Manchin (not even counting the potentially even more radical Sinema, who wants to move to a 60 vote threahold for ALL Senate action) can singlehandedly stop all major Biden legislation. He can can even bring all reconciliation-enabled legislation to a dead stop.
IF he actually follows through and does all this (blocking the voting rights bills especially will fuck us and the country badly, so badly) he is going to go down in history as the most hated Democrat in history since the worst of the old bull Dixiecrats.
IF he insists on bi-partisan bills (and this begs the question, what is a bi-partisan bill on the Manchinian scale) we are fucked. I so doubt even Collins and Murkowski break for us. Even if 5 Rethugs, 7 Rethugs do come over, we still do not have the 60 votes (which Manchin has said he will never vote to do away with, so down goes the talking filibuster reform option) for cloture for anything not germane to reconciliation.
Finally, he also is now saying he will not even accept goddamn reconciliation. IF he actually does that, Biden's agenda is completely dead (as is our party) in the water.
All this over a not at all certian re-election almost 4 years from now, an election that does us fuckall good if we lose the Senate (and even more likely the House) in 2022 and then fail again in 2024.
Dire situation we are in. We have zero real leverage on either Manchin or Sinema. Both can bolt the Party at any time as well if we go straight head cracking mode on them in a desperate attempt to force their hand.
It is pointless to primary Manchin. He is the only Dem who can win WV. Sinema, on the other hand, likely needs to go go go. Kelly has the exact same voters and is nothing like her in terms of insane demands for this pantomime bi-partisanship and its resultant gridlock, and he Is FAR more popular than she is. We need to find another Kelly, a centre left moderate who is NOT an obstructionist, doesn't have delusional thoughts of needing 60 votes for ALL Senate action, and will not vote with a RW thug like Trump around 60% of the time, which Sinema (as did Manchin) did in the 115th Congress.
Unless Manchin and Sinema are playing Olympian level bluffing games, we are headed for massive, systemically sustained trouble.
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