For the last week, Americans paying attention to politics have learned an important truth: Joe Biden may live in the White House, but conservative senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) is effectively president. This depressing reality can certainly be fixed, but only if progressive Democrats in Congress are willing to actually change the dynamic — and they have a rare opportunity to do that right now by using their power to raise the minimum wage.

But, so far, they aren’t choosing to use their power — which is a huge structural problem not just now, but also for the foreseeable future.

Some have argued that the way to fix this situation is by ending the filibuster, but that’s a catch-22: it is absolutely a necessary reform, but President Manchin is pledging to veto it. Even if Democrats were to eliminate the filibuster, they would still need Manchin’s stamp of approval for virtually all legislation, given the Senate’s current 50-50 split.