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Greg Sargent Profile picture
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7 Jun, 4 tweets, 3 min read
Manchin's position is unsustainable. He says GOP voting restrictions threaten our "freedom." So what happens when 10 GOP senators don't support *his* solution, the John Lewis act? Dems can't act alone when freedom is on the line by *his* lights? New piece:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
In his op ed piece and on the Sunday shows, Manchin lays out three essential propositions. They cannot coexist forever. At a certain point, he'll have to either change positions or admit that his current words have no meaning:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Ira Shapiro, former counsel to Robert Byrd, tells me that if Manchin supported lowering the filibuster threshold to 55, it would be consistent with Byrd's legacy. Byrd backed lowering it from 67 to 60.

This would be consistent with Manchin's principles:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Here's the NYT's coverage in 1975 of Sen Robert Byrd and others lowering the threshold for the filibuster to 60 votes.

Byrd's counsel, Ira Shapiro, tells me that if Manchin supported lowering it to 55, it would be perfectly consistent with that legacy:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

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More from @ThePlumLineGS

Greg Sargent Profile picture
8 Jun
New reporting:

The new Senate report on Jan 6 security failures was carefully negotiated to win GOP buy-in, which required minimizing the importance of Trump's lies about the election and the real motive of the rioters, a Dem aide tells me.

Details here:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
“To get bipartisan agreement, the language had to be carefully negotiated,” a Dem aide tells me.

The aide recounts how Republicans wanted the minimization of Trump's lies and the motives of the rioters.

I did a close read of those parts of the report:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
To be clear, there are reasons we want GOP buy in on this report, since it's mainly focused on improving security at the Capitol.

But what this really shows is that we need a fuller accounting, and it demonstrates exactly why Republicans don't want one:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 5 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
25 May
The right response to Republicans opposing the 1/6 commission is that they're doing this because they're implicated in the crime. Their excuses are entirely unmoored from anything resembling good faith arguments. Here's a rundown of the 5 most absurd ones:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Republicans claim the Jan 6 commission is "partisan."

That's nonsense on its face. But what they really mean is that if the commission doesn't give them absolute veto power over investigative direction, they won't permit for it to be called bipartisan:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Republicans claim the timing of the commission is all wrong.

That's weird. It's been nearly five months since Jan 6. And the commission would submit its report before the midterms get going in earnest.

There is no timing that Republicans would accept:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 6 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
21 May
Memo to Joe Manchin: McConnell is telling Republicans to oppose the bipartisan 1/6 commission on grounds that it will hurt them in 2022. One party is abandoning democracy. Either Dems will defend it on a partisan basis or it won't happen at all. New piece:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
McConnell privately told Republicans to oppose the commission because it's too partisan.

For McConnell, nothing will count as a bipartisan commission unless it is badly hamstrung from focusing on the role of Trump and Republicans in inciting the attack:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… ImageImage
Manchin still hopes 10 GOP senators will support the 1/6 commission.

But what if they don't?

The conclusion will be inescapable:

There can be no accounting into 1/6 that's both bipartisan and also a full and true accounting.

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… Image
Read 5 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
19 May
Mark McCloskey is running for Senate in Missouri, and his chief selling point is that he brandished a gun at racial justice protesters. This again shows how essential a fantasy fiction version of the leftist threat has become to GOP identity. New piece:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Candidates often speak of a transformative experience that awakened their desire to serve the public.

McCloskey's version?

“God came knocking on my door disguised as an angry mob. It really woke me up."

That's quite a moment of divine inspiration!

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
The key ingredient is the complete unshackling of oneself from any empirical constraints in depicting the leftist threat.

The protests inspired this with peculiar force, as @lionel_trolling notes. But there's also a strain of religious fanaticism to it:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 4 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
13 May
Republicans are committing a monstrous crime against democracy. A massive campaign is underway to cover their tracks:

* Pretending they never fed the big lie

* Epic gaslighting re 1/6

* Mass voter suppression in name of 'election integrity"

My latest:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
A striking fact:

Lawmakers in *33 states* have justified voting restrictions with the bogus nonsense that voter "confidence" must be restored.

Of course, Trump and Republicans destroyed that confidence themselves.

(Via a great @MaggieAstor report)

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@MaggieAstor We need to appreciate how comprehensive the GOP deception campaign truly is.

It includes Republicans piously claiming they just want to restore "confidence" in elections, to obscure their radicalization.

It also includes an Orwellian rewriting of 1/6:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 5 tweets
Greg Sargent Profile picture
10 May
Stop saying Republicans are "cowards" who "fear Trump." This lets them off the hook in a very fundamental way. They *want* a future in which they treat hated election outcomes as subject to invalidation. They are building this future right now. New piece:
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
One ally of Liz Cheney told @sbg1 that she is a "living reproach to all these cowards."

This got lots of buzz. But it's a weak frame. It implies Rs would prefer on principle to defend democracy and would do so if only they didn't fear the consequences:

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
@sbg1 Anyone still claiming the problem is GOP "cowardice" should watch Rep Jim Banks on Fox.

He's the head of the Republican Study Committee, an influential position.

It's impossible to read his loathsome remarks in such an innocent way.

(h/t @atrupar)

washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Read 5 tweets

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