Dear Americans

I read the op-ed penned by Joe Manchin in the Charleston Gazette-Mail It seems the Senator has ignored some important facts regarding the Republican party in this day and time.

He waxes eloquently about bipartisan cooperation being necessary to pass voter protections. He says he won’t support protections of our constitutional right to vote unless the GOP joins hands with the Democrats to pass such legislation. In effect saying that if the GOP does not respect our voting rights they should be abandon on their say so alone. He won’t object. Is that what he means by “bipartisanship”? One side abandons the vote, so he side steps aside defeated?

Starting with the first day of the Obama presidency Mitch McConnell and the GOP vowed to obstruct anything he wanted to do without even knowing what that would be. That was purely partisan.

When Biden took office he pretty much repeated his “grim reaper” intent with regards to this administration as well. That was purely partisan.

We had a violent attack on our capitol due to Trump’s BIG LIE but the GOP in the senate all voted against a commission, not one patriot was present on the right. That was purely partisan.

In red state after red state the GOP has rushed headlong to suppress voting rights for minority populations which amounts to an extension of the same BIG LIE insurrection, with out a single democrat supporting those bills. That was purely partisan.

Now the same democrats who seek to protect our votes are faced with a system in the US Senate that allows the same GOP to protect their voter suppression laws. The filibuster will be drawn along party lines with the right using it to protect voter suppression. That is purely partisan.

Senator Manchin is floating in a cloud somewhere believing these same people who refused to investigate a violent insurrection, have patriots remaining who will rise up against their own party’s demonstrated goal of rigging elections in their favor...or overturning any that don’t produce the results they want. That is purely partisan.

When it comes to democracy the single most critical component is free and fair elections. This should NOT be partisan! But it is. Democrats believe in the vote, Republicans do not.

The stakes for every American are too great to waste time and potentially risk it all on a false dream. Had there been ten or even two patriots left in the Senate GOP they would have stood up to vote for the commission. None did. That was purely partisan.

“The Constitution is not a suicide pact”. The filibuster in it’s present form is a murder weapon for the right and a suicide weapon on the left. Joe Manchin has his finger on the trigger but he is not aiming it at the attackers, he is aiming it at the constitution hoping somehow that will deter the attack. It will not.

Does he, and perhaps he alone, have the right to facilitate the end of free and fair elections just because he has some fantasy that Mitch and Chuck will suddenly hug and make up?

The notion of cooperation is grand provided both sides respect cooperation. Democrats have asked. Republicans refuse. For the good of our constitution and our continued existence as a free nation, we cannot allow partisan obstruction to end what we have fought and died for so long to protect.

The entire attack on our collective rights to vote are under a purely partisan attack. Not one democratic controlled state has tried to restrict the rights of republican voters.

It is well past time to put the constitutional right to vote ahead of a bipartisan fairy tale. The risk of failure is too great.

Protecting the filibuster is not protecting bipartisanship...it is encouraging partisanship.