The Presidency of the Joes: more like INFRASTRUCTURE WEAK

Wat

Even if we knew Manchin was going to be replaced by someone like Romney, he would still have the highest VORP in this senate as the 50th Dem. The fact that he would actually be replaced by someone more like Tuberville is icing on the VORP cake.

I mean itā€™s been beaten to death but his VORP can both be #1 and he can be a POS. Also like I pointed out above that is only due to the fluke of exactly 50 sears. His VORP greatly decreases and he basically becomes irrelevant with either a decrease or increase in seats.

I also find the VORP bs infuriating as right now Manchin and Sinema are more a roadblock to progress than anyone else in congress.

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Yeah Iā€™m not buying that his VORP has been high. Itā€™s not at all something you can consider in isolation, and the value of his seat decreases exponentially when it isnā€™t the deciding vote. Also need to weight everything by some legislation impact factor. I mean the obvious problem here is that even when you ā€œwinā€ (the Senate), you still fucking lose because he canā€™t cash in any of the shit that would give non-fascists long-term +EV. Discount his VORP like an NPV that accounts for, e.g., all of the fucking elections being rigged because heā€™s too big of a corporate pawn to protect voting rights. Heā€™s foolā€™s gold.

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Sinema might actually be worst VORP in the senate.

Letā€™s say you could magically force a senator to resign and have a special election in a month. There is a case to be made for Sinema over Feinstein. Yes we might lose the seat, but if we got a different democrat out of Sinema it would have to be better and would get us closer to HR1.

But you would be insane to choose Manchin in this scenario, and he still fucking sucks.

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This is just false imo. The seat is either Manchin or an insane person. That doesnā€™t make him a cool guy but thereā€™s simply no denying the VORP.

If Dems have 49 Senators how does it matter if is a Proud Boy or Joe Manchin? It doesnā€™t.

I mean it barely matters now with 50. Outside of the Covid bill this congress could very easily get nothing else done before midterms.

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Iā€™m mostly on the other side here, but Manchin will vote along with Ds on lots of less important things just because heā€™s a D. Heā€™s to the right of Romney by a fair amount, but thereā€™s still a fair amount of party loyalty. Iā€™m not really assessing how good that is, but more D stuff will pass because of it. Just donā€™t expect anything too threatening to a wealthy coal trader.

And him taking the bullet on these votes with other Ds promising favors in return would not be the slightest bit shocking.

I donā€™t think we disagree. I fully agree that in the scenario where it means 50 or 49 Senators his VORP is enormous for the reason you say. My comment about it barely mattering now was mostly hyperbole. I just meant we have no chance to do anything big.

Once he isnā€™t the swing vote though itā€™s a little hard to see how he matters tbh. At 55 or 65 or 45 Senators it is obvious his VORP is basically zero or negative. Having the party led around by the ear by Manchin is very bad. Bad for morale, bad for progress and bad because he is actively trying to make abhorrent views seem reasonable.

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For which Senate bills has he cast (or denied) the deciding vote? Thatā€™s the only situation where his VORP really comes into play. There are situations where, say, heā€™s a yes but Sinema is a no but those are tougher to calculate because theyā€™re correlated and involve a bunch of weird runout scenarios.

The big COVID relief bill under Biden passed 50-49 strictly along party lines (the missing vote was a Republican)

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Just not having Trump party chairs running committees is a lot of value for 50 D votes.

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I see weā€™re having our weekly VORP debate. Wonder if any new sides of the argument will be made this time around?

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Umm this seems like somethingā€¦


Josh Marshall @joshtpm

So today we learned that ex President Trump is telling associates and supporters that he will be installed as President in a coup sometime this summer.

https://mobile.twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/1399703796960399361

ā€œWe have the lowest percentage of colors of any state.ā€ - j. Manchin

ā€œThey said scholars, sirā€. - WV Aide to the Senator

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VORP

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i havenā€™t read any of this shit

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Those turds are correct.

Do you think bernie yelling would change things? He is yelling right now and he has more influence on whatā€™s happening then he would as president.

The dems do suck and are to blame. Bernie being president changes literally none of that though. You continue to way overvalue the power of the white house in these circumstances.

Itā€™s the senate democrats that have the most blame on their hands. Weird that includes Bernie. Is Bernie brow beating Manchin now? Itā€™s not like he is a civilian. He is in the fucking game.

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Paying for it is obvious horse crap. But scanning it is absolutely sensical given how much contraband comes in mail.