Question for the "Democrats need to force Manchin to get in line" folks:

[StarfishSaver]

Manchin is obviously not going to "get in line" to vote for the bill into current form or to get rid of the filibuster, so now what?

The Voting Rights bills are NOT going to pass as is without Manchin and a few Republicans. Do you think Biden and the Senate Dems should make some compromises to try to swing some Republicans to vote for some type of voting rights protections (with or without Manchin) or stand their ground and just let the bill die?

[ananda]

1. Neither.

People need to protest and demonstrate at the appropriate
state capitols... every day in large numbers, persistently.

[Elessar Zappa]

2. Unfortunately,

we’re gonna have to try and compromise. Something is better than nothing. Of course there’s always the chance that ten repubs won’t vote for ANY voting reform.

[walkingman]

4. Chance? Not a snowballs chance in hell.

[Elessar Zappa]

8. You're probably right.

Wouldn’t hurt to try though. Otherwise it’s already dead in the water.

[walkingman]

10. Always good to have hope. Never underestimate nasty white people. History is clear on that.

[RainCaster]

5. Mitch won't allow a compromise of any kind

We are wasting our time dealing with Republicans.

[StarfishSaver]

17. So now what?

[WarGamer]

21. take what you can get. Make progress.

I think the GOP will support 1.2, 1.3T in infrastructure.

Don't get bogged down in Unicorn Legislation, aka Legislative Masturbation...

Joe is doing great in the polls right now because he's getting stuff done.

I understand the desire to change the nation overnight but our system isn't set up that way.

[dpibel]

28. Unicorn voting rights?

Or are you referring to unicorn insurrection investigation?

And do you actually think that protecting existing, hard-won voting rights is changing the nation overnight?

[wellst0nev0ter]

32. Don't bother, he's repeating talking points from 2009-10

before the Democrats got wiped out in the House.

[lagomorph777]

41. We got wiped out in 2010 because we wasted time trying to appease Republicans,

instead of pushing past them.

[StarfishSaver]

45. No

We were wiped out in 2010 because too many progressives whined that Obama hadn't given them enough and they sat it out or voted third party in order to teach him and other Democrats a lesson.

And this idea that Obama could have just pushed past them is ludicrous. We barely got Obamacare and his other legislation through by the skin of our teeth. I was there and know there weren't enough votes to enable us to just "push" things through. We were lucky to get done the things that we did - and we had to do it while listening to catterwalling from unhappy progressives who demanded we pull a rabbit out of a hat when all we had were squirrels and we didn't even have a hat.

That argument is the same argument being used now to demand Democrats refuse to make any compromises and force through legislation, as if they have the votes to do it, which they obviously do not have.

[lagomorph777]

47. You can blame the voters, but many of them lost faith because of the GOP-coddling.

We're sort of saying the same thing.

We had the majorities; we failed to whip our people into line and push really inspiring legislation. So many of our voters lost hope.

[StarfishSaver]

48. Yes, I blame voters who don't vote for Democrats and allow Republicans to take power

Especially those who don't vote because they weren't "inspired."

[lagomorph777]

49. OK, then.

Nothing to do with the actions of our politicians and party leadership?

We'll just have to disagree.

If I'm running a shop, and nobody buys my stuff, I can blame the customers and go out of business, or I can change my products, my marketing, or my prices.

[CrackityJones75]

50. You are asking a lot of the Democrats

You are asking a lot of the Democrats who are supposed to somehow appeal to every voter instead of every voter understanding that they won’t get their exact ideals out of the democrats (or any party for that matter)

[StarfishSaver]

51. Politics isn't a store and policies aren't products nt

[lagomorph777]

54. That does seem to be a misunderstanding that our leadership has.

Policies and politicians sure as hell are products that have to be sold to the public.

[StarfishSaver]

55. As you said, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

[Fullduplexxx]

26. Something's better than nothing so let's just let the Republicans write the Bill's and dems can pass

Cause that's the only way things will get done . Infrastructure will be paid for with user fees... cant tax the rich but hey it's better than nothing .. environment regs can go cause they cost the rich money cant do that ...

[Mr.Bill]

37. The republicans wouldn't vote

for a cure for cancer if it was a democratic bill.

