The outline of a Democratic consensus on critical voting rights legislation is taking shape, and it sure has Senate Republicans in a hissy. As Spectrum News Congressional Correspondent Eva McKend noted, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell holding two separate press conferences in a week is a rare spectacle. But watching Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia begin to find commonality with progressive Democrats on core elements of the For The People Act has clearly put Senate Republicans on defense. 

The GOP’s press conference was also nothing short of special, with more than a dozen GOP senators lining up to weigh in. It had kind of a five-alarm fire vibe to it. McConnell started off by assuring reporters that none of the GOP-passed voter suppression bills sweeping the nation were intended to be restrictive.

“I’ve taken a look at the new state laws. None of them are designed to suppress the vote,” McConnell says. 

That’s a fascinating take, and almost as believable as the claim by Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina that none of Democrats’ racist smears against the GOP would stick.

“They filed this crap early on to try to get an advantage in perpetuity and call of us racist,” Graham said of Democrats’ voting rights bill, flanked by an entirely white crew of supporting cast members. “It ain’t going to work.”

Sorry, Graham, that ship has sailed. Just ask your colleague from Missouri, Sen. Roy Blunt, who rushed to rebrand Manchin’s proposals as the dastardly work of voting rights activist Stacey Abrams. 

“I actually think that when Stacey Abrams immediately endorsed Sen. Manchin’s proposal, it became the Stacey Abrams substitute, not the Joe Manchin substitute,” Blunt told reporters.

Did we mention that Abrams is Black? Thus, the imminent reasonableness of a white fellow like good ol’ Joe Manchin was “immediately” sullied by the endorsement of Abrams—so much so that his proposal morphed into the “substitute” plan of an angry Black woman. Let the pillorying begin!

Why Blunt just didn’t set up a life-sized posterboard pic of Abrams behind himself in case anyone failed to catch his drift remains a mystery. Perhaps he was a little rushed for time. 

What we’re seeing here is a touch of GOP unraveling and backtracking. Republicans have built Manchin into the patron saint of everything from Senate procedure to democracy itself. In fact, they kind of painted themselves into a corner, as it were. So any positive move by Manchin on a voting rights measure that could beat back the GOP’s brazen attack on democracy in the states puts them in tricky territory. Surely, St. Joe wouldn’t undersign something as wicked as voting reforms that would make the ballot box more accessible to a greater diversity of Americans. Enter “the Stacey Abrams substitute”—presto! Problem solved. 

Here’s the bottom line—if Democrats coalesce around a voting rights framework and Manchin gets invested and starts promoting it, Republicans can call it whatever they want. The fact is, that voting rights measure, should it emerge, will have the imprimatur of Manchin with all the saintliness Republicans have bestowed upon him. That, in turn, will make it all the harder for Senate Republicans to explain why the measure is an attack on the soul of America. 

Democrats are still a long way from where they need to be to get this critical piece of legislation across the finish line, but they are at least moving in the right direction. We can already feel a momentum shift, and a subsequent recalibration by Senate Republicans. Exhibit A is their rush to the mic Thursday. 

In no uncertain terms, McConnell used that spotlight to promise uniform opposition the bill. 

“All Republicans, I think, will oppose that as well if that were to be surfaced on the floor,” he said of Manchin’s proposal.

That’s likely not exactly the type of reaction Manchin was imagining when he said in April that he hoped the GOP’s opposition to Biden’s domestic agenda would dissipate some over time.

“I just hope they help me a little bit in bipartisanship,” Manchin said of Republicans. “That’s all.”

A little bit of dismay wouldn’t be the worst thing for Manchin at this point. Fortunately, Republicans are giving him plenty of opportunity to feel it when it comes to the question of safeguarding fundamental voting rights in our country.

Blunt below: