I agree with your overall assessment of Manchin's immorality, narcissism, and inability to read his own self-interest. However, I'm not entirely convinced that Manchin isn't largely playing the "good cop" (to Schumer's "bad cop") for show. He is the Susan Collins of the Democratic Party.

Unfortunately, you've premised your entire piece by subscribing to the very defeatist self-fulfilling prophecy that Bitch McConnell gleefully hopes every non-Republican will fatalistically succumb to.

You even allude to McConnell's past "Lucy-Pulling-The-Football-Away-From-Charlie-Brown" tactics in this very article. So why are you enabling that process for him and his sycophants?