Joe Manchin, unlikely hero of the republic – for now
Manchin has held firm against Build Back Better – so far. Is he alone among the Democrats? We don’t know, but no one else has come out publicly against it.
It’s such a joke that we have even come to this. This massive legislation or any transformational, highly impactful legislation should not come down to whether you can convince one person to vote for it. I’m not talking about “gang of 8” stuff, so that John McCain could wield more power than he deserved. But we are in a 50/50 Senate situation, and there is no effort whatsoever to work with even one Republican, much less a true bipartisan effort. I don’t believe in bipartisanship for its own sake, but getting 50% + 1 was never the way this was supposed to work…
That was what was so unusual about Obamacare back when it was passed. It was the first “transformational” legislation without bipartisan support (there was even a bit of bipartisan opposition). The Democrats had discovered something, which is that if they voted for a bill that gave people perks, even an unpopular bill with a downside, it would be hard to remove, especially if it destroyed the previous system (in this case, the existing system of health insurance) that was in place. Why tweak the old system when you can invent a totally new one that gives your favored groups what they want and screws others? You might take a small hit in the short run (2010 mid-terms, for the Democrats) but in the long run you will have made it harder for the right to function or to rid the country of the new system, because they will have to design another from scratch.
In the case of the federal voting bill known as HR1, the Democrats desperately want to pass it because it would make their future elections easier to win, and block Republican efforts to ensure that fraud doesn’t occur. Even before COVID gave the Democrats the excuse to do away with certain voting safeguards that some states had erected, HR1 was the very first bill they passed in the House in early 2019 when they got the majority as a result of the 2018 election. It didn’t make it in the Senate, but not because the Democrats wouldn’t dearly love to pass it. But Sinema has come out against ending the filibuster in order to pass it in a narrow vote.
This is interesting, from that expert on West Virginia (one of the reddest states in the nation), Bernie Sanders:
Well, I think [Manchin’s] going to have a lot of explaining to do to the people of West Virginia, to tell him why he doesn’t have the guts to take on the drug companies to lower the cost of prescription drugs,” he said. “West Virginia is one of the poorest states in this country. You got elderly people and disabled people who would like to stay at home. He’s going to have to tell the people of West Virginia why he doesn’t want to expand Medicare to cover dental hearing and eyeglasses.”
That is a good example of the leftist mindset. The idea is that voters – even voters in red states – only care about short-term gains and ignore long-term costs, and only look at bits and pieces of a bill rather than the whole thing. Sander knows, of course, that people on the right are not in favor of this bill and he even knows that it’s not popular with independents. But he doesn’t care. If it could be passed, he’d do it in a heartbeat – as would almost every single Democrat, whether they call themselves “moderate” or not.
My default position continues to be that he will eventually cave although the way they are treating him seems to be a poor strategy from the leftist point of view but I guess they can’t help themselves.
Recall the younger and more palatable George Will’s aphorism, “the right to speak is the right to prevail”. Again, everything is of a piece: social media censorship, abuse of power by college administrators, Antifa brownshirts, selective prosecution, the use of federal law enforcement as a secret police, abuse of power by federal judges, academic treatises insisting we must end 1st and 2d amendment rights, plans for packing the court, plans for abolishing antique parliamentary rules and ordinary courtesies, mass importation of illegal aliens, and institutionalized vote fraud all arise from a common objection: that the opposition might prevail. Note also the injection of CRT into school curriculum, into professional schooling and certification, and into disciplinary practices in companies and the profession. They all have a common thread: an objection to The Other occupying any position of consequence to the Anointed and an objection to The Other speaking their mind as if they were citizens and not subjects.
We are in a peck of trouble, because in every kind of institution, we see the same thing: institutional elites attempting to compel people to accept subjugation. This is no country for old men.
I hope he switches parties, even if he is a moderate. Would that give the Republicans more control of the Senate agenda if they are the majority party in the Senate? Whether they would use that or not , constructively, is an entirely different question.
