I mean this is basically his complaint, for which he is being mocked. He represents his constituents, and I think what he is saying is he finds it difficult to do so while attempting to map their desires to those of one of the national parties.
Whenever there is one of these holdouts I always want to point out that the letter next to their name is far far far less important than whatever their constituents are banging on about. All politics is local and all that. Manchin couldn’t possibly be as progressive as people want because his constituents aren’t. Want someone other than Manchin, sorry you’re not getting a progressive D, you’re getting a Trumpkin.
I was thinking more along the lines of younger workforce (for whom admittedly Wyoming is a tough sell), plus their families. More racial diversity would be nice as well (I know, another pipe dream). In any case, voting trends show greater Dem gains among college educated whites, which is as I recall was the basis for the idea that Wyoming could be flipped.
Manchin is a moderate, at least in terms of today’s wacky political situation. He could have fit into either the Democratic or Republican parties at many times in the past but now would be unwelcome in either one. He’s right - he’s a political dinosaur who doesn’t belong in a hyper-polarized time.
For the people hating on him, remember that he’s the only Democrat with a snowball’s chance in hell of winning in West Virginia. It’s either him or a conservative (probably Trumpy) Republican. We’re way, way better off with him than the alternative.
Last I checked America’s tech companies were among the biggest forces enabling the rising tide of American fascism in the first place. If not for the irresponsible actions (and inaction) of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter we probably wouldn’t have Trump’s political career or the Proud Boys or the Qanon movement or dozens of other examples of far-right nonsense. So why would we trust the tech sector to save us?
I couldn’t agree more and the last thing I would want to do is wave a flag for Big Tech. My (borrowed) observation was grounded solely in demographic shifts. I think the biggest challenge would be to convince people to move to Wyoming (no insult to Wyoming intended).
The policies he’s blocking are popular in West Virginia. He’s not just a useless shitbag, he’s a useless shitbag who isn’t even actually representing his constituents.
West Virginia is one of the reddest states in the country, and Manchin only has his senate seat there because of name recognition and his demonstrative willingness to shaft the Democratic party. Any replacement from West Virginia is likely to be Marjorie Taylor Green-level awful.
‘Here’s a secret that every West Virginian knows.
Joe Manchin, Shelley Moore Capito, the rest of our Congressional delegation —
they do not represent the working people of West Virginia.
They never have; they never will.
That’s because up until now, you don’t win high office in West Virginia because you serve the people.
You win high office in West Virginia because you serve Exxon.
Because you serve out-of-state landowners, bankers, and corporate lawyers — that’s who he’s checking in with.
The only language they understand is power, and so the only hope we have on the ground of persuading these establishment politicians is to threaten to replace them.
And so, that’s what we’re doing…
With every candidate we recruit, every local leader and organizer we train, that threat grows.
And we can’t do it alone.’
_
Joe is deeply corrupt, & it runs in the family.
In case anyone has forgotten:
… Manchin’s daughter, Heather Bresch, was the president and chief executive officer of Mylan Inc., a pharmaceutical company that specialized in generic drugs. The company raised the price of a two-pack of EpiPen from around $124 dollars in 2009 to $609 in 2016. Bresch left the company in 2020 after Mylan merged with Upjohn, Pfizer’s generic division, in November 2020, to form Viatris Inc. Bresch began working at the company in 1992, and became CEO in 2012.
Before it became Viatris, Mylan was one of the largest campaign contributors to Manchin’s campaigns in five election cycles, donating around $211,000 to his campaigns since 2009 through PACs and employees. In 2010, the company’s PAC and its employees were the largest donors to Manchin’s first Senate run, and Viatris is the number one career donor to Manchin, including past donations from Mylan.
McConnell absolutely won’t kill the filibuster until he has a combination of a two-house Congressional majority and a president who wants to push conservative legislative priorities (to the extent there are any)–at which point, you’re correct, he will nuke it without a second thought (and call it the Schumer rule). The problem with the filibuster, though, is that–like debt-ceiling chicken–it’s a weapon that inherently favors the Republicans. No Democrat is going to seriously gamble with the full faith and credit of the country, and Democrats’ central thesis is that legislation and government action can help solve problems.
By continually gumming up the works and not allowing any legislation to proceed, McConnell furthers the Republican story that government is useless.
for sure. telsa is moving to texas despite the gop tearing up the social contract ( or maybe because of that )
one of the articles i read even mentioned that - like techies maybe - the back to land hippies weren’t necessarily progressive on women’s rights or even civil rights. they wanted mainly wanted their own political freedom and a way out of the economic grind
but i do like the idea of taking over wyoming or the dakotas by a whole bunch of people moving there.
( better still though would somehow be giving native groups their own specific representation. south dakota would be a lot different if the people in pine ridge had their own senator. )
He’s exactly what you’d expect to be a Dem representing West Virginia. Sinema doesn’t have an excuse.
I just wonder what would happen if Manchin was a bit more focused on being able to secure benefits for his drastically underserved constituency. In some ways, if he were a bit more of a regionally self-interested politician, this might be a better situation.
Yes, because of it. At what point have the new guilded age overlords shown that they give two shits about the rest of us.
Honestly, we really have to focus on national solutions, and that means shoring up the constitutional structures that protect the least powerful among us that has national reach.
Bullshit. Neither does he. At come point, we need to start calling people out for putitng their own self-interests ahead of the country. That’s true of BOTH of them.
It’s up to the state. Some do elections, others are by appointment. Worth noting the new person’s term only lasts as long as the existing term. IOW a senator has 2 years left and they quit, the new person only has a 2 year term - the clock doesn’t reset.
Can confirm. Just try asking a tech worker how they feel about immigration and taxes. Yeah, it’s definitely more left leaning, but there’s a big hardcore Trump set stinking up the place.
