Media is trying to manufacture controversy by insisting the Democrats have abandoned voting rights in favor of infrastructure. Nope. They just have the votes for infrastructure now, so they're doing it now. They're still amassing votes for voting rights, so they'll do that later.
The media is getting worse about pushing the notion that if something in politics doesn't happen immediately, it'll never happen. It's as if the entire political universe is something that began yesterday and ends tomorrow. Anything to ratchet up the tension and keep you tuned in
The media has also managed to assign such magical omnipotent powers to Joe Manchin, all they have to do is mention his name and liberal activists will conclude that any given battle is "doomed." This kind of ratings-driven reductive nonsense does real harm to political outcomes.
Even when something is on track to succeed, if the media convinces enough activists that it's doomed, they'll stop fighting for it, and it'll become doomed. Then the media will use this failure as "proof" that it was right all along for predicting that the effort would fail.
What's particularly galling is the media is taking something as fundamentally ground shifting as this infrastructure package, and spinning it as a negative. "They're doing infrastructure before voting rights so we're all DOOMED!" That's nuts when you step back and think about it.
But the media (on the left, right and center) knows that "Democrats are blowing it" is their single best ratings-driven narrative. Conservatives love being told their side is winning. Liberals are transfixed by anyone who tells them they're going to lose. So it's ratings gold.
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