This is astute analysis. Democrats’ working theory now is governance by smash and grab. There is arguably some level of blame that can be attributed to Republicans for passing one of Bush’s tax cuts in a partisan manner with reconciliation budget tricks, but Obamacare was different in kind. If Bush-era Republicans disrespected the norm of bipartisan consensus for big things, Obama-era Democrats obliterated it with Obamacare and are now totally committed to governing without consensus.
Obama basically spent eight years jacking up the cost of losing an election. Then in 2020, every Democratic candidate promised more of the same, and but for the grace of Joe Manchin, would have delivered (and might still). And yet most of these same folks are mystified as to why Donald Trump won in 2016 and came within a whisker of reelection in 2020.
Obama and the “fierce urgency of now” broke “our democracy.” Everything since then has just been the predictable after-effects.
The attacks on Manchin from brainless leftists (such moronic celebrities as Bette Midler and the usual suspects in Congress, Mad Maxine as well as the Four Horsewomen, Plus One, of The Apocalypse) have been especially vicious, even by the ever-low standards of “progressives”, but no rational person should be surprised, since the normal method of attack from leftists has nothing to do with intelligent argument or reasoned debate, but invariably involves the argumentum ad hominem, always the first ploy of a scoundrel devoid of substantive ideas.
“…but I guess they can’t help themselves.”
No, they can’t.
Thugs gotta thug.
Liars gotta lie.
Grifters gotta grift.
Scorpions gotta scorp.
Art Deco, I still maintain that the transgender thing was and is like the scene in the book 1984 where you are required to affirm what you know to be false. All the other lies become secondary at that point if you can be cajoled into either silence or agreeing with a falsehood YOU KNOW TO BE FALSE about something SO VERY BASIC !
Art Deco, I still maintain that the transgender thing was and is like the scene in the book 1984 where you are required to affirm what you know to be false.
Yep. See Theodore Dalrymple: the point of blatant lies in a totalitarian system is to induce humiliation.
“…governance by smash and grab…”
That’s good. And it’s also true.
So why the total rejection of any iota of a smidgeon of a possibility of “…getting elected by smash and grab…”?
(Because they wouldn’t stoop so low? Because election laws so solidly prevent it? Oh, right!)
Democrats’ working theory now is governance by smash and grab.
Good metaphor.
There is arguably some level of blame that can be attributed to Republicans for passing one of Bush’s tax cuts in a partisan manner with reconciliation budget tricks,
I doubt that motivates anyone now.
If Bush-era Republicans disrespected the norm of bipartisan consensus for big things, Obama-era Democrats obliterated it with Obamacare and are now totally committed to governing without consensus.
There was no ‘norm for consensus’. There were procedural rules and a body of custom and courtesy. You don’t need consensus and when you get it, it’s often an insider scheme injurious to the general public. You do need regular rules of competition, impartial referees, and a general understanding that you win some and you lose some.
I wonder if there will be a small preference cascade of Democrats denying this radicalism for the election cycle.
The idea is that voters – even voters in red states – only care about short-term gains and ignore long-term costs, and only look at bits and pieces of a bill rather than the whole thing.
This is what always gets me about the whole “what’s the matter with Kansas?” schtick the Democrats always pull out (the sentiment, not the book specifically).
“Why do those dumb Republicans insist on voting against their economic interests?” displays their own ignorance that many people consider other things more important than a marginally-larger welfare check.
If Manchin does go R or I (with R lean) in January, I bet that all the talk about ending the filibuster will go away and, in fact, becomes the greatest tool to protect the minority interest.
Don’t forget the cries of bad faith when red states opt to change congressional district maps – “gerrymandering” – to the point of a DOJ review of Texas. In contrast, gerrymandering continues for blue states.
