There’s a new book titled Lincoln on the Verge, about the newly elected president taking a whistle-stop journey from his home in Springfield, IL to Washington D.C. in 1861. Covering thirteen days, with stops in eight northern states, the purpose of the trip was to gauge his popularity and introduce himself to the folks that he would ultimately send to war. You see, the election was a 4-way race with Lincoln only winning 39% of the popular vote. The ascendency of abolitionist Lincoln was the last straw for the slave states. While Lincoln was on his way to take office on March 4th, Jefferson Davis was already being sworn in as president of the break-away Confederacy in Mississippi. Lincoln gave 101 speeches, light on his usual folksy humor. We know how serious things became.
To many, our nation is again hopelessly divided, with intense issues of ideology, race, and economics – no joking matter. Today, there are still over 2,000 troops guarding the Capitol against “insurrection”. Our military is being purged of Right-leaning troops, and the federal government is wholly controlled by the Democratic Party, hell-bent on implementing a controversial agenda. But one man stands in the way of America’s total transformation: West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin (orig., Mancino/Mancini). The vehicle that prevents that transformation is the filibuster, a Senate tradition that encourages compromise and requires a 60% vote majority on controversial bills. Manchin is being pressed by his fellow Democrats to vote against the filibuster so that the Left’s utopian dreams may be fulfilled. Democrats have promised him the world and even nominated his wife to a hi-salaried federal commission. Yet, Manchin has drawn the line on one-party rule. He is truly bipartisan.
West Virginia gave Donald Trump a winning margin of 40 points in 2020. The state is conservative Republican, but that wasn’t always the case. Joe Manchin often reflects on how West Virginia propelled John F. Kennedy to the White House. The Manchin family were Democrats back to his immigrant Italian grandfather. The big issue in 1960 was Kennedy’s Catholic faith, but the Manchins were Catholic, too. Italians came to West Virginia as pick & shovel coal miners. But, nonno Manchin opened a grocery store, where Joe worked during the 1950s. Joe’s father and uncle went into politics. In 2005, Joe was elected governor of the state.
Although his mother’s people were from old Czechoslovakia, Manchin seems to be dominated by a very Italian outlook. Beside his conservatism, he has long been considered a reasonable and affable politician who values chewin’ the fat with colleagues on both sides of the aisle. He actually lives on a 65-foot boat, docked eight miles from the Capitol. There, he entertains guests of both parties with humor, pizza, beer, and merlot. Living on a boat is Manchin’s way of saying he has no roots in Washington. He has expressed a reverence for the Senate, perhaps instilled in him by his predecessor, the late Sen. Robert Byrd who wrote a book on the Roman Senate. Destroying it by abolishing the filibuster would make the Senate a mere rubber stamp for the radical Left.
This might all seem melodramatic, but both parties no longer have common ground. Name the issue – voting rights, immigration, filibuster, energy, climate – and Democrats don’t even pretend to want bipartisanship. In today’s NYTimes, pundit Maureen Dowd urges Biden, “Ditch that other habit of yours…to appease Republicans.” This go-it-alone haughtiness has infected every Democrat except Joe Manchin, and perhaps Senator Krysten Sinema (D-AZ)
Likewise, the corporate media and the oligarchs of social media have no use for bipartisanship, as they cheer on the utopian agenda and abandon any semblance of balanced reporting and investigative journalism. Even humorous journalists like Maureen Dowd and comedians like Joy (Occhiuto) Behar of TV’s The View stay clear of making jokes at the Left’s expense. Saturday Night Live and all the late night comedians get writer’s block on the subject of President Biden’s blunders, lapses, and flaws. As conservative humorous Adam Carolla observes: “If comedians are scared, then everyone is scared because they were really our last hope. They are the last sort of truth tellers in society… If any mainstream comedian made jokes deemed center-right or pro-Trump, their future bookings would dry up.”
So now that even the comedians have clammed up, Joe Manchin may be the last stand-up guy. -JLM
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