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Joe Manchin's Departure Does Have a Silver Lining [1]
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Date: 2023-11-09
I get it that control of the Senate is valuable, that the Democrats already had a difficult map for retaining control, and that with Manchin out of the running for the Senate seat from a state so red that Donald Trump won every single county, this seat will go Republican, and it becomes that much more difficult for the Democrats to stay in the majority.
Or at least to get a 50-50 Senate where one hopes that a Democratic Vice President can break ties in the Democrats’ favor, as was the case for the first two years of Biden’s Presidency.
But those first two years of the Biden Presidency also showed a problem: when the Democrats seem to have the numbers, but those numbers include “Democrats” (like Manchin and Sinema) who seem to go out of their way to frustrate the Democrats, to make the Democrats look feckless, to tease and betray them like Lucy and the football, it can actually hurt the Democrat.
When a Party has the numbers, without having the reality of control, the people will blame that Party for its failures.
(That, by the way, is what happened on Election Day in 2021 in Virginia and New Jersey, where the Democrats lost about 5-7 points in the lead up to Election Day in both states, with Virginia ending up under Republican control, and the Governor of New Jersey just squeaking by.) All those failed efforts to pass Build Back Better — by a Democratic Party that was supposed to have the votes — turned the public off just in time for the Republicans to make Virginia seem less blue than it is.)
True, once in a while it helped to have Manchin or Sinema go along with the Party and get things done. But until Manchin hoodwinked the Republicans on the Chip Bill and helped to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, I had frequent thoughts about the possibility that the Democrats would have been in better shape if they were in the minority, and didn’t look like they had the means to get things done when they actually didn’t.
Meanwhile, depending on the condition of a Republican Majority — if unfortunately the Republicans do gain a majority in the Senate — it might be either to the Republicans’ advantage or disadvantage.
Consider the Republicans’ “victory” in gaining control of the House in the 2022 midterms. I would say that they’ve disgraced themselves, shown their deep pathology. I would say that the Republicans’ “victory” in 2022 has done that Party far more harm than good. They’d have been better off to have been in the minority, and not had the chance to show how profoundly dysfunctional, untrustworthy, and morally bankrupt that Party has become.
Would Republican domination of the Senate — if that’s what happens, including with this newly Republican seat we can expect in West Virginia — expose the disgrace of this Party the way the Republican House has this year? Beats me. I don’t know what the situation will be in 2025, though I think there’s a good chance that Trump and the Trump Party will have done lasting and perhaps fatal damage to the Republican Party.
And while I’m hoping, I’m hoping the Democrats can get a really good and functional majority in the Senate. I am hoping that the Democratic waves that keep coming in — the most recent of which was two days ago — will be a harbinger of a Blue Wave that will give the Democrats a real majority, i.e. enough seats to run the Senate, without people like Manchin and Sinema to make the Democrats look bad.
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