Sen. Joe Manchin has caught a world of grief from his caucus over his refusal to budge on modifying or eliminating the Senate filibuster. The West Virginia Democrat has received enough attention to make former would-be-President-for life Donald Trump envious. Democratic celebrities from former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to Oprah Winfrey and a raft of other centrist figures have called to urge Manchin to yield in the name of saving the United States from descent into autocracy. (Maybe not in so many words.)
Trump should feel envious. All Manchin’s attention must not seem fair. But the overwhelming attention Manchin (and to a lesser degree Sen. Kyrsten Sinema) is receiving really is undeserved. The people who should be getting more attention are the 50 members of the Republican caucus who have sold their American birthright for a mess of Trumpism.
There is a faction on the left whose default setting is “Democrats suck.” Because the only targets of their ire inside the Beltway with any chance of being moved by them are the Democrats. Activists are disappointed in Democrats because they are the only officials in Washington, D.C. who can disappoint them. The Republican Party is all in on Trumpism and anti-democracy.
The real crime is how little attention, comparatively, individual members of the Senate Republican caucus receive for their anti-Americanism. There was a time when half the Senate betraying the country would garner banner headlines.
Poor Joe Manchin. Is Manchin a pain in the ass? Sure. But consider that any among the 50 members of the Republican Senate caucus could vote with Democrats to modify the filibuster. Any one or two Republican senators could help put brakes on the bald-faced efforts by state Republican legislators to erect obstacles to democratic participation they justify with phony claims of restoring confidence in our elections (that they themselves have spent decades undermining). Any one or two could help restore teeth to the Voting Rights Act gutted by the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Shelby. Not so long they were nearly unified in reauthorizing it.
We’ve just given up on any notion that their souls are savable. The press has just given up asking why Republicans hate their country so much that they are lining up to nominate a career criminal, sociopath, and wannabe dictator as their presidential candidate in 2024. They’d rather spotlight divisions in the Democratic caucus than the unified pro-autocracy of Republicans. Because Republicans might say mean things about the press. But Democrats are in disarray, dontcha know. And Joe Manchin. Pay no attention to the Confederates in front of the curtain.
Get ready for the rest of the world to give up on us if we cannot save ourselves.