The ‘Grim Reaper of Democracy,’ Mitch McConnell, Makes A Fool Of Joe Manchin, The New Poster Boy For Appeasement

Update to Joe Manchin Is The New Poster Boy For Appeasement Of The Enemies Of Democracy (Updated).

On Sunday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) wrote an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail that he will vote against a sweeping election reform overhaul bill, putting the fate of the For The People Act in jeopardy in the 50-50 Senate.

Manchin tried to redeem himself with what he laughingly called a “bipartisan” alternative. He and senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) may make a lovely odd couple, but they do not constitute a “bipartisan” alternative:

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would update the formula states and localities must use to ensure proposed voting laws do not restrict the rights of any particular group or population. My Republican colleague, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, has joined me in urging Senate leadership to update and pass this bill through regular order. I continue to engage with my Republican and Democratic colleagues about the value of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and I am encouraged by the desire from both sides to transcend partisan politics and strengthen our democracy by protecting voting rights.

As I said previously, “In what fantasy world do you live in, Senator? Jesus Christ! I can only conclude that you are either self-delusional or a complete idiot.”

The “Grim Reaper of Democracy,” Mitch McConnell, no doubt had a good belly laugh when he read Manchin’s op-ed. He chuckled to himself, in his evil chortle, “I can’t believe how lucky I am to have a Joe Manchin do my bidding to obstruct President Biden’s agenda to save American democracy.  When I and the “Orange Julius” Caesar return to power we will finally destroy American democracy.” Bwahaha!

Proving my point that Senator Manchin is either self-delusional or a complete idiot, the “Grim Reaper of Democracy,” Mitch McConnell, said the quiet part out loud yesterday and showed us his cards.  “I call, read ’em and weap!”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) came out against the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act on Tuesday, dealing a huge blow to the “bipartisan” voting measure sought by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). Who did not see this coming? Only you, Joe Manchin. Mitch McConnell Opposes Voting Measure Sought By Joe Manchin:

McConnell demonstrated on Tuesday that Republicans aren’t going to support restoring [the Section 4 formula for Section 5 preclearance] provision, meaning Manchin’s preferred alternative on voting rights is also dead on arrival in the Senate [because of the Senate filibuster rule he defends].

Pro Tip: Section 2 VRA cases can take up to a couple of years to play out in the courts, long after election results have been officially declared – “stolen” through GQP Jim Crow 2.0 voter suppression and disenfranchisement laws. Too late! This is no substitute for Section 5 DOJ preclearance of these GQP Jim Crow 2.0 voter suppression and disenfranchisement laws before an election.

And let’s not forget that the “Grim Reaper of Democracy,” Mitch McConnell, has spent the last four years packing the federal courts with far-right Federalist Society judges who will return the favor to McConnell and “Orange Julius” Caesar for giving them a sweet lifetime appointment, by upholding these GQP Jim Crow 2.0 voter suppression and disenfranchisement laws for bogus reasoning.

When the Voting Rights Act was last renewed in 2006, the vote was 98-to-0, and came on the day that President George W. Bush made his first presidential visit to a convention of the N.A.A.C.P., where he promised to sign the bill. By a Vote of 98-0, Senate Approves 25-Year Extension of Voting Rights Act. “Republicans had made renewal of the law a cornerstone of party efforts to reach out to minority groups, particularly blacks.”

That was so yesterday, this is now the Party of Trump and white nationalism:

“There’s no threat to the voting rights law. It’s against the law to discriminate in voting on the basis of race already,” Minority Leader McConnell said Tuesday at a weekly press conference when asked about the legislation.

“No threat to the Voting Rights Act,” Mitch? What do you call Shelby County v. Holder (2013). You had the better part of the past decade to amend the Section 4 formula to restore Section 5 DOJ preclearance authority along the lines suggested by the court, but you and your gang of radical GQP Sedition Caucus senators have killed every legislative attempt. YOU are the greatest threat to the Voting Rights Act, Mitch.

