Manchin Wake Up Call A Return to Lincolnian Politics?

W. Va. Senator Joe Manchin’s calling Tuesday’s conservative election victories a “wake up call” was REFRESHING in that it urged his colleagues to LISTEN (as Lincoln would) to one another & ‘agree to disagree” on issues, while striving for compromise solutions that neither side will be entirely happy with.

Such Democracy in action is one way, of course, to avoid a Civil War. And, such “old school” politics is really what has separated the Great American Experiment from the rest of the dictatorial world & paved the way for Lincoln to once rightly call the imperfect and always evolving U.S. the world’s “Last Best Hope.”

Manchin’s own words as told to Fox News’ Bret Baer: “I’m concerned. I’ve been talking about our debt, I’ve been talking about inflation, I’ve been talking about the [economic] fallout we may have” from the president’s multi-trillion dollar Build Back Better & reconciliation bills. “Democrats should pay more heed to the immediate needs of the American people [they talk about], such as rising gas prices and infrastructure … We know how to do it. We have the technology. We should be relying on ourselves not OPEC … I believe I’m fiscally responsible & socially compassionate. And you know what? I have a lot of Democrats who feel the same as I do. I have a lot of Republicans who feel the same as I do … [it] is a shame when we start this war of words … We can have differences of opinion – the rhetoric around here has gotten so harsh and so toxic that you can’t agree to disagree anymore. You can’t sit down and say, ‘OK, I disagree with you.’ What scares the bejesus out of me – I don’t [any longer] hear people saying, ‘This is good for our country. It’s more or less on both sides – it’s ‘what is better for my party, what is better for the 2022 elections’.”

Davd Soul