For the past couple of weeks the press has taken Joe Manchin to the wood shed for "failing to save democracy" because he won't vote to end the filibuster or vote for a national take over of election law. Of course these are the same media people that extol the virtues of Mitt Romney or Liz Cheney for standing up for their beliefs. It's okay to be frustrated with members of you own political bloc when they won't toe the party line. What's not okay is to portray these stand outs differently based on party.
Saturday, June 12, 2021
More press hypocrisy
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Ending the filibuster is a separate issue, I think, and I'm not seeing press coverage attacking or defending his position on this.
ReplyDeleteHis stand on voting rights isn't about any principled position he holds. Have you seen what he himself said about why he was voting "no"? Because the Republicans were, Seriously?
What press are you seeing "taking Joe Manchin to the woodshed"? I'm seeing press interviews with Democrats who are, but no press people doing it themselves.
Everyday in the local paper reporters for the AP and other major outlets have been all over Manchin as well as opinion pieces from various sources. Opinion is opinion and must be taken with a grain of salt but it is still in stark contrast to the way the press praises republicans that buck their party.
DeleteActually his position is that any voting bills that can't be agreed upon by both parties are counter productive because they will just in flame distrust in our elections.
I know his position. That's not what's inflaming distrust.
DeleteThat is exactly what is inflaming distrust. People on the left say every election law put in place by a republican is voter suppression and people on the right look at the lefts proposals and see a complete lack of security.
ReplyDeleteThat's not what's inflaming distrust. The refusal to accept the election results, this refusal to say that Biden was legitimately elected, this "we were robbed"/"they cheated" rhetoric -_that's_ what is inflaming distrust. When Republicans can say it out loud that their changes in election procedures are the only way to see a Republican ever elected again and then in the same breath say that it's not voter suppression, then it's obviously not about security. They have a "solution" to a voter fraud issue that Does Not Exist. This isn't a both-sides issue. This is a concerted effort whipped up by Trump and his fans to decrease voter opportunities.
DeleteNeither side is going to accept unilateral laws concerning elections because our ideas of the proper way to run an election are very different. Form where I sit Democrats seem to be in favor of very little security, and a party that doesn't want secure election wants them unsecured for a reason.
ReplyDeleteDemocrats do not oppose secure elections. I'm sorry you think that's the case. That you then go on to ascribe nefarious reasons for us not supporting these growing numbers of voting restrictions is a shame.
DeleteIt may be a shame but what reason other than lack of accountability could Democrats have for consistently opposing I.D. cards to vote. Democrats lose all credibility when they call everything racist, most of the proposals I've heard have nothing to do with race. Dems and Reps have do seem to pull in opposite directions on this as they do on many issues maybe this is why we need more politicians like Joe Manchin who don't see the purpose of passing legislation that tears the country further apart.
ReplyDelete"what reason other than lack of accountability could Democrats have for consistently opposing I.D. cards to vote"?! lol Democrats do not oppose ID cards to vote. Sheesh. I've had to provide an ID to vote since I started voting back in the 1970s, and my parents had to do it since God knows how many long decades before. And though not everything is racist, plenty of things are. Just because the proposals don't specifically say they're about race doesn't mean that race isn't a determining factor in these proposed voter restrictions.
DeleteAnd about Manchin... it's not that he objects to passing voting rights legislation but that he had difficulty with the lack of GOP support for what was proposed. The minute he proposed a compromise giving the GOP what they wanted they came out strongly against it, citing Abrams' support lol
A lack of GOP support shows that is partisan in nature and election law should not be partisan. Just because your state mandates ID's doesn't mean it is the law nation wide. Many Democratic politicians are quick to condemn any election law that requires an ID.
ReplyDeleteThat's the reason Manchin in his proposal said IDs should be required.
The Stacy Abrams excuse sounds like it is just red meat for the base.
