The end of the For the People Act would open the way for Republican-dominated states to continue their shameless campaign to suppress the votes of likely Democratic voters – using Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud as pretext. That’s the beginning of the end of American democracy as we know it.
In a blog post Tuesday, Robert Reich laid bare the real reason behind Democratic Senator of West Virginia Joe Manchin’s refusal to protect voting rights and by extension American Democracy in the form of For the People Act.
In the now (in)famous op-ed he penned this past Sunday Manchin stated he was a firm ‘No’ on the voting rights legislation, a centerpiece of the Biden agenda. His reason was because Republicans were against the bill, he, Manchin, needed to demonstrate to the people of his state, to the nation, and to the whole world no less, what true bipartisanship looks like. In other words, Manchin would rather kill the bill and vote No with obstructionist Republicans than to vote for it with his own Democratic Party in an effort to enhance voting rights and preserve our flailing Democracy. What???
But Robert Reich (Juris Doctor, professor, author, former cabinet minister, columnist, political commentator, blogger) makes sense of it all…:
Manchin’s very public repudiation of Biden on Sunday could mean the end of the For the People Act. That opens the way for Republican states to continue their shameless campaign of voter suppression – very possibly giving Republicans a victory in the 2022 midterm elections and entrenching Republican rule for a generation.
It was a direct thumb-in-your-eye response to President Biden’s thinly-veiled criticism of Manchin last Tuesday in Tulsa, where Biden explained why he was having difficulty getting passage of what was supposed to be his highest priority – new voting rights legislation that would supersede a raft of new laws in Republican-dominated states designed to suppress the votes of likely Democratic voters, using Trump’s baseless claim of voter fraud as pretext.
“I hear all the folks on TV saying, ‘Why doesn’t Biden get this done?’” Biden asked rhetorically in Tulsa. “Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends. But we’re not giving up.”
Everyone who paid any attention to Senate politics knew he was referring to Manchin, as well as to Arizona Senator Kirsten Cinema, another Democratic holdout.
Adding to head-scratching responses to Manchin’s weird, senseless narrative and false public reasoning, (a narrative defensively repeated by holier-than-thou Manchin), is a new poll on West Virginians’ take on President Biden’s agenda. As does Robert Reich’s take down of Manchin show, the poll shows Manchin is openly carrying ammunition for his insurrection-denying sycophants, voter-suppression liars, democracy-killiing extremists and Biden-bashing buddies on the Republican side of the aisle.
And in related news from the past:
- West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin is bucking the Democratic Party, announcing that he will vote for legislation funding a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. The GOP-backed bill includes $5.7 billion [Trump] has requested to fund his border wall.
- West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice claims he’s talked to Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin about him switching parties. Justice, formerly a Democrat, made the switch to the Republican Party after Trump took the state by more than 40 points in 2016.
“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children” First Nations proverb.
