Gloria Holmes
It gets no more legitimacy, elitist, or undemocratic than the band’s tantrum when Senator Joe Manchin declared “no” to President Joe Biden’s multibillion-dollar spending plan.
His reasons are simple: “If I can’t go home and explain it to the people of West Virginia, I can’t vote for it. He also noted the insanity of spending trillions of dollars on fees amid decades of high inflation, high national debt, and an ongoing pandemic.”
Cue the moan of the band.
Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) took to Twitter to call Manchin’s interpretation “bulls-t,” insisting that “West Virginia residents will benefit directly” from the new spending.
Representative Ayanna Pressley (D) accused him of “obstructing” the president’s agenda, accusing Manchin of “not negotiating in good faith.”
It’s just the kind of harassment that Manchin cited on Monday as another reason for his rejection of the bill. He said that the progressives acted as if they just intimidated him enough — encouraging people to harass him at home or follow Senator Kerstin Sinema to the bathroom — he was going to follow. We don’t respond.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DeQueens/Becklin) won the award for concluding that “the way the Senate works is unreasonable. It’s fundamentally undemocratic,” she said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” and called for “the suppression of the Senate, It works like an old boys club with a few girls.”
However, the Senate is working just as policymakers wanted it to, freezing legislation that lacks a sustainable popular mandate. As James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers: “The need for the Senate is no less than the inclination of all individual and plural assemblies to succumb to the impulse of sudden and violent outbursts, and to break down the leaders of the factional in malicious decisions.”
In this case, the violent emotions of a crying squad act as if only Mansion is killing their agenda. In fact, 50 Republican senators join him, for a majority in opposition. (Other Senate Democrats sympathize—but are reluctant to risk the wrath of the hard left.)
for the team, As AOC saysDemocracy at stake. Which means that it is not democratic if the group does not get what it wants, and the real majority is damned.
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Laurence Malcom
