Joe Manchin’s refusal so far to sign onto Biden’s reconciliation bill blocks the passage of transfomative legislation that breaks from the old governing orthodoxy of the past 40 years. It would, if passed, make the lives of tens of millions much easier as well as address climate issues and much else.

On the other hand, if it doesn’t make it through Congress, the political, not to mention economic, fallout could be severe if tens of millions come to believe that democracy and democratic governance can’t “deliver.” And thus not worth defending.

Usually after a defeat – and last night was that – it is wise to let the air clear for a day or two or three and then take a sober inventory of what happened and why it happened. There is no reason to immediately rush to judgement, press the panic button, feel dispirited, or shift to the right as Bill Clinton did in 1994. If the sky were falling in, I might think differently, but it isn’t. Not yet anyway.

Moreover, the overall political-economic environment will likely be more favorable to Biden and Democrats next year and a year provides more than enough time for the White House, Democrats, and the larger coalition supporting them to correct whatever mistakes – big and small – that cropped up in this election and in the first year of Biden’s presidency.

If I worry about anything at this moment, it is what immediate effects will last night’s results have on the Manchins in the Democratic Party. Will they walk away from the reconciliation bill now? Voting rights? Will they turn further to the right?

The support of white workers without a college education for Trump and the GOP – evidenced once again this week in the Virginia elections – constitutes a major obstacle to progressive politics as well as a counter movement to the present turn toward class, anti-Trump politics by other sections of the working class. How to address this section of white workers in a way that moves them in a progressive, anti-racist, class struggle direction will take great political skill, creativity, patience, and persistence. Evading this task isn’t an option.

From Robert Kuttner, former editor of the American Prospect and progressive/left commentator:

“The headline on page one of today’s New York Times is the stuff that progressive dreams are made of: “Trucker Ousts Power Broker in New Jersey.” Edward Durr, a political novice and a truck driver for a furniture chain, defeated the longtime New Jersey Senate president, Stephen Sweeney, by 2,298 votes, in his South Jersey state Senate seat.

The only problem is that Durr is a Republican and Sweeney is a Democrat. And there in a nutshell is the Democrats’ dilemma—the loss of the working class.” The last phrase – the loss of the working class – I find maddening, but not surprising. It only makes sense if you assume that the working class is only white. But it isn’t. And never has been. Yet this blind spot persists.

On this Veterans Day we should honor (and assist) the veterans, but not celebrate the wars in which they fought. None of them over the past century – save WW2 – had anything to do with defending freedom or expanding democracy. Nevertheless, much of the commentary today becomes, through the vessel of honoring war veterans, an occasion to sanitize these wars of imperial aggression in which soldiers fought and died.