My newsfeed blew up over the weekend with lamentations about Senator Joe Manchin’s apparent reluctance to support President Biden’s Build Back Better bill. Put politics aside and look at this from a broader perspective. All the focus is on Manchin but think of the thousands of other actions that led to this point. For example:
- What about the decisions of the 50 Republican Senators, any one of whom could have made Manchin’s decision irrelevant?
- Or the 2020 Senate elections where the Democrats gained 4 seats, but lost 1 — what if they had gained all four — or five, or six
- Or if Stacey Abrams hadn’t spent years organizing in Georgia and the Democrats did not win those seats — there would be no majority and again, Manchin’s voice would be less prominent in the minority
- Or if 19,398 more people would have voted for a different Senator in West Virginia
- Or if the Democratic stronghold in West Virginia hadn’t eroded over the years
- Or if any of the people involved in writing the bill had been more persuasive
- Or…
It all reminds me of dot 283 about how similar barbs were thrown at a basketball player who missed the last shot. As I wrote then: “It is easier to place blame on the most recent event but to truly impact change we need to consider more of the whole picture. Next time something goes awry, don’t point fingers at the most recent contributor. Rather, assess why it all came down to relying on that one culminating event in the first place.“
Making just one person the scapegoat is taking the easy way out. There is always more to it than that.
