Who moved my box with the mauve parachute?

I’d like to ask y’all how we can synergize the proactivities, all things considered:

OK that sounds like a good idea in theory, but this is what the current “praxis” looks like:

Sen. Joe Manchin on Thursday dealt a devastating blow to Democrats’ hopes for sweeping legislative action this year, telling Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and his staff “unequivocally” that he won’t support the climate or tax provisions of a Democratic economic package, two sources familiar with the talks tell CNN.T

The two had been negotiating for months, and Schumer, a New York Democrat, had made a number of concessions to pare back the climate provisions to appease Manchin, whose support is critical in an evenly decided Senate.Manchin is open to letting Medicare negotiate prescription drugs prices and to extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies for two years, one of the sources said, which suggests that’s all Democrats are likely to get in the package.

But the moderate West Virginia Democrat, who has cited increased federal spending as a main driver of inflation, would not budge on other Democratic priorities, and he told Schumer that he will not consider raising taxes on the wealthy or corporations.

The change in tone of the latest negotiations was abrupt. Manchin had supported those provisions throughout the negotiations with the majority leader, both at the staff and member level, one of the sources familiar said.

News of Manchin’s comments to Democratic leadership, first reported by The Washington Post, was met with outrage from climate activists and many fellow Democrats, who have previously seethed over Manchin’s refusal to back some of the party’s more ambitious spending proposals. In December, Manchin had torpedoed a $1.75 trillion version of Biden’s climate and economic bill, known as the Build Back Better Act, angering the White House and Democrats who had pushed for a much larger $3.5 trillion spending plan at the beginning of the Biden administration.

I don’t want to be too hard on Stancil, as I think that on some level he’s basically right about this, but the specific example he gives is the continuing use of blue slips by Democrats when there are around 119 federal judgeships that are unfilled at the moment.

The blue slips are still there because the ACTUAL DEMOCRATIC SENATORS that we currently have don’t want to get rid of them, or at least not nearly enough of them want to get rid of them. Blue slips create a juicy patronage opportunity for every individual senator, which is why they exist in the first place. Now Plan A would be to have senators who are willing to jettison a juicy patronage opportunity in return for fighting revenant fascism with some degree of effectiveness.

Plan A, which is Stancil’s plan, is currently non-operational because we could have ham and eggs if we had ham, and also eggs.

So Plan B is pretty obvious, which is elect better Democrats, and more of them. The problem here of course is that the entire system is structured in a thousand different ways to keep that from happening. Complaining about Joe Manchin is ultimately complaining about the existence of West Virginia, which is ultimately complaining about the existence of the Constitution.

ETA: McAllen with a crucial and even more depressing point in comments:

The fact that Plan A is non-operational also makes Plan B much more difficult, because voters don’t like it when the party in power can’t accomplish anything, no matter the reason.

Nevertheless.