They all lie. They all cheat. They all act in their own best interests without regard for any other thing. Only when their interests conform with the wishes of their constituents does it seem as though they are behaving honorably and doing the job to which they were elected. But that is coincidence.
Joe Manchin Gave Away All His Power In One Fell Swoop
The truth about Sen. Manchin is that few political figures in American history have surrendered so much leverage and political power for so little in return than he did when he caved into the demands of Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and cast his vote for the IRA [Inflation Reduction Act]. Before that vote, he was without any question the single most powerful member of not just the Senate, but the entire congress. But after the vote, his leverage surrendered without anything concrete in return, his power was gone.
This is just adorably naive. Of course Manchin got something. What? We probably will never know. The feigned anger is nothing more than posturing and obfuscation for the people of West Virginia, on the off chance that he decides to run again and needs their support.
For all we know Manchin has been playing a long game at the behest of the Democrat junta, and all of his supposed movement toward the center is a part of that game. Does the writer truly believe that Manchin trusted Schumer to do what he promised? Come on…that’s ridiculous!
But one thing we can all count on is that he is a politician who acts in his own best interests, and that the interests of the people of West Virginia and the people of the United States of America have no influence over his actions.
The only way to get what we want is to make our interests more rewarding to the political class than the competing interests across the aisle. A good example is the recent Speaker of The House election, in which Kevin McCarthy was strong-armed into doing some genuinely good things for the people of the United States in exchange for his election as speaker. Does anyone believe that he would have accepted those concessions freely? No, of course not!
I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office.
— Milton Friedman
All of this is obvious, and has become increasingly clear as the political boundaries between the two parties become blurred.
But the road to success must start with one simple axiom. No matter who it is…Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Greene, your local dog catcher…they are lying to us. All agents of government, and all those who seek to be one of those agents are inherently untruthful with regard to their motivations. Our founders understood this, and constructed a government that was limited, because the assumption was that all government is inherently controlling and evil (and by extension the people within it), so the smaller the better.
That their construct was imperfect and did not counter the machinations of men intent upon acquiring power over us is simply proof that evil exists and is tenacious, powerful, and very, very patient.
