Joe Manchin, Democrat

Democrats – moderates and Progressive alike – have been cursing the evil heart of Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia for not giving them what they want, a YES vote on H.R 5376, the Build Back Better Act.  

But Democrats ought to be kissing the back of Joe Manchin’s right hand for being a Democrat.  Senate Democrats, rank and file Democrats and especially President Joe Biden ought to be embracing him for partying with Democrats.

The Perils of Democracy

Republicans are 100% correct: our revered Founding Fathers did not intend that America should be a democracy (where “the people” rule).  Most of the so-called evidence that our Founding Fathers did not favor a democracy can be found on conservative websites with an anti-democratic agenda (it is only recently that Republicans or conservatives seem to be drifting away from the ideal of democracy).  But consider – from the gitgo, from the ratification of the U.S. Constitution – who had the right to vote was up to individual states.  Most states had a land-owning requirement, only one state allowed women or African Americans to vote, and only a few gave the vote to Catholics or Jews (atheists were not even a “thing” back then).  Everyone who sat in on the Constitutional Convention were white men of means, the aristocrats of their day.  And they did not intend that the “people” (as we see the word today) should rule themselves.  So, partisan Republicans are quite right.

However, …