Now that it is becoming increasingly clear that Democrats will fail to get West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin to vote for another $791 billion in deficit spending over the next five years, Democrats and their liberal media allies are desperately shifting focus back to banning voter identification laws.

Liberal columnist E.J. Dionne eagerly retweeted a statement from Virginia Sen. Mark Warner that indicated he was willing to eliminate the filibuster to federalize election law.

No dam is breaking. Warner’s statement was not news. Warner said the exact same thing in July of this year.

In Dionne’s defense, Manchin has voted for the Democrats' election reform bill, but he has also been equally clear and consistent that he would not get rid of the filibuster to pass it.

"I was here in 2013 when it was called a carve-out,” Manchin said in August, referring to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s decision to remove the filibuster for nominations.

“We're just going to do the Cabinet for the president, and then it went into, 'We're going to do the judges who are lifetime appointments for circuit and district.' They were even going to do Supreme Court, but they didn't at that time. The Democrats were in control," Manchin continued. "In 2017, Mitch McConnell’s in control, comes right back in, and guess what? That carve-out worked to really carve us up pretty bad. Then you got the Supreme Court, OK, so there's no stopping it."

Manchin is dead right. There is no way the Senate can do a one-time carve out just once for the filibuster through a mere 50 votes. If you end the filibuster for one piece of legislation, it is gone for all of them.

And Manchin has clearly said he has no intention of eliminating the filibuster.

The sooner Democrats accept this reality, the sooner they can move on to the other stages of grief. By pretending Manchin will agree to some fake one-time filibuster exemption, Democrats are only delaying inevitable pain.