The Z Man’s cynical take is that after the Republicans win bigly in the 2022 midterms, they’ll pass the thing lock, stock, and barrel ‘In the Spirit of Coming Together as a Nation’. They *do* long for death, remember?
Zaphod:
Geez. Passing along Zman’s hot takes, predictably cynical, is not exactly persuasive. He comes across as a pure and angry crank to me.
I disagree that Republicans long for death and that they would pass BBB or its equivalent. I don’t recall Trump passing any big leftover Obama legislation, though I’ll concede that having no action plan to replace Obamacare was rather discouraging.
huxley:
Actually, they didn’t have no plan to replace Obamacare. They had too many competing ones, and all had flaws because there’s no simple or easy solution. However, they were poised to pass one of them when the very ill John McCain showed up to put the kibosh on it.
huxley:
And Zaphod often quotes Zman as some sort of wise oracle, usually when he’s saying something hyper-cynical and mega-ignorant
@Huxley:
If you listened to one of the Z Man’s weekly podcasts (amazingly still available on YouTube) you’d get the impression that apart from things like the Rittenhouse Trial and the Chauvin Railroading which would make anyone angry, he regards much of what passes for politics as a clown show and takes a pretty lighthearted and of course sensibly cynical approach to the material.
If you think he’s bad, go read David Cole at Taki on the January 6’ers:
https://www.takimag.com/article/the-rights-sun-tzuicide/
Nasty fellows like Cole can teach us stuff, too.
I guess we’ll find out soon enough in 2023 just how much cynicism is enough cynicism.
Zaphod:
From what you’ve passed on and what I’ve read on my own at Unz, I think otherwise.
I suggest if you have a point you want to make, make it yourself and support it with reasoned argument, rather than use Zman as your sock puppet.
when the very ill John McCain showed up to put the kibosh on it.
In fairness, there were a half-dozen other Republicans implicated in that maneuver, among the Rob Portman. Portman, in a double act with Bitc* McConnell, summarizes everything the Republican Party should not be.
@Huxley:
Do you always roll your own koans?
They had too many competing ones, and all had flaws because there’s no simple or easy solution.
What politicians want is a ‘solution’ that avoids the necessary task of making costs transparent to the customer. In issue after issue, this is the case. Problems cannot be resolved because the crux of the problem is that costs are not transparent.
I can give you a sketch of a solution. It would include putting 96% of the population in the actuarial pool, timely service for the patient, willing co-operation from providers, ample recruitment of providers, protection of households from catastrophic costs, protection of providers from financial hemorrhaging from uncollectable accounts, and an end to escalating shares of domestic product being devoted to financing medical care. It would, of course, incorporate high deductibles and transparent pricing for services rendered under the deductible. Which means it would irritate the people who expect to see the doctor in return for a $30 co-pay in lieu of what his time is actually worth in a transparent arms-length transaction.
Do you always roll your own koans?
Zaphod:
Naw. I look ’em up in my cheat book:
–Yoel Hoffman, “The Sound of the One Hand: 281 Zen Koans with Answers”
https://archive.org/details/soundofonehand2800hauhrich
It’s a real book with real answers. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that koan teaching became a corrupt formality in some Zen monasteries, in which students would parrot the cheat answers to the teacher and be passed to the next level. So some True Zen Rebel tried to blow the game wide open by publishing the cheats.
A favorite of mine.
Don’t forget the cries of bad faith when red states opt to change congressional district maps – “gerrymandering” – to the point of a DOJ review of Texas. In contrast, gerrymandering continues for blue states.
I’m always stupefied to hear partisan Democrats complain about gerrymandering. I can never figure out if they’re pig-ignorant, posturing like mad, or only understand something as a problem if it might injure the Democratic Party.
“Why tweak the old system when you can invent a totally new one that gives your favored groups what they want and screws others?” neo
The history of societies and nations repeatedly demonstrates that when you screw others long enough, violent rebellion and revolution result.
