Joe Manchin is a sentimental fool.

Songwriters know what Joe Manchin is too foolish to learn.

What a fool believes, he sees.

     "I've been working across the aisle with all the Republicans trying to get people to understand that that's the bedrock of our democracy, and accessible, fair and basically secured voting."

             Joe Manchin

     "I would make this observation about the revised version ... all Republicans I think will oppose that as well if that were to be what surfaced on the floor."

          Mitch McConnell

I don't doubt that somewhere in America a college student majoring in Political Science sits in a library listening to popular music on ear buds, thinking she is goofing off when she should be doing her summer reading. Songwriters write about love, broken hearts, and false hearted lovers. Joe Manchin should turn on the radio--or, since this is 2021, a streaming service.

On Top of Old Smokey is an old Scottish folk tune made popular by Pete Seeger singing lead for The Weavers in 1951. Time is ticking on Manchin's opportunity to do something, anything, to address voter access and gerrymandering. The song warns about dithering when political opportunity is there: "I lost my true lover for courting too slow."

And a false hearted lover is worse than a thief
For a thief will just rob you and take all you save
But a false hearted lover will lead you to the grave.

Not one girl in a hundred a poor boy can trust
They'll hug you and kiss you and tell you more lies.

A Boomer like Joe Manchin would know the Doobie Brothers, and has heard the warning of false hope and persistent delusion. What a Fool Believes won a Grammy and was song of the year in 1980. Manchin keeps hoping Mitch McConnell doesn't really mean it when he says no GOP senator will sign onto compromise. He should have noticed that the moment Stacey Abrams said Manchin's compromise voting rights bill was progress, McConnell went to the microphones and denounced it as a Stacey Abrams' liberal takeover. Doesn't Manchin see it?

The sentimental fool don't see
Trying hard to recreate what had yet to be created
Once in her life, she musters a smile for his nostalgic tale
Never coming near what he wanted to say
Only to realize it never really was
She had a place in his life
He never made her think twice. . .
But what a fool believes he sees.

Joe Manchin is 73.  He would have been 19 years old in 1967 and at a prime age to have learned the hard lesson from The Mamas and the Papas that some people will lie to you. They know they should feel guilty, but they don't, not really. 

I saw her again last night
And you know that I shouldn't
To string her along's just not right
If I couldn't I wouldn't
But what can I do, I'm lonely too
And it makes me feel so good to know
You'll never leave me

I'm in way over my head
Now she thinks that I love her
Because that's what I said
Though I never think of her.

McConnell will continue for the simple reason that every political advantage to McConnell and the GOP comes from there being no deal on anything of importance. Republicans prosper if the perception is that Democrats are crazy-liberal-AOC-Muslim-loving socialists, and that the government is a complete failure as long as Democrats are nominally in charge. The worse the government functions--even if Republicans are causing the disfunction--the blame goes to Democrats. People getting hurt is not a bug. It is a feature. If there is a GOP majority in the Senate, Democrats will never get a Supreme Court nominee seated. McConnell said it outright. Biden will look like a helpless failure. That will be a powerful message, that the only government that can function to address America's problems will be one led by Republicans; otherwise it is gridlock.

Is that too cynical a view of McConnell and GOP policy, that sabotage is part of sound GOP policy? Don't ask a political commentator. They have the delusion they understand political behavior and human nature. Ask a songwriter. They know what songs become hits. They understand McConnell. They understand Manchin. 

I can make you mine, taste your lips of wine
Anytime night or day
Only trouble is, gee whiz,
I'm dreamin' my life away

I need you so that I could die
I love you so and that is why
Whenever I want you, all I have to do is
Dream, dream, dream, dream
Dream