We either end the filibuster or we accept the end of Democracy. Norms and rules will not save us. https://t.co/oovGhZTNva

— Ruben Gallego (@RubenGallego) June 8, 2021

The “Grim Reaper of Democracy,” Mitch McConnell, has a checkered history on civil rights. He likes to claim he supported civil rights and voting rights, back in the day when it was still cool for Republicans to do so, but now he follows the lead of the GQP crazy base which, thanks to right-wing media propaganda, is all about white grievance and “replacement” theory in a multicultural society, and crypto-fascist GQP authoritarianism to establish a tyranny of the minority under their “Dear Leader” Donald Trump, in a MAGA/QAnon personality cult.

Bonus: McConnell also has a checkered history with the Confederate flag. Snopes: Did Mitch McConnell Pose in Front of a Large Confederate Flag? Short answer: yes he did.

UPDATE: Chris Hays demonstrates that Mitch McConnell is reaching back into the playbook of Jim Crow segregationists dating all the way back to the Reconstruction era.

Hey Joe Manchin! Where are those ten Republican “patriotic senators” you keep promising to produce? Still waiting.

No other Republican has expressed support for the bill other than Lisa Murkowski. It would need at least nine other GOP senators to advance in the Senate.

Manchin’s opposition to the For the People Act has left Democrats scrambling to figure out a path forward on voting rights as more GOP-led states move to pass partisan voting changes ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has vowed to hold a vote on the bill later this month, but without all 50 members of his caucus on board, it may not even advance to the floor.

Schumer told reporters on Tuesday that Democrats may make changes to the For the People Act to address Manchin’s concerns. Manchin is expected to lay out his objections to the bill this week.

Manchin made no substantive objections to the bill in his op-ed. His only objection was that because no Republican senators supported the For The People Act, he could not support it. This simpleton’s view of “bipartisanship” gives the radicalized Sedition Caucus enemies of democracy veto power over the one measure that could save American democracy from Trumpism, the new American fascism. The For the People Act Would Stop Voter Suppression in Its Tracks.

There is broad “bipartisan” public support for the For The People Act. As I posted on Tuesday, “New polls, commissioned by End Citizens United / Let America Vote Action Fund and conducted by Global Strategy Group and ALG Research released last month, show that the For the People Act (H.R. 1, S. 1)––which would protect Americans’ freedom to vote, stop billionaires from buying our elections, and put in place ironclad ethics reforms––is extremely popular in West Virginia and Arizona. Press Release.

From the Polling Memo:

SUPPORT FOR THE BILL

• • • The For The People Act is extremely popular in both West Virginia and Arizona. In West Virginia, voters supported the bill by 79%. In Arizona, 84% of respondents supported the bill, with a remarkable 73% supporting it strongly.
    • In both states, the bill remains broadly popular across the board—including with Republicans and Independents. In the red state of West Virginia, a full 76% of registered Republicans and 79% of registered Independents or unaffiliated voters support the For The People Act. In Arizona, the bill earned support from 78% of registered Republicans, and 81% of registered Independent or unaffiliated voters.
    • The bill also performed strongly with all ideological subgroups. In West Virginia, the bill garnered 82% from moderates and 76% support from conservatives. In Arizona, the bill earned 89% support from moderate voters, 80% support from somewhat conservative voters and even 75% support with very conservative voters.
    • The For The People Act was also a strong unifier among groups that do not traditionally lean towards Democrats. In West Virginia, voters without a college degree supported the bill 76%, with men without a college degree supporting it 74%. Men also supported the bill nearly just as much as women, 77% to 80%, and men aged 18-54 supported it 79%.
    • In Arizona, the bill garnered 83% support with voters without a college degree overall (including 74% that strongly supported the bill) and 80% with men without a college degree. White men in Arizona supported the bill 80%. Even Arizonans who had voted for Trump in 2020 supported the bill 75%.
    • The Democratic base is also almost universally supportive of the For The People Act, with 81% of West Virginia registered Democrats and 92% of Arizona registered Democrats supporting it.

This is the “bipartisan” support that Joe Manchin should concern himself with, not the radicalized Sedition Caucus senators, several of whom provided aid and comfort to the enemies of democracy during the insurrection on January 6.

Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent of the Washington Post explain, Unfortunately, the John Lewis voting rights bill isn’t nearly enough:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) just announced that he opposes the John Lewis measure, but it’s at least conceivable that some GOP senators might back it.