“Democrats’ working theory now is governance by smash and grab. Obama-era Democrats obliterated it with Obamacare and are now totally committed to governing without consensus.” Bauxite
“Smash and grab” is inherently violent in nature and for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Sooner or later, those who play with fire… get burned.
“You don’t need consensus and when you get it, it’s often an insider scheme injurious to the general public.” Art Deco
Corrupt schemes aside, consensus is absolutely needed, as Congress was intended to be a collaborative body, one of give and take. Which in a representative body, it of neccessity must be. As otherwise it leads to societal dissolution.
@Huxley:
“I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that koan teaching became a corrupt formality in some Zen monasteries”
Unsurprisingly, I’m not surprised at all.
Looks like a good book.
consensus is absolutely needed,
The only consensus you benefit from is in regard to procedural matters and in regard to substantive policy which has existential consequences. We did, back in 1942. We did in some measure 20 years ago.
“You don’t need consensus and when you get it, it’s often an insider scheme injurious to the general public.” Art Deco
“Corrupt schemes aside, consensus is absolutely needed, as Congress was intended to be a collaborative body, one of give and take. Which in a representative body, it of neccessity must be. As otherwise it leads to societal dissolution.” Geoffrey Britain
You’re both right. But you’re talking past each other because you’re talking about different historical eras. AD speaks of our present state where consensus only occurs when vested interests align. GB speaks of the Reasonable Enlightenment Man’s Eschaton — served at room temperature and only gently immanentised.
As the physical therapist said to the one-legged man: ‘We work with what we’ve got’. Consensus today makes about as much sense as leg transplants. AD is right. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled by my imprimatur. I could probably even find some Z Man Holy Writ to back this up. Any takers? 🙂
Re: one-legged man…
Zaphod:
I take it, Young Grasshopper, you’re ready for the famous Clapping koan:
____________________________
Koan: In clapping both hands a sound is heard; what is the sound of one hand clapping?
Answer: The pupil faces his master, takes a correct posture, and without a word, thrusts one hand forward.
When policy decisions have significant numbers of losers, consensus, or at least some level of minority buy-in, is necessary. Even if Obamacare had been the best possible policy (ha!) and immaculately drafted (double ha!), it still would have been very difficult to make it work because roughly 40% of the country was dead set against it and Republicans could blame every Obamacare loser on Democrats. Despite the media turning into a virtual propaganda arm of the Democratic Party, Democrats were slaughtered in 2010, 2014, and 2016.
I was disappointed that Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare, but McCain may have actually done the GOP a favor. Even if the GOP health care replacement had been the best possible policy, which it probably wasn’t, it still would have created losers and you can bet that the media would have hung those losers around the neck of every Republican for the next 30 years or more.
@Huxley:
Being shallow I’d never thought of it as more than a rhetorical question.
I suppose the Correct Answer is a visual abruptness / disturbance of stillness cf. the aural one. And that the student is not supposed to focus on the superficial bit about sound or lack thereof and should grasp that *action* in an ocean of stillness is the kernel. And could then meta- away merrily riffing off further from this start. But begins with inaction / action.
In the ballpark?
Zaphod:
Took a while to get my old scanner and 16-bit OmniPage set up, which works on Window 10, mirabile dictu.
For folks who emphasize that Zen is beyond words, I find Zen teachers often have quite a lot to say. I have thoughts myself, but here’s the first section the book provides. You may grade yourself.
_________________________________
Commentary on The Koan on the Sound of the One Hand
This koan was composed by the Japanese Zen Master Hakuin (1685-1768). It is either this koan or the koan on “mu” which the novice receives as his first koan upon entering the monastery. The pupil is usually expected to “contemplate” his first koan for a long time. It may take him up to three years to reach the answer. In the meantime, the master rejects all the answers that do not correspond to the answer of “thrusting one hand forward.” However, the master may guide the pupil in various ways. For instance, if the pupil comes up with an answer such as, “It is answer, explaining that the pupil is taken in by “two” (i.e., dualistic thinking). The master may also hint at the answer in a more concrete way. He may say, for instance, “Think of handing over your ticket upon entering the train” (i.e., extending one hand forward). In this case however, there is the danger that the pupil, through guessing, reaches only the correct form of the answer without really realizing its “meaning.”
