Senator Manchin

[ndrosen]

I don’t know what Joe Manchin’s motives are, but I think he deserves credit for saving the country from an enormously expensive expansion of the federal government into areas where it has no business, to be financed in large part by borrowing in the name of future generations unable to give their consent. We are still likely headed for a fiscal and debt crisis, but now it may at least be postponed.

I hope to see divided government, with a few Democrats who are not de facto socialists, and a few Republicans who are not Trumpanzees; this may perhaps save us from the follies and the malice of the two political mainstreams.

Comments

[warriorsavant]

Actually it's a myth that we have always rigidly been a 2 party system. However, we mostly have been; currently have 2 political parties: the Evil Party and the Stupid Party.

Whatever the virtues (and motives) of Manchin's position, it seems to me that he negotiated in bad faith. He had the power at the moment, but that was due to the circumstances, which won't last. The mistrust in himself that he's generated will last forever.

[thewayne]

It is a problem with both parties: we no longer have a spectrum of liberal conservatives and conservative liberals. I'd love to see a dynamic third party in play that both sides had to treat with - not the current Greens or Libertarians, such a theoretical party doesn't exist. But that's not going to happen, too many people think it has to be R or D, while that is not enshrined in anything except tradition.