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Joe Manchin expected to skip Biden event as he weighs leaving Democrats
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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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.
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.
Ah, you're right! I misread you!
Plenty of Democrats get elected in majority red states- like Andy Beshear
I live in WV.
We ain't electing a D. Manchin was as good as it's gonna get here, and by all accounts he's pretty shit. It's a running joke that people call him Maserati Manchin cause he's only ever here in his Maserati, electing to live in DC on his houseboat.
Yeah Beshear won with a 0.4% margin in an R+16 state over a catastrophically unpopular governor who drove his own reputation into the dirt by taking braindead position after braindead position on things like abortion, school funding, and cockfighting. WV has another SIX percentage points of partisan lean toward Republicans. My assertion stands.
And I'm really hoping we get to hang onto him.
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.
Source:your ass
OMG having this argument with people is maddening. Their refusal to think logically makes me want to bash my head on a wall
Right? That top-level comment is completely unhinged.
No the top level comment is the logical take
For my own understanding, I want to have it explained to me how it was unhinged!
Granted, voicing the take as I did pertaining to Manchin likely isn't the smartest due to his electorate demographics, but I can recall a few cases where Democrat party officials threw their weight behind more center primary candidates as an appeal towards the center.
Edit: I suppose my umbrige is with how those candidates coincidentally happen to favor neo-liberal tendencies and don't advocate for working class or on environmental issues. Cause, man, what a dream it would be to have an actual left party as opposed to a center and right.
I mean you're not wrong
On Lemmy people deriding liberals are very often farther left, not conservatives.
Centrists don't care. They punch left while screaming that they're punching right.
Lemmy did an odd thing. I replied to someone replying to the top comment (“bickering with liberals”), who had assumed that poster was a Trumper. The person I replied to even replied to my comment, then they deleted both and my reply somehow ended up attached to your comment instead.
Dude, you're the uninformed one here not knowing about basic political science terms. Again, the US idea of "liberal" is not what the rest of the world calls "liberal".
Yeah but is the "douchebag" comment really neccessary when you were corrected on something? This ain't Reddit. Chill.
"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.