It will not be of much use trying to “explain” the koan. The state of mind which it embodies is not fully understood if we take into consideration only its philosophical, or rather anti-philosophical (anti-rational) aspect. The formation of the koan and its answer are to be viewed in relation to zazen (Zen meditation).
In the “clapping of both hands” the phenomenon (“sound”) is the outcome of the interaction between two (or more) factors. It is thus possible, through distinction and differentiation, to trace its “reason” in other phenomena. In rational thinking we are always concerned with the relation of one “thing” with the “other.” When “the sound of the one hand” is ‘heard,” not a thing has been excluded. Every thing is (“u”) in as far as it cannot be denied. However, its raison d’etre does not lie in any “other” thing, nor does it lie in some principle or truth beyond the thing itself. The essence of a thing is no-thing or nothing (“mu”). Thus the one who has heard “the sound of the one hand” has realized “mu” without denying “u.”
ANSWER
The seemingly paradoxical requirement to hear the sound of the ‘one hand is answered through an act of extreme simplicity. To reach this height of simplicity, the pupil’s mind undergoes a process of ever-growing sophistication. Yet however sophisticated rational thinking may be, its basic function is still that of adding one to one. Through seeing each one in itself and all as one, the pupil abandons rational thinking as a mode of being. This does not of necessity imply that logical thinking can no, longer be employed for pragmatic purposes.
@Huxley:
Well there goes my cigar and not even close.
Apparently I suffer from a very bad case of Dualism. And will need to work on this for some years.
I suppose that true Zen Student wouldn’t be put off by having seen the crib sheet on Day Zero.
Zaphod,
“you’re talking past each other because you’re talking about different historical eras. AD speaks of our present state where consensus only occurs when vested interests align. GB speaks of the Reasonable Enlightenment Man’s Eschaton — served at room temperature and only gently immanentised.”
I take it to be a self-evident truth, one repeatedly demonstrated throughout history, that a deliberative body charged with making law must have a reasonable degree of societal consensus. Otherwise, the inescapable result of an intransigent and fundamental lack of consensus will be societal conflict, one on such a scale as to eventually destroy that country.
That rationale is why I am not talking past Art. I am well aware of where things currently stand. Art does indeed argue that we must work with what we have. I am arguing that accepting things as they are, as a starting point is a premise that will logically lead to defeat.
That is exactly the premise that the GOPe has been operating under, at least since Nixon. That, not withstanding the Reagan and Trump Presidencies, who the GOPe viewed as temporary inconveniences. We need to apply in the domestic sphere, the doctrine Reagan advocated in fighting the “Evil Empire”… “We win, they lose.”
The Left has become “the focus of evil in the modern world”.
If 60 Million dead American babies and “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce” a people “under an absolute Despotism” doesn’t qualify as evil, then nothing does.
Art Deco wrote, “This is no country for old men.”
Of course I looked up the obvious reference: Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium, and perhaps the implication: Yeats, The Second Coming.
Instead:
Noel !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAF84r09Z4c
@GB:
I’m willing to countenance quite the butcher’s bill to save the next 60 million babies… and re-establish an general understanding of the need for compromise and consensus (within an Overton Window which has had almighty shove in my preferred direction, mind you).
I guess the question is does that make me as bad as a utopian leftist who will countenance just about anything if it brings the Eschaton a little bit nearer?
Because short of putting the serious terminal hurt on a bunch of folks, the AD Way is about it. IMHO.
Zaphod,
“I guess the question is does that make me as bad as a utopian leftist who will countenance just about anything if it brings the Eschaton a little bit nearer?”
