I humbly ask that if value is found, for you to share this far and wide, until it reaches his desk.
-ROC
Senator Manchin,
I see that you like to use the word partisan.
A lot.
“I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act,” Manchin wrote.
“Furthermore, I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster,” he wrote. That rule allows the minority party to block most legislation by requiring 60 votes to allow debate to go forward. Manchin has said repeatedly he wouldn’t support ending it.
Those are your words. In a nation of well-meaning, but ideologically opposed parties, those words would have some meaning. But trying to assign some kind hope against hope “somewhere deep down there is good inside” to the Republicans of this era is as pointless as wishing for a soul to be bestowed upon a mannequin.
Mr. “I’m a West Virginia Democrat” you like everyone else saw what the right wing brought this country to the brink of. You like everyone else have seen your good buddies on the “other side of the aisle,” spend their legislative terms all over this country making the right to vote an arbitrarily revocable privilege.
We have seen in Florida, in Arizona, in Texas, in Missouri, in Georgia, attempts to purge rolls, take over election boards, restrict ballot and polling location access codified into law.
But you are worried about partisanship. So I was thinking-let us take a look at that particular “evil”
you are so worried over.
But first-let us consider another fact: You are not that important. You are just another privileged white male from a conservative electorate lacking in humility. That you view yourself as some sort of guardian of democracy, Mr. Manchin, for politically aligning with those stained with the filth of insurrection is disingenuous at best and completely misguided as worst. You forget the first rule of American democracy Senator. None of us are that important.
But Senator, that is a beautiful thing. America works because institutions cast a debilitating shadow over those who would spend time trying to make it the United States of-Them, of Trump, of Cruz, of Hawley. Of Manchin. My real name is Todd and I love this country so much that I hope, were I to survive long enough, if I were to serve her in elective office, that my deeds to protect her would be remembered long after her people have forgotten my name. If I am remembered as “that Senator from somewhere, Todd something” that is just fine.
If I am remembered as “Yeah, remember that guy who fought for equality from, somewhere out west” that is fine.
You see Senator it takes public servants willing to be forgotten for the true purpose of America to be remembered.
A good leader would rather be forgotten by those they have saved than remembered by those they have failed.
Senator, with your decision to turn your back on the fundamental right to vote, to side with those so married to their own importance as to disavow a peaceful transition of power, you are on the verge of becoming very memorable. Thanks to you, people will remember you like this: “Remember that Joe Manchin, the one that wouldn’t help us vote? My grandma spent the last two electoral cycles of her life waiting for a ballot that never came.”
Yes Senator. It is like that. But I promised you something-I promised to delve into this partisanship thing. This grand threat to America as so many sell it, is actually
what has saved so many of her citizens.
Another metric one could use to look at legislative transparency is the extent to which the opposition party was included in the process. The ACA passed without a single Republican vote, but the contents of the bill were nonetheless made available to both parties multiple times throughout its development, as described by the New York Times:
In June and July 2009, with Democrats in charge, the Senate health committee spent nearly 60 hours over 13 days marking up the bill that became the Affordable Care Act. That September and October, the Senate Finance Committee worked on the legislation for eight days — its longest markup in two decades. It considered more than 130 amendments and held 79 roll-call votes. The full Senate debated the health care bill for 25 straight days before passing it on Dec. 24, 2009.
The ACA passed without a single Republican vote. That was partisanship. But you seem to misunderstand the term Senator. The evil kind of partisanship is ugly, blind, historically ignorant and petty.
Partisanship as defined as the type to be afraid of is not the kind presented by the well-intentioned majority. Not the ones that bring us the New Deal and lift a people out of poverty. Not the ones that bring us civil rights and lift races out of shackles. Partisanship that ends the futility of a for profit war, the obscenity that is dying from an abscessed tooth, or an inability to access something so fundamental as blood pressure medication is not evil, Senator. It is a necessity.
And when came the day this precocious Democrat now writing you, formed of the bluest fabric one’s soul can be comprised of, was told of his cancer he had but two words in his heart: “Thanks, Obama.”
“Thank you, Mr. President,” I thought to myself, for your partisanship, for your dogged determination to at least begin to steer a wayward ship towards the waters of kindness and medical justice. There was no part of me concerned that my opportunity to save my life, to not be disregarded or buried by cowards hiding behind prose from the 19th century, was somehow brought to me by the vapid use of the term “partisan.”
You see in a medical foxhole, as I now found myself in Senator, there are either those looking out for each other, or those turning their backs on each other. Nobody cares about grand traditions of the Senate when cancer is about to eat their life away. Similarly nobody cares about the self-important grandiosity of a man from a state long past its prime too rigid and intractable to ressurect itself by vaulting into the future.
Senator, someone who is one generation, or in some cases, a first-hand victim of Jim Crow, of intolerance, of beatings, of inhumanity for the color of their skin or the choice of music, or the style of their hair or the cut of their God’s gib, has no concern for your traditions.
I am not writing this to be remembered, and though my very livelihood depends upon my ability to cobble together a movement of action inspired by all that my energy allows, my words, I am not writing it for only self-concern. I am writing it for Congressman John Lewis, for Rosa Parks, for Mickey Leland, for my grandfather, a WWII Naval hero, who even at the end of his life, having been abandoned by the VA and left to die at home of yes, cancer, because the government saved money if they forced my indigent grandmother to pay for his burial, left this world with these words to me:
Stand by her. (America.)
I am writing it for real patriots toiling in obscurity. I am writing it for people far better than me who have given far more in sacrifice. And though I may not succeed in this particular battle, though my illness might lay me low, and I expect my face will not adorn mountains, it does not need to. I would rather be an anonymous brick solidifying her foundation, than a famous, but malevolent political real estate developer who would tear her down.
I am happy to be forgotten if doing my part leaves behind a nation forever remebered. And Senator, make no mistake, those who support the “For The People Act” are on the right side of history and will win this battle. Your sniping and misguided loyalties aside, you are but one man, who like all of us, will see his power pass onto the next generations. But those next generations will write history, Senator. They may not remember a newsletter owner from Arizona, who came and went with a spark of light visible only to his small corner of the world.
But they will, Senator, remember those who cut off the electricity of democracy. They will remember, those who even for a short time, allowed a nation to toil in darkness.
There is courage in being willing to be hated for the right reasons.
There is honor in being forgettable for the right reasons.
There is dignity in the worn shoes of a grocery clerk. There is respect collected in the calluses of a mechanic. There is the beating heart of America in every exhausted nurse, in every loving teacher, etched in the sands the world over stained by the blood of soldiers with names on walls you have never read from towns you have never heard of.
If you truly understand that, then you know you are no better than they are. And you would know the satisfaction that comes with service to others, rather than worship to you.
And so it comes that I ask you, once again to join me in the distinct privilege, one only granted to the citizens of the United States of America, to enshrine unequivically the right to vote in unassailable mortar, reinforcing her foundation, and walking down the right side of the long road of history as a humble servant.
Partisanship saved my life Senator. Partisanship, has repeatedly saved America’s.
Sometimes the only prescription for wellness is partisanship.
Particularly when the disease,
is coming from the “other side of the aisle.”
-ROC
Hey friends my cancer fight has turned more serious and has forced me to urgently change careers! And-huge news! My newsletter is live! Sign up here to subscribe! It publishes every Wednesday and will be full of original reporting, laughs, and fun!
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Love,
-ROC