As long as he is supporting policies that punch down and block the progress of society he’s a Republican through and through.
Shut up Manchin, you’re just trying to deflect the answer.
Oh, and remember when he voted to confirm Kavanaugh?
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Just because someone works in tech doesn’t mean that they’ll be voting blue.
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God no! What about the last 10+ years would give that impression.
AynRandQnutWingnutIncelfashbros abound.
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Here’s the problem.
There has been a confusing and remarkably stupid shift in voting in West Virginia over the last 6 years or so. Having a -D after your name virtually guaranteed that you would be elected on a state or national election in West Virginia. (Because Unions.)
Then Trump. And the fool country bumkins got taken in by the slick city slicker con man, like they do.
As much as I hate to say this - if he leaves, he’ll be replaced by a Trumpist moron. As long as he stays in his seat until the next election, the senate majority is preserved, and the Ds get to stay in control. If he goes I or R, they loose the control completely.
What he’s doing is helping him get re-elected next cycle, and helping other Ds get elected next cycle too. Without a filibuster proof majority, they can’t do that much in the senate, and his ostentatious obstructionism is providing cover for that to other Dems who can point to him and say “See, it’s his fault. Reelect me.”
Yes, he is also “preventing them from getting rid of the filibuster” but - given the odds that the senate will fall to the darkside at some point in the next decade since it sure seems that the Trumpists aren’t going to be destroyed anytime soon- I’m not sure that it’s a good idea. The Dems just need to get used to the idea of being obstructionist assholes and making sure that the Reichpublicans can’t do anything, either. (This is one of the reasons why the USA survived Trump.)
The goal should be to get as many senate seats as possible, by any means necessary.
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I don’t have that impression, but whoever @rob_dobbs cited seems to hold that impression.
For what it’s worth, being educated doesn’t automatically mean one is progressive politically either. Plenty of people who are highly educated supported trump. Their class is much more of a key indicator of support for someone like trump. The elite fear losing their wealth through taxation more than living in authoritarian country.
If people want to move in voters who will vote blue reliably, then maybe entice Black women to come to your state. They seem to be the most reliably Democratic voting bloc. And they tend to be active and organized voters and activists, from doing that work for the past few hundred years.
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Boo-fucking-hoo.
The second(?) most powerful man in Washington
says what?
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Manchin is not a “country bumpkin”… he’s a wealthy elite. Having an accent is not an indicator of intellect or class status.
And once again, Trump had a strong backing from the wealthy, especially after his tax cuts for them. He did exactly what they wanted.
And many of the people who tried to overthrow our government were not “bumpkins” either - they were either part of an organized group, or they were people of means who could take a day off to play insurrectionists.
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On the one hand, the ‘D’ or at least caucusing with the D gives them the slightest majority and all the process benefits that come with it.
On the other hand, since he’s so far not a D, it’s almost functionally the same as being an R and just having McConnell graveyard everything.
I suppose now and then it’s a surprise.
I fully expect the current bill to get watered down enough that neither it or the other infrastructure bill will pass the house. We’ll have nothing then. The progressives in the house have shown a willingness to not vote for stuff that includes garbage they disagree with.
Middle-class white dudes gonna save us from fascism, yay!!
One question, what took y’all so fucking long?
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Yep.
Yeah Manchin is no country bumpkin as much as he wants you to believe he’s just a good 'ol boy from W. Va.
$120k Senate Salary
$491k Coal Brokerage Income
$613k Coal Brokerage Income (Wife)
(Plus whatever shady sh*t he’s got going on.)
40 years in W. Va. politics? He knows damn well who is is.
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No. He isn’t. Inside pool: I first met him about 35 years ago in the state capitol. He was a junior representative, in his first elected office. That man had fire, drive, and no morals whatsoever. Even as a pre-teen, I could tell he was a man who would go far in politics.
And I’m not talking about the smart people who live in the countryside. They still voted pretty much the way they always voted, or against Trump.
I’m talking about the voters who are mad and upset about the coal money and the fracking money drying up and not having any jobs left and seeing all their kids move off to where they could actually get a good job instead of staying there to take care of their old. The people who Trump came in and promised the moon and the sky and the return of the coal jobs, and they fell for it hook, line and sinker.
Or perhaps, more honestly- because let’s face it, on a national level, Democrats have been focused on people other than them, and here’s someone who would at least wine them and lie to them to get them to vote for him. (Happily granted that the other people who the Democrats are focused on have larger problems than they do. The Democrat’s focus is just and ethical, but hard for people who aren’t included who are hurting.)
Those are the people who flipped WV for the Republicans. They are who elected in a wave of Trumpists in a solid blue state that has always supported the unions, which is basically supported by the “socialist” programs that they are decrying.
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There have been programs to retrain people like that for other types of jobs such as wind power. Nobody showed up. Hell, trump even went out of his way to cut funding for rural training efforts. And again. Fear of change is going to be the death of them. Manchin is NOT helping W. Va. in that regard.
W.Va. Economy 48 out 50 states.
Health Care 48 out of 50 states.
Education 45 out of 50 states.
Infrastructure 50 out of 50 states.
But hey, he and other coal barons are rich.
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Where he needs to be politically is representing his constituents. Have you asked them, Joe?
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What in the last two decades leads you to believe that McConnell won’t kill the filibuster the very SECOND he has 50 seats?
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You can count on it.
“The bigger picture is that Manchin fundamentally disagrees with progressives that the major problem facing the country is Republican extremism. He thinks Democrats are part of the problem, too. He wants his party to really try to work with Republicans, and believes that won’t happen unless they are forced to do so because of the filibuster. And, he told me, he thinks his strategy of taking filibuster reform off the table is already working” -Vox
It’s like a good set up in a volleyball game just waiting for the spike…
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This idea that a bunch of poor white people are driving all of this (even if there are certainly some participating in it) is just absurd. This shit is almost always top-down.
Is that NOT actually a problem that they’re facing? 
But again, this is driven from the top down.
The last time that WV went blue was in 1996… Guess what year Fox News launched…
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I want 10 more Democrats in the Senate, not 1 fewer. (Well, I’d really like to not have a Senate at all, but I’m not getting that wish.)
He’s a better friend than Susan Collins, and I don’t think he’d be replaced with a Susan Collins.
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it worked for vermont back in the 1960s
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The tech sector isn’t as progressive as people like to make out - not remotely. It’s the bleeding edge of the current form of surveillance capitalism. If it was so progressive, then we would not have had the problems we’re facing right now with social media.
Apples and oranges with vermont.
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