Before I address the implicit premise in that question, let me first establish a few things. No one here wants to see America fall to the left or dissolve into the madness of a civil war. That said, at this point the left is forcing that choice upon us. If the Democrats repeat of voter fraud fails in 2022 and 2024 and, the next President and Congress really adopt the meme “We win, they lose” rather than simply offer it lip service… then we may escape that existential choice. Otherwise, I see little hope that it can be avoided. It will be a matter of when, not if.
OK, regarding your question. No, putting the hurt on the left would not make us the same as the left. No more than the WWII allies fighting ‘dirty’ against the Nazis made them no better than the Nazis. It’s the reason why we fight that matters.
The left seeks to force their vision upon us and is willing to do whatever they can get away with however deceitful, however unlawful. That’s what makes them the actual fascists. They are the aggressor not we.
While the right simply wants to live their lives free of coercion. We have a right to defend ourselves from efforts to control the way we believe, think, speak and act within the constraint of other’s rights.
The left of course, claims that it is we who are imposing upon them by resisting their efforts to better life in the world. That claim falls completely apart when rigorously examined, which invalidates that argument.
People have the right to believe whatever they wish, however erroneous. The do not have the right to impose their beliefs upon others. When they seek to force their beliefs upon us, we have the right and, as free men and women the obligation to stop them from aggressing against us by the means needed to accomplish it.
You don’t stop an armed rapist with a pen knife. And shooting the rapist dead doesn’t make the defending woman no better than he.
@GB:
“While the right simply wants to live their lives free of coercion. We have a right to defend ourselves from efforts to control the way we believe, think, speak and act within the constraint of other’s rights.”
Agreed. I’d probably say Other’s Natural Rights to leave some wiggle room.
I’ll go much further off-piste and I don’t expect everyone or even anyone here to agree:
I’m OK with limited tyranny where the social contract is honoured such that the State is not trying actively to subvert, eliminate, corrupt me and my bloodline.
I’m OK with limited tyranny which maintains the Grand Poohbar’s Peace. Can I walk down the street at 3am?
I’m OK with limited tyranny which doesn’t look inside my head and second guess my thoughts if I don’t put on public displays of virtue.
I’m OK with limited tyranny which is predictably tyrannical. If I know that what is Right Out this year was Right Out last year, and will remain so Next Year… well I can perhaps may my accommodations with that.
I know it because I live in one and have made my peace with the idea of it and can say with complete honesty that I live less of a life of subjection and slavery here than I would in Australia, for example.
We’re all legends in our lunch hour mostly and Lexington Green, Walter Mitty, and all that….
… Up to a point.
But when I get the feeling that the ideological goal posts are arbitrary and that anything goes and it’s Springtime for Bullies and Psycopaths. Then it’s time to hoist Mencken’s Black Flag and get on with it.
One can feel it getting close. They just won’t let up.
Maria Bartiromo, this morning on Fox Business, says her sources say there are five Democrat senators who opposed this bill. Manchin was the focus of the attacks, but there are others.
Plus, Pelosi forced her caucus to vote for this monstrosity, and swing district members in the House are now either election targets or are deciding not to run for reelection.
For a very short period of time in the nineties I was assigned to an executive. branch office in the White House. I saw first-hand the people who worked there full-time, and I was impressed. Well-educated and highly motivated politically, they knew they were right about policy and the world in general. Even when they weren’t.
I am sure that same mentality obtains now, but the major difference between now and then is that the incumbent president is weak and rudderless, giving ideologues like Ron Klain free hand to push their personal preferences on the country.
Without knowing Klain personally, I am guessing he looked at Manchin and thought: “I can roll this country hick.” What he didn’t know is just how well Manchin understands what motivates his constituency.
I am sure we will see future missteps by Klain. As an ideologue who did not run for the office he holds, he doesn’t appreciate the importance (to some elected officials) of truly representing his constituents’ interests. That’s a serious failing on his part.