Manchin and Sinema don’t owe progressive activists their votes

How many times have you heard someone say — while complaining about Congress — something like: Why do they refuse to listen to voters?

In a nation of 330 million people who can’t seem to agree on much except Congress isn’t listening to the people, I always wonder to which voters members of Congress are supposed to listen.

Take our current situation. Progressives want a $3.5-trillion, kitchen-sink bill that does everything from giving two free years of community college to promoting clean energy to fighting wildfires.

Meanwhile, many Republicans, moderate Democrats and probably progressives (basically most people), want, or at least wanted, an infrastructure bill that will fund roads, bridges and broadband.

Progressives in the House are holding hostage the bipartisan infrastructure bill until the kitchen-sink bill passes the Senate. And in the Senate, Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have already said they don’t support the progressive bill as is.

We’re at a stalemate. So who is supposed to listen to who?

In a perfect world, everyone would simply listen to me. But since that won’t happen, let’s try to identify this elusive group known as the people.

For a while now, Manchin and Sinema have both been catching heat for not listening to the people and expressing concerns about the price tag of the kitchen-sink bill. With rising inflation, a growing budget deficit and runaway debt, those fears seem reasonable (at least to me, the people of one).

This has enraged progressives. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, took to Twitter to express his displeasure: “2 senators cannot be allowed to defeat what 48 senators and 210 House members want.”

Seems like a good point. It’s two senators versus the people, with Sanders as chief litigator. But like so many good points grounded in populism, it falls apart under scrutiny.

First, it’s not two senators standing in the way. It’s actually 52 senators and 222 members of the House, or, in other words, a majority of Congress, standing in the way. Sanders didn’t catch that.

Second, Manchin and Sinema don’t work for Sanders. They aren’t beholden to the voters of Vermont, where Sanders is from. And they weren’t elected to the Senate by progressive members of the House of Representatives. In fact, Manchin and Sinema were elected by the people of West Virginia and Arizona, respectively, and their loyalty should lie there.

Over the past few days, both have been confronted by progressive activists. Manchin was confronted at his house boat in Washington, D.C., by activists in kayaks (a bit of a departure from the traditional Dickens’ depiction of class struggle).

The conversation was respectful enough, but you could forgive him for not feeling particularly persuaded by the event. After all, West Virginia is not run by kayaktivists (to steal Rachel Maddow’s term).

Sinema, on the other hand, was stalked by activists who followed her into a public restroom (!) in Arizona, recording it on camera. She too was not particularly persuaded and was annoyed by the whole thing and seems no closer to voting for the bill.

Meanwhile, House progressives apparently aren’t listening to the people either. Presumably, when something passes the Senate with 69% of the chamber in support, which the infrastructure bill did, it is representative of the desires of a broad swath of America.

But to whom do House progressives owe their loyalties? Not to senators (though they might share some voters) and not to House moderates. Like Manchin and Sinema, they owe it to the voters, whose views they are likely representing.

In other words, Manchin and Sinema, House progressives, House moderate Democrats and Republicans actually are representing the people, their people. We have a system that allows for representatives from different places and different communities to come together and create policies that account for these different points of view.

Disagreement is a feature of our democracy, not a bug. This is why the Electoral College matters, why the filibuster is important, why each state has the same number of senators.

We need a system where we are protected from mob rule. We need a system where all voices are heard and power is dispersed so that those not in the majority have a voice. And we need a system that promotes compromise and working together.

The good news is that we already have such a system. Instead of constantly trying to tear it down, we should use it as it was designed.

Matt Fleming is a member of the Southern California News Group’s editorial board. You can follow him on Twitter: @FlemingWords.