1 yr. ago • 96%

Joe Manchin expected to skip Biden event as he weighs leaving Democrats

www.theguardian.com Joe Manchin expected to skip Biden event as he weighs leaving Democrats

US Democratic senator will reportedly miss anniversary of Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s landmark climate legislation

72 comments

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.

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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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  Assuming Manchin doesn't do so first by switching parties.
  
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Do it already, Jesus. This dip shit just wants attention.

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- Kick him out before he leaves.
  
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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.

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- 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.
  
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  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.
  
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  He’s just about the only “Democrat” who could be elected in a blood red coal mining state.
  
  Plenty of Democrats get elected in majority red states- like Andy Beshear
  
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- 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.
  
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  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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- OMG having this argument with people is maddening. Their refusal to think logically makes me want to bash my head on a wall
  
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  Right? That top-level comment is completely unhinged.
  
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- I mean you're not wrong
  
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- Permanently Deleted
  
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  On Lemmy people deriding liberals are very often farther left, not conservatives.
  
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  "Liberal" in this context is from a socialist/communist lens. It's not what the US calls "liberal". It's just another name for a capitalist, as in what Adam Smith defined. "Economic" liberalism.
  
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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?

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- The people there love him. WV is a clear case of voters voting against their best interest.
  
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  Because obviously everyone who doesn't just unfailingly agree with your personal views only disagrees because they're stupid.
  
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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

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- 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.
  
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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.

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I think his plan is clear:

threaten the Democrats that he will bolt before the election if the party tries to primary him

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
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- 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)# .
  
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- 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?
  
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Never was to begin with.

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Kabuki theatre. This is about getting reelected

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- 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.
  
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  He’s in West Virginia, attending a green energy event is very much against his constituents’ interest
  
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Manchin needs to go play in traffic

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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.

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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.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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I can't with this guy. Is he some sort of attention whore or what?

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- 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.
  
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Fuck this guy. How about they support an actual Democrat to run against him if he pulls this shit?

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I think Manchin wants out.

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- Fun fact Ice cube is also sadly a Republican
  
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  Because it's always been a rich vs. poor issue. He now loves the police because he can afford special treatment.
  
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the Inflation Reduction Act is climate legislation?... should we pass a Climate Reduction Act to get ahead of the grocery bill?

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- Are you new to earth, or are you genuinely unaware of how these all-encompassing bills work?
  
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Blue no matter who and its consequences.

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Can the Ds just kick him out instead? He's not reliable and is basically taking a D seat not being a D.

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- Uh, what? This is West Virginia. He is a 'D' taking an 'R' seat but he wins on name recognition. The other Senator is a Republican who last won election with 70% of the vote.
  
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  Uh, what? This is West Virginia. He is a ‘D’ taking an ‘R’ seat but he wins on name recognition. The other Senator is a Republican who last won election with 70% of the vote.
  
  This traditional, delusional, D' thinking. If he doesn't vote D, he's not a D, in-spite of how much DCCC money he gets. The voters put in a D. They want a D.
  
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