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Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, left, and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., right, clink glasses in a toast to each other as they wait to speak at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, Jan. 22, 2018, after Senators reached an agreement to advance a bill ending government shutdown. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
The United States Senate is a clubby institution. It used to be that nary a word was spoken in anger or hate on the Senate floor. The thinking was that members belonged to “the greatest deliberative body in the world” — the nickname for the Senate in the old days — and that it was very bad form to sully the Senate’s reputation for decorum and calm debate by name-calling and other manifestations of partisanship.