The Joe Manchin Problem
Joe Manchin is hard to read. He’s a Democrat with exceptionally strong support in a state that overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Not even Kyrsten Sinema has such an electoral divide. Many progressive people balk at his conservative beliefs. This guy is their ticket to electoral success? This guy is the key to passing progressive policy?
Manchin’s an old fashioned Senator in a world that’s changing. Yet, he’s still there, a vestige of the old-time politics of the US. Take his uncle, Antonio James Manchin. In 1927, A. James Manchin was born in a small coal mining town of Farmington, West Virginia to Italian immigrants. At 21 years young, he was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1948. While his tenure at that position was short, he still became an incredibly popular politician. In 1973, he was appointed to run an environmental program which removed and recycled over 100,000 of junked cars littered around the state. Around this time in West Virginia history, the Democrats are incredibly popular.
West Virginia is covered with coal mines and mountain ranges. Surrounding it are big players such as the historically and politically significant Virginia and Maryland, the industrious Pennsylvania and Ohio. However, deep in the ground lies a mountain of coal, stretching from Pennsylvania to Alabama.
Right on top of that mountain is rural West Virginia, and entrepreneurs took notice. To this day, coal is the bedrock of the West Virginia economy. Coal mining is hard work, and so labor unions popped up to demand fair wages. Of course, Democrats back then (and now) side with labor. It wasn’t until recently that Democrats stopped gaining power in West Virginia. To West Virginians, new climate-friendly Washington Democrats had disregarded their state. Combine that with economic stagnation, and West Virginia soon became Trump country.
However, the issue was not with the entire Democratic Party itself, but with the fear of anti-coal Washington liberals who would take away their meaningful jobs. Life as a coal miner is hard, but to people in Appalachia, it’s a decent job out of the few that exist.
Democratic senators were still somewhat popular. The fear of urban liberals coming for jobs could be calmed by an old school conservative Democrat. What West Virginians wanted (and continue to want) is somebody who cares about West Virginia more than a disconnected elite.
It’s here where Joe Manchin fits in. Manchin was born in the heart of West Virginia. He lived in a small coal mining town. He avoided working in those dark dungeons by making a living as a grocery store worker. He went to WVU college on scholarship as a quarterback. On a tangentially related point, Joe Manchin and University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban happen to be childhood friends.
Manchin was the perfect fit for a senator in West Virginia. He was a homegrown and authentic West Virginian who just so happened to be born into a family of Democrats. His political advertising is focused on how “he never forgets where he came from”. Coal miners wax poetically about how Manchin supports West Virginia. “If them politicians up there was half the man that Joe Manchin is, we wouldn’t have no problems in this country.” Yet even then, his position is still problematic. He’s popular, but mainly due to his conservative leanings. Manchin’s new controversy is his opposition to the For the People Act, especially regarding filibuster abolition.
This anomaly is the problem of Joe Manchin. He’s a Democratic senator whose hook on voters is premised on his dedication to their conservative slantings from a Democrat’s framework. On one hand, Manchin was once endorsed heavily by the NRA. In one famous advertisement, he brags about suing the EPA. In that very same ad, Manchin also shoots a copy of Obama’s now defunct cap-and-trade bill. Just the next election cycle, Manchin called back to that advertisement by shooting at a lawsuit that would gut Obamacare.
Manchin has to cater to a wide variety of viewpoints in that he must simultaneously support the broad strokes of the Democratic doctrine, but must also stand behind the traditionalist beliefs of West Virginia. In a world of politicians like AOC pushing the party to the left, Manchin is holding out as the anchor to what is left of rural democrats. What should be done to push Biden’s progressive agenda — what today’s average Democratic voter is more likely to support?
In leaked audio from The Intercept, you can hear how Manchin has to play politics. He doesn’t want to abolish the filibuster, so he wants to pass the January 6th commission to punish those who have blatantly declared war on democracy. That, in his mind, would allow him to get less heat for his opposition. In his leaked audio, he tries to suggest to donors that if Republican Roy Blunt votes for the January 6th commission, he might be able to protect the filibuster without incurring substantial outrage.
To Manchin, the filibuster is a way for minority parties to contain the majority. To him, the Democratic party utilized the filibuster many times during the Republican control, and it’s abolition is a clear power grab. Why do such a thing when you can go after clear examples of right-wing outlash?
As Manchin continues to frustrate members of the Senate, the only solution seems to be the simplest: Win elections, and get a majority. Even though the midterms are more than 450 days away, political analysts fear that the Democrats could even lose the House in 2022. There are multiple paths Democrats can take to increase their power in the Senate. Some believe the path to power relies on progressivism. Others, however, worry that even identifying with progressive issues will lead to electoral failure.
The Joe Manchin problem will fester for as long as Democrats are forced to wheel and deal with centrist democrats just to pass their agenda. Manchin wants to rely on the historical values of bipartisanship and democracy. Yet, he has to play a careful game to both appease progressives and to represent his voters. There is hope yet that Joe Manchin will be able to develop bipartisan bills that allow both parties to compromise. The problems will begin if he can’t.
