Joe Manchin, The Grim Reaper

After months of the Biden administration attempting to negotiate with U.S, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) over the Build Back Better bill, Manchin announced yesterday that he will vote no on the bill, dooming it to a 51-49 defeat, because nothing that President Biden could offer could make him a "yes" vote.

You know what this means?  This means that Biden will lose support among progressives for having let them down when he said he could get Manchin to vote for it.  The Republicans will take over the House and possibly the Senate in the 2022 midterms, and just like in the third year of the Clinton and Obama administrations, Congress's chief priorities will be low taxes, small government, and a complete disregard for anything else.  Anything else will include everything in the Build Back Better bill.  Then, in 2024, the Democratic presidential candidate - maybe Biden, maybe someone else - will win but the election will be stolen through a series of voting restrictions and uncounted votes in swing states.  And then in 2025, Donald Trump will assume power, declare martial law, and have members of the Squad fitted for orange jump suits.   

But hey, we got the hard-infrastructure bill passed, right?    

The only modicum of hope I can find in Manchin's statement is that Congress could prioritize elements of the Build Back Better bill that could be funded for ten years, which Manchin had suggested, and try to pass them piecemeal with Manchin's support.  Except that the White House thought they had a deal with Manchin as recently as last week, and right now they're in no mood to deal with him.  Hopefully President Biden will take time off during the holiday and cool his jets before re-engaging with the wily West Virginian.

Those who bitch about how the White House and congressional leaders should not have decoupled the hard-infrastructure bill from Build Back Better ought to remember that Manchin had always been opposed to passing a large bill such as Build Back Better through reconciliation and that his opposition would have sunk the hard-infrastructure bill as well.  Joe Manchin simply cannot be trusted to back anything that President Biden supports.   

Prepare for worse to come in the new year.