No, actually, A lack of GOP support does _not_ necessarily show that the proposal itself is partisan in nature. When McConnell flat out says he ain't passing anything Biden supports, won't hear a SCOTUS nominees from him, etc., and when attempts from people like Manchin to propose legislation that contains exactly what the Republicans asked for in a determined bid to reach some kind of bipartisan agreement only to have them come out against it for no other reason than that Abrams has said she'd be willing to support it...
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, the GOP excuse that they don't like it while using the Abrams name to condemn it is _exactly_ red meat for their base. As is the grandstanding over refusing to vote for things like Juneteenth, which was unanimous in the Senate.
Democratic politicians are not opposed to voter ID in principle, as I've said. After all, we've had to show IDs to vote since forever. Stacey Abrams said that the Manchin proposal -which contains voter ID provisions- looked good to her. This idea that Democrats want no security and no accountability is nonsense. Again, all this state-level bill-passing to restrict voting is a "solution" in search of a problem.
Has Ohio not always required some kind of ID to vote? What, when your parents showed up to vote they just gave a name without any ID required? The first time you voted you didn't have to show any ID at all? That surprises me.
Not when I first voted some 40 years ago, it changed I want to say about 16 years ago. In the beginning they asked for a name and address and if your signature matched the registration card you could vote. Even now they will take a piece of mail as proof of identity. Which is not good enough in and of it self to renew a drivers license or various other things we require id for. We should respect the vote it doesn't need to be easy it needs to be taken serious. Look how many students do better in college when they are paying for it rather than getting it for free ( scholarship or mommy and daddy) they learn there is a value to education. Look how easy it is for people to throw their vote away each election voting for Mickey Mouse or some other fictional character.
ReplyDeleteRegistration card is a form of voter ID and is what we always used to use. "it doesn't need to be easy" is an attitude I don't understand. Reasonable access to the polls, that's what I support, not roadblocks to make it harder.
DeleteI've never known it to be the case that "students do better in college when they are paying for it rather than getting it for free ( scholarship or mommy and daddy)". Scholarships are earned, and parents paying can make sense for some families. Pride and satisfaction in a job well done is motivating and unrelated to how the courses get paid for.
That you don't approve of how someone uses their right to vote doesn't mean the people voting aren't taking it seriously. Just like some people think voting 3rd party in presidential elections is throwing away your vote while others see it as a principled choice. Our reasons and who we vote for isn't a good reason to make it harder to vote.
Uninformed or voters that will only vote if it's easy enough have us end up with presidents like the last 2 one who's to uncouth for many and one that is probably senile, depending on which side your looking at it from. Nobody from opposing sides could possibly unite behind the people that won.
DeleteBut making the right to vote ever harder to access doesn't get you less uninformed voters, and gatekeeping people's voter preparation process ain't up to us. Rob Portman was saying this morning, "We need to make voting easy."
DeleteThat Trump was uncouth wasn't my problem with him. That you're suggesting Biden night be senile shows your own lack of information ;)
Trump is the reason people from the opposing side didn't at least accept the loss and start working with the other side, and more is coming out every day about his attempts to get the election overthrown.
Of course it's hard to work with the other side when Dems and Reps don't seem to believe in the same America.
DeleteYou hear it from both side that they don't recognize the country any more of course that could just be getting old")
I never hear anybody say they don't think we "live in the same America" or that they "don't recognize the country".
DeleteNot every day but fairly regularly in the letters to the editor in the local paper.
DeleteBummer. We haven't subscribed to a local paper in years (that's a long story in and of itself lol), but I sometimes read comments on their FB posts, and there's plenty of crazy out there. Most of the comments I see locally are local issues or state issues. Our city is a bright blue spot in a deep red state.
DeleteWith a paper at least I'm not always picking my own news, the echo chamber is almost magnetic.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the importance of avoiding the one-source echo chamber. Depending on the paper, they provide their own echo chambers lol. And these days, with all the local papers being online and having Twitter feeds and FB pages, I can get news from a wide variety of sources.
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