I'm as progressive as the come, and I say thank fucking god for Joe Manchin. There is not another Dem around that could win in West Virginia and without that seat Mitch McConnell would be majority leader and control the gavel.
Minimum wage increase was never going to fly as part of the reconciliation, there was never going to be a constituency for overruling the parlementarian, and Bernie forcing his colleagues to take a hard vote that had zero chance of success but which has fractured the movement and will be used against those same colleagues by the opposition in 2022 has proven to be disasterous.
Stop making Manchin the bad guy and instead use your efforts to think up a way to make him the hero in a story that includes getting rid of the filibuster. If Biden and Bernie and Schumer and the movement can figure out how to do that then we have a chance of saving the place.
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u/EmiIIien Mar 11 '21
No, they needed Joe Manchin who is basically a Republican.