Manchin has all the power and he knows it. Bernie went after him. Manchin told him to go fuck himself. No amount of arm-twisting is going to make Manchin change his mind. National Democrats have no power over him. It behooves him to look like he’s a Republican in his state. You know this. Manchin fucking sucks, but he’s a symptom of the much larger problem: the anti-majoritarian lean of the Senate.
What did fivethirtyeight find, a 6-point tilt on average in the Senate towards the GOP that Democrats would have to overcome to maintain 50-50 in the Senate? Blue waves led to 50-50 in the Senate, and a 3-person majority in the House, that is 99.8% returning to the GOP after November ‘22, not least of which will be due in part to Republican gerrymandering from the statehouses they held or expanded upon during our 2020 “blue wave.” We’re fucking pis-ed at Manchin and Sinema because we as a party likely won’t have another shot at reconciliation bills that produce meaningful change until 2028 or later, which will easily be too late for the planet by then. It’s basically too late now.