As far as today’s Democrats are concerned, voting Republican is just one more pathology that afflicts the toothless hillbillies of their imagination. They are perplexed — or at least pretend to be perplexed — by the fact that there are poor and struggling Americans who do not instinctively turn to welfare-statism as the answer to their problems, who are uneager to sacrifice either their values or their liberties in exchange for a government check. Democrats have responded to this by elevating the needs of the relatively well-off to the top of their agenda, which is why they spend so much time talking about the terrible burden of student loans for young lawyers and underemployed Haverford graduates. You won’t hear them offer anything like a serious solution to the public-education crisis in Los Angeles or Milwaukee — those well-paid teachers are a core part of the Democratic base, and semi-literate high-school dropouts do not vote in large numbers.

It is likely that Senator Manchin either will become a Republican or will be replaced by one, eventually. At only 74 years of age, he is a spring chicken by the standards of current Democratic leadership: President Biden is 79, Nancy Pelosi is 81 (her hair is 46), and Dianne Feinstein is within spittin’ distance of 90. But he isn’t going to be in the Senate forever. Because the Senate gives equal representation to the less-populous rural states and the densely populated urban states, it is always going to be a problem for Democrats. Strangely, Democrats seem, at the moment, intent on making it a bigger problem for themselves. Further shrinking the universe of possible electoral coalitions may pass for smart in the great echoing expanse of insipidity between Bette Midler’s droopy old ears, but it is a losing strategy.