I hope Red State Dems like Manchin are watching Ari right now

[malaise]

That is all

[lisa58]

1. Watching and agree

[malaise]

4. Really good stuff

Watch John Tester and Sherrod Brown for real

[lisa58]

8. He's killing it again now about minority rule

[malaise]

9. Yep - WaterMan is right about Ari

He is authentic

Stay vigilant

[kimbutgar]

2. I've been saying that for days

Manchin will be attacked and voted out if he stays with the filibuster. HR 1 is a must pass bill otherwise he will be annihilated when he runs for re election.

[SharonClark]

3. Chai Komanduri's theory is that red state

Dems like Manchin should stick WITH Biden, not go against Biden because the most important person in an election is the popularity of the President. He used Obama and Ben Nelson as an example.

He said Warnock and Osoff know that for them to be successful in GA that they need to keep Biden popular in GA.

He said Tester doesn’t showboat if he disagrees with Biden.

Interesting conversation.

[malaise]

5. Loving the discussion

Also love Howie Dean

[LizBeth]

14. Interesting. Thanks.

[LizBeth]

6. Just a sentence of what you are talking would be helpful.

[MoonchildCA]

11. See #3 post above. That person summed it up pretty well.

[LizBeth]

15. Thank you, it is interesting.

[SharonClark]

7. Howard Dean said that politicians should be true

to themselves and Ari said that Manchin is not coming across as true to himself if his issue is that he won’t make good decisions without Repug support.

[Steven Maurer]

10. Joe Manchin represents a 2 to 1 Republican State

I don't think he really needs advice on how to win.

[Celerity]

13. That is not the point.

If he doesn't play ball with the other 99+% he can truly toss a spanner in the works and hurt our chances in 2022 and perhaps even POTUS in 2024.

Manchin's e-election doesn't even occur for well over 3 and a half years, and not one person yet has adequately explained how some of his stances (that hurt his own viters) acually help him win in 2024.

Justice (per an actual WV voter here) has outflanked him atm on the left and on the right. His re-election chances at 50/50 at best, as even with the huge 2018 Blue Wave he barely won. If 9500 or so votes had flipped the other way, he would have lost. His iffy one seat chances in almost 4 years are not as important as the hundreds we have in 2022.

[Steven Maurer]

16. Play ball is not the same thing as lockstep

Manchin has:

1) Given control of the Senate to the Democrats
2) Voted for the COVID relief bill, with only very minor modifications
3) Represents a state that is R+28, meaning that he needs basically half the Trump voters in his state to vote for him

Remember that we were going to just sweep out Susan Collins, etc? It didn't happen.

And yes, Justice has absolutely 100% provided bipartisan cover for Manchin to vote for the COVID bill. But he can do that because he has the (R) next to his name.

Of course Senator Manchin's elections are always going to be hard. He basically needs to have half the Trump voters vote for him.

[Celerity]

18. Non sequitur

I never said lockstep

If he ends up one of the main people (or sole person) blocking the massively important voting bills, that is not a failure to be in lockstep, it is helping to destroy our Party. Zero hyperbole there, especially with the SCOTUS likely to take a meat cleaver to the current VRA, and then the Rethugs pushing close to 250 voter suppression bills in 43 states.

[Steven Maurer]

19. He hasn't blocked a bill yet; don't pretend he has...

He's demanded small modifications for his vote.

Modifications like: "No, the threshold for couples getting their COVID relief tax free won't be $200,000, only $160,000."

It's downright bizarre to see self-described "progressives" throwing a tantrum over poor beleaguered couples earning $195,000 not getting a tax break. But here we are.

Oh, and the "price" that Senator Manchin is going to demand for Biden's infrastructure bill? Increasing taxes on both billionaires and corporations. The horror! Anything but that!!

The bottom line: Manchin sounds more like a Democrat than many "progressives" these days.

[WarGamer]

12. 70% of Manchin's constituents voted for Trump...

Think about it... can he govern like Sen. Markey?

[gratuitous]

17. I'm sure they'll all be sending back their Biden bucks, too

I mean, how in the world can you sell the notion of more money in your pocket if Democrats put it there? It's just unpossible! No reason to even mention it going forward.