Hacker News Reader

Comment by brendoelfrendo | Hacker News Reader

The obvious answer isn't really applicable here, though it does cross the lips of plenty of moderates. The reality is that the Democratic party is forced into being a "big tent" party of "everyone left of the Republicans," which represents a simply massive spectrum, and therefore they have less consensus than the Republican party. Take, for example, Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia who drew some ire after FiveThirtyEight found he sided with Trump's priorities 58% of the time. He's been vocal that he would never agree to eliminate the filibuster, because he's basically a Republican in all but name.

View on HN

As an international who is not as familiar with American politics (but wants to understand), why is this comment being down voted? Are the claims incorrect? Are they unsubstantiated?

As the person who wrote it, I'm not sure; I think this one of those things that's colored by opinion as much as fact. I would like to hear someone say what they think.

The bit about Manchin is fact, though. They can't change the rule without him, and he doesn't want to eliminate the filibuster. He did say that he would consider modifying it to make it more difficult, however.

Manchin is doing theater to appeal to his voter base, who are indeed largely not in his party.

He's being far more cooperative than, say, Liebermann was while passing the ACA, and his actual goal is to say he's fighting those out of control big city liberals by keeping the filibuster, but the changes he'll allow will make it completely different and more or less how it was in the 90s.

Sinema also wants to keep it and seems to actually be a true believer, which is dumb and not even what her voters want, so who knows what's up with that.

I always forget about Sinema, which is something I need to stop doing because, as you say, she's probably the true believer.

I don't think we can be too charitable towards Manchin considering his other stances. That said, you raise a good point: changing the filibuster doesn't really change his position; he's still an essential vote to pass any legislation in a tied senate, so he benefits from either outcome. I suppose, all other things being equal, it makes sense for him to nominally oppose ending the filibuster for the sake of his base.

It's being downvoted because it ignores the same issues on in the Republican party. Anyone who thinks either party is some monolithic blocks that all votes the same way hasn't been paying attention.

Because they're just as correct when you switch the labels.

With two parties both jockey for position in being as close to center as possible while still appearing unique. To leave the center is to sacrifice those voters to the opposition. This is why first past the post voting is stable yet nearly useless.

Democrats consist of actual liberals, marxists, authoritatians, etc.

Republicans consist of actual fiscal conservatives, the religious, libertarians, etc.

Both are unhappy alliances and occasionally fracture and spill one of these constituencies and the opposition rushes to appeal to them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com