Frustrations with West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin are about ready to boil over, if you can judge by what Democratic sources are telling the press, as the showdown Senate Majority Leader  Chuck Schumer over ending the filibuster for voting rights legislation nears. Schumer has scheduled Jan. 17, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, as his deadline for getting the Freedom to Vote and John Lewis Voting Rights Amendments acts passed—whatever it takes.

President Joe Biden is joining the fray, but from the outside. He’ll be headed to Georgia for a Tuesday speech that Cedric Richmond, a senior adviser to Biden and director of the Office of Public Engagement, promises will be Biden “doubling down, kicking it into another gear, we are going right to the belly of the beast, or ground zero, for voter suppression, voter subversion and obstruction.” Voting rights groups have sent their own message: don’t come to Georgia without a plan to get it done.

“Georgia voters made history and made their voices heard, overcoming obstacles, threats, and suppressive laws to deliver the White House and the U.S. Senate,” the Black Voters Matter Fund, the Asian American Advocacy Fund, the New Georgia Project Action Fund, and the GALEO Impact Action Fund, an organization representing Latinos, told Biden in a statement last week. “In return, a visit has been forced on them, requiring them to accept political platitudes and repetitious, bland promises. Such an empty gesture, without concrete action, without signs of real, tangible work, is unacceptable.”

That means figuring out how in the hell to deal with Manchin as well as his fellow diva, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Their colleagues are getting fed up with the two and not caring who knows it. A Democratic source active in the talks between Manchin and Sens. Angus King (I-ME), Jon Tester (D-MT) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) told Axios that dealing with him is “like negotiating via Etch A Sketch.”

“You think you’re just about there. You think you’ve got an agreement on most of the things, and it’s settling in. And then you come back the next morning, and you’re starting from scratch,” that source continued. Another said that the senators would feel like they’ve gotten somewhere, then Manchin will leave the room and go home and get a bunch of calls from outsiders and all the progress is erased, as he comes back wanting to rehash what the other believed was settled. “I think he listens to everybody, which is the problem. Whoever he’s heard from most recently has the upper hand,” the second source said.

On one hand, Manchin’s refusal to accept a carve-out for voting rights and elections issues, probably the cleanest way to get the legislation passed, could make for more substantive filibuster reform. Doing something like reinstating a talking filibuster, which Manchin has supported in the past, could apply to all legislation. That would be great, if Manchin really means it and if it can really happen. Sens. Kaine, King, and Tester have been trying to convince him that changing the filibuster will restore the Senate and make it a functioning body again.

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Meanwhile, there’s growing concern that the approach of assuming that Sinema will sign on because she would want to be completely isolated is a problem. A democratic senator told Axios, “There is no movement from the position that she articulated” in a Washington Post editorial from last summer, in which she argued the filibuster can’t be changed. “I am not convinced it’s impossible; I’m just convinced that what we’re doing isn’t moving her,” that senator said.

That’s voting rights, but the Democrats are up against the same obstinance and uncertainty from Manchin on Build Back Better, President Biden’s signature legislation. The Etch-a-Sketch analogy comes into play again, as Democrats say Manchin has given them no real more clarity on what he wants since they started talking in August.

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) told The Hill  that he has “no idea” if Manchin has any interest in a deal at all. Asked about Manchin’s endgame, Durbin said, “Still in the dark.”

“It’s not like a normal negotiation, and that’s what is frustrating Biden and frustrating everybody,” one Democratic senator, who requested anonymity, said. They called the process “a dance” in which Manchin will lead colleagues to believe they’re making progress but he still refuses to agree to anything. “You expect people to sit in a room and hash out the details,” the senator said. That’s not what Manchin does. Another anonymous senator said that “I have to reason to think that he [wants a deal], literally no reason to think that he does.” They added, “All the evidence is to the contrary.”

On the other hand, Kaine thinks he’s really in it for a deal. “There are pieces of it he doesn’t like and he has questions about the size and the pay-fors and all that, but I’ve never detected in him that he doesn’t want there to be a deal,” he told The Hill. He was joined by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) in that assessment. “I think he is sincere in trying to work things out,” he said

By the end of the week, the Senate will either have done something to save democracy, or kicked the can down the road once again because Manchin. Always Manchin.

Over on the House side, it’s a quiet week punctuated by a growing number of positive COVID tests among members. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has announced that “the House will be taking steps to lengthen voting times and limit the number of votes taken on the Floor,” to increase safety. “Members are reminded that masks are required on the House Floor, without exception, and everyone is encouraged to use N95 or KN95 masks in place of cloth or surgical masks that were widely used previously.”

Just this weekend, four members announced they’ve contracted COVID: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jim Cooper (D-TN), Sean Casten (D-IL), and Young Kim (R-CA). That’s probably just scratching the surface: at least one Republican—Rep. Bill Posey from Florida—kept his diagnosis concealed from leadership. Given the statistics, it’s highly improbably that more Republicans haven’t contracted the disease. They’re just not making it public and potentially not taking action to protect others. So, yeah, the House floor is one of the more dangerous places in America, again.