I cannot believe that one person is holding our country hostage yet again. I'm no Bernie Sanders fan, but I thought this was a good take by him and the authors.
"For Democrats, it isn’t the ideologues who keep things from working smoothly. It’s the so-called moderates — people such as Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona."
I've said before that our problem is that we can no longer talk about climate change policy because Republicans don't even believe it exists. We don't need to engage with people in denial. Here is the main takeaway from the article, which is on point:
"But the problem is not that Manchin is just more moderate than his fellow Democrats. It’s that he doesn’t have any discernible core ideology.
If Manchin did have clear and consistent beliefs, Democrats could work with him. They’d know where he stands, and there might be an achievable compromise, even if it meant Manchin getting 90 percent of what he wants and the other Democrats getting only 10 percent of what they want.
But he isn’t. The real contrast on display here is this: For all his reputation as a far-out lefty, Sanders is simultaneously an ideologue and a pragmatist. For instance, while he has long advocated the creation of single-payer health care, he has voted for most incremental improvements to our current mess of a system. He argues for big change, but accepts that small changes are better than nothing. That’s someone other Democrats can negotiate with, even if they’re less progressive than him."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/18/sanders-eruption-manchin-democratic-party/
Thoughts? Frustration that Manchin can't see he's not upholding what Americans want? Fury at people just trying to stop Dems for the only reason that they are Dems?