Unfortunately, even if it does have a chance of passing, it isn’t nearly enough.

The For the People Act, called S. 1 in the Senate, contains a long list of requirements for the way states conduct elections. It mandates automatic voter registration, ample early voting and easy ways for voters to identify themselves, as well as attacking gerrymandering.

In short, S. 1 goes directly after the kind of voter suppression laws and anti-majoritarian tactics Republicans are frantically pursuing at the state level.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, meanwhile, seeks to revive the original Voting Rights Act, which required “preclearance” of changes to voting laws by states and localities with a history of discriminatory practices. Those had to receive permission to change voting laws from the Justice Department, which would examine whether the changes would disenfranchise minority groups.

But that section of the Voting Rights Act was eviscerated in 2013 by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. The John Lewis Act would restore those types of protections.

[T]he John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act does not do all kinds of things that the more ambitious measure does. It wouldn’t undo already-passed voter suppression laws, it wouldn’t clamp down on extreme gerrymanders, and it wouldn’t make voter registration easier in numerous ways.

Still, the John Lewis Act could stop a good deal of what state-level Republicans have planned for the future of voter suppression — which is why Republicans oppose this measure, too.

And that’s why the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is also likely doomed in the Senate.

Key takeaway: “Ultimately, everything traces back to Manchin’s opposition to ending the filibuster.”

I would emphasis, again, that both voting rights bills need a new provision. Congress should include a statutory provision stripping Article III federal courts of jurisdiction:

[T]he Framers also granted Congress the power to regulate the federal courts in numerous ways. For instance, Article III authorizes Congress to determine what classes of “cases” and “controversies” inferior courts have jurisdiction to review. Additionally, Article III’s Exceptions Clause grants Congress the power to make “exceptions” and “regulations” to the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction. Congress sometimes exercises this power by “stripping” federal courts of jurisdiction to hear a class of cases. Congress has gone so far as to eliminate a court’s jurisdiction to review a particular case in the midst of litigation.

[T]he Constitution empowers a democratically elected branch—Congress—to decide what classes of cases the federal courts may review, as well as to enact legislation that courts may need to interpret.

And as the editors of the New York Times point out, a new provision that no one could have ever imagined before the GQP Jim Crow 2.0 assault on voting rights, i.e., addressing “the prospect that state officials will seek to overturn the will of voters.” Congress Needs to Defend Vote Counting, Not Just Vote Casting:

A new election law in Georgia highlights the shortcomings of H.R. 1. The Georgia law, passed in March … changes the rules of vote counting in ways that are not addressed by the federal legislation. It facilitates third-party challenges to the legitimacy of votes and arrogates to the state legislature, the General Assembly, the power to appoint most members of the state board of elections, who in turn have the power to replace county boards of elections. The legislature removed Georgia’s secretary of state from the State Election Board after the incumbent, Brad Raffensperger, refused to help Mr. Trump stake an illegitimate claim on the state’s electoral votes.

[A]nd in Arizona Senate Republicans have been conducting a tragicomical “fraudit” of the 2020 election.

In a statement published this week by the left-leaning think tank New America, more than 100 leading scholars of government warned that election laws in some states “no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections.” The statement warned that “our entire democracy is now at risk.”

The new restrictions have a disproportionate impact on Black and other minority voters. There is little comfort in the fact that these rules are much less restrictive than those in the olden days. The Jim Crow regime was constructed gradually.

The vote-counting process necessarily relies on the judgment and integrity of local officials. No rules can perfectly prevent malfeasance. But Congress can take steps to protect the integrity of the election process.

[H.R. 1] needs to go further. Congress also should establish uniform rules for vote counting, certification and challenges. It should also clarify its own role in certifying the results of presidential elections to prevent the possibility that a future Congress would overturn a state’s popular vote.

[T]his board has endorsed an earlier version of H.R. 1 and many of the current bill’s goals, as well as ending the filibuster to pass the bill outright. If proponents can muster the necessary votes to pass an expanded version that addresses threats to vote counting, that would be the best outcome for the United States.

[I]f Democrats can find 50 votes for reform, they should not postpone necessary interventions in the illusory hope of a bipartisan breakthrough, nor allow Republicans to filibuster.

Are you listening, Joe?