It's gonna be great watching centrist Democrats find an excuse to blame progressives when the person who represents centrists perfectly hands the Senate to Mitch McConnell.
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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The country is going to hand McConnell the Senate. The 2024 map is so bad that Biden could win by 9 points nationally and still end up with a GOP Senate.
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Do it already, Jesus. This dip shit just wants attention.
Kick him out before he leaves.
This is part of the reason I bicker with Liberals about appealing to electoralism all the damn time. Great, we technically got a "D" win, but the party installed a senator that doesn't vote with the party and pulls the senate more "center" as they try to scoop up disaffected conservatives. So, they effectively installed their own opposition. Well done.
Very much the smartest people in the room.
Note: venting, and I'm not talking about individuals just the collective "wisdom" of belt-way liberals.
The party didn't "install" him. He got elected in an R+22 state as a former governor with excellent rapport and name recognition. He's just about the only "Democrat" who could be elected in a blood red coal mining state. If the party abandoned their approach and threw their weight behind someone more left-leaning, they'd be absolutely clobbered and we'd all be hemming and hawing about WV being a total loss Republican wasteland for the next few generations. At least this way we get someone who's willing to confirm judges and meet with the party behind closed doors.
edit: Not to mention the event he's skipping is to celebrate the most aggressive climate/clean energy legislation in the history of this country. And he's campaigning in a coal mining state. That'd be like a Ukrainian general attending a dinner party with the Kremlin. NOT a good look.
These are good points, and maybe I was less articulate because I was responding to the article grumpily. A more accurate statement would be "I'm sick of pundits and beltway liberals telling me what policy positions aren't 'possible' while being wildly popular amongst the electorate on both sides of the political spectrum. Instead of running on that they opt to play percentage points, message on issues that don't upset their donors, and drift the party's platform increasingly in the interest of the corpos over decades as they back candidates closer to the center instead."
Now, Manchin might not be the best candidate to voice this opinion on: because electorally, you're right, the partisan bias was too great in that state. But, man, I heard the quote from an Obama staffer during the Georgia run-off: "Stacy Abrams is teaching us the power of directly campaigning on improving material conditions." I was gob smacked that they spoke about this as though it was a revelation. If you want the exact quote I can dig through my podcasts and find it.
However, I might push back slightly on him appearing in a legislation event as some virtuous gesture. He himself was instrumental in including little exceptions in previous bills for auctioning off land for drilling, explorations for new drill sites, and continues to push that our reliance on oil as a place borne of pragmatism and not at all influenced by his donations.
I don't disagree at all that Democrats have utterly failed to prioritize working class economic issues over the past few decades and have capitulated to the liberal elite ruling class that prefers to focus on issues that don't undermine their stranglehold on the economy. I just know that in order to win WV in an environment where that ruling class still calls a stupid amount of shots, a Democrat has to chart their own course and be seen as fiercely independent of that ruling class. That goes double if they hope to win repeatedly.
Additionally, you misread me. I'm not saying him appearing at the IRA event is a virtuous gesture. It's precisely because of the demands of his constituents that he can neither support nor campaign on that law. I'm saying that he's opting out because it would look TERRIBLE for him to support a law that essentially puts a bulls-eye on whatever economic future WV has left.
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OMG having this argument with people is maddening. Their refusal to think logically makes me want to bash my head on a wall
party installed a senator that doesn’t vote with the party
People complain about "two-partyism" and tribalism- then complain about senators voting with their beliefs or their constituents rather than the party.
The problem with Manchin is that a lot of the policies he has blocked are actually fairly popular with his constituents. His "beliefs" are purely about money in his pocket.
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these people just don't get harassed enough in real life by the regular citizens whose lives they destroy.. i mean this asshole can just freely go about his daily life while he actively ruins people's lives, it's criminal..
nobody stops him and asks him: hey Joe, why the hell are you selling me out?
The people there love him. WV is a clear case of voters voting against their best interest.
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The dems should never have expected to rely on his seat anyway. Hes from the most bumfuck state in the union. West Virginias entire economy basically runs on coal
They didn’t. Every judge Manchin votes through and every Democratic policy he reluctantly says “Aye” for is playing with house money. Everyone knows how impossibly difficult the Senate map is for Democrats in 2024 and has for the better part of a decade.
This guy is just another example of republicans willing to lie and cheat to gain power. We get it. You lied about being a democrat. It's not a secret, just make it official already. Garbage humans, the lot of them.
I think his plan is clear:
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threaten the Democrats that he will bolt before the election if the party tries to primary him
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if he doesn't switch parties before the election, and gets reelected, he will switch to Independent if the Republicans win back the majority and try to get a plum committee assignment out of Mitch
You're forgetting the possibility that he slithers off of his yacht and dissolves back into the murky black depths from whence he came. Or maybe he trips and falls overboard. Either one. Does pure evil respond to the forces of gravity?
The state party isn't gonna support a primary against him. It'll just be Paula Jean Swearengin running a doomed campaign like in 18 (the last time she primaried him) and 20 (when she ran against our other nepo baby senator)# .
Kabuki theatre. This is about getting reelected
For 99% of elected officials, every action they take is about getting re-elected. The difference here is Manchin has a counterproductive strategy to do so.
He’s in West Virginia, attending a green energy event is very much against his constituents’ interest
He was never really part of it anyway. I’d rather see a strong progressive run in WV. You might be surprised with someone who stands for the people and not just for themselves.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
But Biden’s actions on climate are one issue now pushing the fossil fuels-aligned senator towards the exit door and he will reportedly skip the anniversary event.
The senator recently dined with a top Biden aide, NBC said, as the White House tried “to ensure the president is not caught off-guard when Manchin publicly breaks with him”.
Hailing “one of the most historic pieces of legislation passed in decades”, he said West Virginia, a state dominated by coal interests, was “already seeing real results”.
But he also said he would “continue to fight the Biden administration’s unrelenting efforts to manipulate the law to push their radical climate agenda at the expense of both our energy and fiscal security”.
On Thursday, Manchin told West Virginia radio he was “thinking seriously” about ceasing to identify as a Democrat, whether to run for re-election as an independent or as a third-party candidate for president, backed by the No Labels group.
Democrats hold the Senate 51-49, a majority that already includes three independents: Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Angus King of Maine and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona.
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I can't with this guy. Is he some sort of attention whore or what?
He's no longer the "50th vote" in the Senate so he hasn't gotten nearly the same media attention. It's eating him up and I just love it.
Fuck this guy. How about they support an actual Democrat to run against him if he pulls this shit?
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