Biden won a fairly decisive victory last November, but the Democrats only won control of Congress by a microscopic margin. What lessons should we draw from that? What did the voters try to tell us?
The most plausible answer to that is that the electorate was sick of Trump’s antics, particularly with regard to the pandemic, but it had no stomach for any major policy shifts. It wanted quiet competence, and some incremental improvement, but nothing more.
I suspect that is Manchin’s understanding of the situation. It is likely to be the place we wind up when the story of the human capital bill has finally been written. And it is terrible news for the planet. The public simply hasn’t been prepared properly for the changes that are necessary to minimize the catastrophic impacts of climate change, so they are going to happen, no matter how vigorously we wring our hands about it.
Pay me now, or pay me a lot more later.