[PortTack]

3. I would think any voting rights bill would be better than none, but turtle isn't going to stand

For any defections.

[Humanist_Activist]

6. All compromises would have to be to weaken the bill to the extent that...

realistically it wouldn't make voting any easier nor would it hobble current and future voter suppression bills. Bipartisanship here would have to favor Republicans. They would happily vote for a "voting security act" as long as it allows them to prevent POC and the poor from voting.

[lagomorph777]

42. We can compromise all the way down to crap, and then GQP will vote against it unanimously.

Utterly pointless.

We have to rise in the streets and frighten Manchin and Sinema. They need to understand they are risking their jobs with this crap.

[CrackityJones75]

52. This. Is exactly what must be done.

[JohnSJ]

7. The fact that you couldn't even get the republicans to agree to a nonpartisan commission on Jan 6

pretty much says that the only chance we have to move forward is 2022, and winning the majority in the House and Senate by at least two seats

[bamagal62]

12. This.

[CrackityJones75]

53. Correct.

[napi21]

9. If a lot of W Va. resident contact Joe's office & ask him to vote yes, he likely will. The rest of

us won't matter to Joe. I'm sure he's enjoying the power & the limelight right now, so we need to contact as many W Va voters as we can & ask them to tell Joe to vote yes & to get his fellow Dem. who's the other holdout, to change her vote too.

[lagomorph777]

43. +1000 This is pretty much the only path to salvation.

[sop]

11. Democrats need to register in huge numbers and vote. No one is going to ride in on a white horse

and save democracy for us. It's always been up to us, the voters. These GOP voter suppression efforts will only work if they discourage people from voting.

[bamagal62]

14. Yes. And we need to be doing this now

And not letting up.

[Ligyron]

46. I think it has been shown that most people do not vote.

I May be wrong about that but it’s a large number.

We need to get a hold of these people somehow, get them registered and get them to vote Democrat. We also need to get everybody photo ID’s so they theoretically can’t be turned away at the polls.

[spanone]

13. republicans are actively destroying established voting norms...

any concessions by Biden or Senate Dems will be short of letting them continue their destruction....bipartisanship is a one-way street in republican world.

[drray23]

15. Manchin is not for SB1 but he is pushing the john Lewis

voting rights act. It's not as expansive than sb1/hb1 but it would be good to get that passed. it's like the old one with the exception that all 50 states have to get preclearance from doj. This might also make it more palatable to the scotus.

[Hoyt]

16. +1.

[StarfishSaver]

18. The Lewis Act doesn't have a 50-state pre-clearance provision because that would be unconstitutional

Yet Manchin is pushing for such a provision. The Supreme Court would throw that out 9-0.

He's trying to insert a poison pill that would doom the bill in court. Not surprising.

He's a menace.

[msfiddlestix]

31. Exactly how I see him. He pushes for stuff that would be thrown out, pretending as if that

is what a compromise looks like.

He's playing some pretty lame games.. so forgetting about him,

what would it take to get buy in from Senators on the other side? We'd still total of 60 votes right? I think that would mean 11 or 12 Republicans, right? I'm counting Manchin and Sinema out for the sake of realistic expectations.

I can't count more than one or two, if that many.

How to proceed then?

[StarfishSaver]

33. I don't know

But I do know the White House, Senate Dems, advocacy groups (including civil rights groups and moderate-leaning Republican organizations), business leaders, and others are all working very hard behind the scenes to convince possibly-gettable Republican Senators to come on board.

It's a longshot, but not a lost cause.

[msfiddlestix]

35. Very happy to know that.

Convincing Republicans behind the scenes, curious to know how that's going. And I have much more faith in advocacy groups than I do with certain Senators. Potential Republicans will be the clincher. It will have to be

Love to be a fly on the walls of those rooms!

[StarfishSaver]

36. Other senators can be very effective

They don't do it randomly - the whipping operation coordinates it carefully to have senators work on senators they may have relationships with.

If you watch CSpan, keep an eye on the Senate floor and watch who's talking to whom between and during votes. A lot of times when you see a Democratic senator chatting with a Republican senator, it's not a casual conversation about family or the weather - they're whipping them.

