Joe Biden, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images

Allan Lichtman has a track record of accurately predicting presidential elections, and is generally an astute observer of the American political scene. So I paid attention when Lichtman, a political science professor at American University, told me it would be disastrous for President Biden to go war against Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and the other centrist Democrats jamming him up in Congress. ...

Originally posted on salon.com

If Donald Trump’s movement is destined to be America’s answer to Nazism, then the Joe Biden administration is currently a rough equivalent of the Weimar Republic — the unstable constitutional democracy that governed Germany before the rise of Adolf Hitler. The comparison is imperfect, but the cautionary tale is still clear. There is an obvious risk that Biden and the narrow Democratic majorities in Congress will fail, and that Trump or a successor will take over and then cement themselves into power for at least the next generation....

Originally posted on salon.com

Once upon a time, West Virginia Democrats played a crucial role in making their party more inclusive and breaking down the barriers of prejudice.

Tragically, the opposite appears to be true today. There is little question that the most powerful Democrat in the state is Sen. Joe Manchin III, who has been in the Senate since 2010 and previously served as West Virginia’s governor and secretary of state....

Originally posted on salon.com