When Sen. Joe Manchin announced he would oppose the For the People Act, Steve Benen of MSNBC spoke for many Democrats when he declared that "Joe Manchin is prepared to be remembered by history as the senator who did little more than hope as his country's democracy unraveled." One can share Democrats' alarm about the state of our democracy without concluding that the For the People Act was the answer. H.R. 1 is a mashup of sound ideas (requiring a paper record of each vote) with outdated and arguably unconstitutional measures -- banning so-called dark money at a time when small-dollar donations are more important; and limiting speech, which the American Civil Liberties Union, among others, opposes.