If you see a non-senator in the conversation, that's a hopeful sign - it's likely a staffer giving them more in-depth information about the legislation they're talking about. If you see two or more staffers in the conversation, that's a REALLY good thing because if anything's going to happen, it first gets hashed out at the staff level.

As I said, lots happens behind the scenes - but if you can't actually be a fly on the wall, you can still see some of the machinations happening if you watch closely ...

[msfiddlestix]

38. +++

Thanks for that..

[lagomorph777]

44. What it would take for GQP buy-in is a miracle. They vote in lockstep to harm the nation.

It's far more realistic to pressure Manchin, Sinema, Feinstein, and our other DINOs.

[WarGamer]

19. Asking the GOP to vote for something that ends their Party?

[Takket]

20. I think they should compromise but I don't know what that would look like

McConnell will probably offer some deal that isn't really a deal. Just lip service to make it look like they are trying, like offering to increase taxes on the rich by 0.5%

But I have a hard time believing we'll even get half of the voting rights laws we want. I guess my question for Mr. Manchin is what is the gop offering to you and does your own party think it will actually help? If the answers are "nothing" or "it won't help anything" then he has to explain why he thinks that is acceptable. I.E. is the filibuster a more important pillar of our democracy than VOTING?

[Mad_Machine76]

22. Hold a debate and make the best arguments for it

and hold a vote and let the chips fall where they may. Let people see who voted for it and who didn't. Don't make the obstructionists' job easy. Also, propose changing the filibuster to make them do more work and see what happens with that too.

[OnDoutside]

23. Firstly, forget about getting any republicans. Secondly, I feel like we are

Missing something that is not being said and known about within the Manchin/Dem leadership axis. None of this is adding up

S1 would help Manchin above all other Dems in future elections, Senate or WV Governor. Republicans are enacting voter suppression laws in WV too.

If this was simply a matter of pumping massive amounts of money into WV with Manchin's name all over it, the deal would surely have been done by now ?

Bear in mind that Manchin hasn't voted against a Dem bill that matters yet, which is why I still have hope.

[Johonny]

24. Why would the GOP negotiate in good faith when they're passing voter suppression laws in states

There doesn't appear to be any active interest in the GOP of expanding access to voting. It would be a huge surprise if any compromise bill was passed given that.

It would be like in 1960 finding lots of congressional votes from the south to end Jim Crow laws. Those people didn't want to vote for the very things they used to get into office. They had to be forced to abandon those methods. Joe is basically surrendering to the GOP on this issue. People will lose access to voting as a result. There's no other result that will happen. And he knows it.

[StarfishSaver]

25. I ask again. Now what?

[msfiddlestix]

27. Good questions. I'd be interested to know what your thoughts on potential compromises

I kinda feel like Manchin isn't interested in any voters rights bill at all. but I could be wrong.

I'd love to hear proposed compromises from you and others to make it happen.

[Bettie]

29. The only compromise they will accept

is....well, none.

It won't pass.

The "compromise" Moscow Mitch wants is "only old white men with a whole lot of money can vote"...that would get all the Republicans and Joe Manchin (and probably Krysten Sinema on board).

Yeah, that's exaggeration, but not by all that much.

[Happy Hoosier]

30. Not sure of the benefit.

Any compromises that would get the support of 10 GQP members is likely to render the law ineffective.

[StarfishSaver]

34. The Dems aren't stupid enough to agree to anything that would make the law ineffective

But they may have to agree to things that would make the law less effective - since a weaker law is much better than no law at all.

That's exactly how the various civil rights bills were passed in the 1950s and 60s. Civil advocates didn't get all that they wanted at first - they had to give up quite a bit of what they originally demanded and LBJ as Senate Majority leader had to compromise a lot with Republicans and segregationist Democrats to get a civil rights bill passed. But they knew a watered-down bill was better than no bill at all. And once it was on the books, they were able to build on it over the years.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

39. From the Hoarse Whisperer

Link to tweet

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

40. McConnell is the self identified grim reaper of all Democratic legislation.

He will not compromise in any meaningful way with Democrats.

Manchin will not be forced to do anything. I have resigned myself to President Biden's agenda being fully obstructed in the same way that McConnell obstructed President Obama's agenda.