The People Voting Bill is the wrong piece of legislation “to unite the country… because it is too partisan”. Likewise the infrastructure bill has had no input from the Republicans.
His motives have been questioned - the kindest criticicsm being that he is just thinking of West Virginia not America. Eugene Robertson of the Washington Post argued that Manchin lived in fantasyland, a Baltimore Sun Columnist said, “Joe Manchin isn’t a statesman he is a fool" and others have argued that he was a “cowardly, power - hungry White dude…”.
So how does the Real Joe fit into this?
THE REAL JOE
Of all the presidential aspirants Joe Biden is the one who understands Joe Manchin the best. After all who ran on bipartisanship? Who claims to be everybody’s President? While the Democratic caucus and the pundits would like to ring the West Virginian Senator’s neck Biden has followed through on attempting to obtain consensus on the infrastructure bill with months of meetings with McConnell nominated Republican Senators. Biden for his exercise in futility has been roundly chastised for wasting precious legislative time. However what is more important than having the votes to pass legislation and Jay H. Ell doesn’t mean Republican votes - just fifty Democratic backers? The Biden effort is in sync with his mantra but more to the point puts him on the same page as Joe Manchin.
The Other Joe has successfully negotiated with moderate Republicans to gain consensus on the Infrastructure bill. The sum for the moment is three hundred billion more than Biden was offered by McConnell's negotiators. Biden's administration has welcomed working with Manchin's bipartisan group. This is an undertaking that will battle to find sixty votes in the Senate regardless of a successful outcome. If it did it would be over Mitch McConnell’s dead body. Several Democrats are against it as well. So the Real Joe is letting this all play out.
To take one step back it is reported that Biden spoke to the Other Joe to nail his backing for the Covid Relief Bill which was passed as financial legislation requiring just the Democratic votes. Politico provided a most insightful report on their relationship, quoting Manchin who stated, “The president respects the institution so much because he was here and knows it better than everyone else. He does not get involved. I already know where he is. I know the challenge he has and i know the pressure he’s receiving all the time. We’re just trying to find a balance for it.”
Senator Ben Cardin summed up the general feeling among Democrats, “There is a personal relationship between the President and Senator Manchin. I think he can make a difference. He knows that he will have on an impact on Senator Manchin. It would not be effective at this particular moment. But I think he’s waiting for that opportunity.”
Biden understands that without Joe Manchin who was able to win red West Virginia he would not be in a position to be a transformative President. Likewise Manchin is mindful of the fact that America may not be able to domestically and internationally return to the values that persuaded him to be a Democrat and not a Republican in West Virginia, without his support.
MITCH MCCONNELL
In the final analysis the future of American democracy wrests between the battle between Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden. (Blog: MCCONNELL VERSUS BIDEN AND THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY). The Republican Senate Minority leader believes he has it all under control. He has two battles one within the Republican Party and the other against the Democrats. McConnell who has controlled American politics for over a decade, via the Senate, has no doubt that he can best Biden by stringing him along that there is a hope for the bipartisanship that Manchin insists upon. Simultaneously McConnell reassures his State “Republicans” that there is no way he will cooperate with the Democrats and give Biden the legislative victories he needs to keep the Legislature in the Democratic column. Particularly the State Republican legislators don’t want to see any cooperation on “For the People Act” which will interfere with their efforts at voter suppression.
The Republican Senate leader is sure that he can best Trump on his Senate home ground. In return for his meeting the needs of massive donors he can back his Senate nominees with unlimited money. In the last election his Political Action Committee had a record four hundred and seventy - eight million dollars to assist the McConnell candidates. Trump is backing a candidate against Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. The latter has registered her open disgust of the former President. McConnell is backing her in the knowledge that she is unbeatable in her home state. That outcome of that primary contest will be regarded as a key measure of their respective influence in the rag bag Republican Party.
McConnell’s stated objective of obstructing anything and everything will ultimately force Manchin in rethink his position. The Republican grandmaster is cynically taking forgranted the latter’s commitment to bipartisanship, which he, McConnell, has ensured will never happen. Manchin he reckons is his insurance that the Biden agenda will fail. McConnell has to rate Manchin as a complete and utter imbecile, which he is not.
TRUMP THE PRESIDENT IN WAITING
The Republicans cannot come to terms that they can’t win with Trump and that they can’t win without him. He is slowly but surely becoming less relevant but relevant enough to destroy many Republicans in their Primary elections. In the insane world that the past president lives in thirty percent of the Republicans believe he is the rightful President at the moment. His significance is still felt with the true base and Trumpism per se has not died amongst the strange coalition from neo Nazis to Evangelicals, to those rural and industrial citizens whose needs had been neglected by Washington. However he is almost irrelevant to McConnell as the latter seeks to keep America in the eighteenth century by stymling progress with the filibuster and with a Fundamentalist Judicial Branch. The only sector Mitch answers to is his donor class who don’t want to pay taxes and don’t care if their grandchildren get sun burned.
Ironically both Biden and McConnell are ad idem at not wanting to provide oxygen for the loudmouth ex President. Their motives are different - the Republican postulating that he will hurt State wide Senate candidates in purple states while the Real Joe wants to run on his own agenda. Last time out it was politic to allow Trump to run against himself while he bunkered down in the basement but now he wants to run on positivity hope and progress. Not that anyone has any choice. Trump will be Trump and he is still the most popular Republican. If he escapes the law he is favorite for the Republican nomination in 2024 and then as everyone knows anything can happen and has.
WHAT NOW?
The Democrats and their pundits should take one long hard breath and face reality. Joe Manchin is what he is and without him they cannot proceed in the Senate. He so far has a hundred percent voting record on Biden’s agenda.
Manchin represents the mindset of all the Southern States that the Democrats want to win. It is interesting to note that the two Democratic legislators that have been most empathetic to his position are African Americans from the South, - Reverend Warnock who magically won a Senate seat in Georgia and Jim Clyburn the number three Democrat in the House. As has been written again and again in this blog Clyburn was the one who singly turned the Democratic nomination race to Biden. He correctly advises that the leadership should sit down with Manchin and negotiate with him. Obviously everyone should allow the bipartisan pow wows to run their course in the knowledge that McConnell wants none of it.
Manchin supports the John Lewis voting legislation which basically restores the 1960’s Voting Rights Act gutted by the Supreme Court. That is a great start. The For The People voting legislation is a shambles any how. How would Manchin combine the two pieces of legislation? The West Virginian Senator is extremely interested in energy. Biden’s all encompassing Infrastructure legislation includes creating a ton of jobs for the establishment of green energy - just what West Virginia needs as coal becomes more and more obsolete.
Sooner or later the Real Joe needs to sit down with him…….
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Joe Manchin by playing out the bipartisan spiel will result in public support and on infrastructure there has been some movement. Joe Biden went through exactly the same exercise on the Infrastructure Bill. McConnell cannot allow any of more of Biden's agenda to happen. Every bit of legislation that passes chalks up a win for Biden.
Nobody can stop Trump stomping through the 2022 election process. It will benefit Biden in spite of his wish for the midterms to be purely about his transformative agenda.
The ultimate objective is to get the Other Joe to dump the filibuster. The crucial voting rights bill is dependent on that. This he may possibly do once it is abundantly clear that it is being abused to thwart the will of the people. The Democrats did after all win the elections and elections have consequences. “We The People” don’t give two hoots about the arcane conventions of the Senate. The only entity that couldn’t care less than the electorate is Mitch McConnell the Minority leader of the Senate.
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