Joe Manchin threw a pissy fit after the White House ignored his plea that he not be singled out at the cause of a delay in passing the Build Back Better bill. Read the reporting on this carefully:
White House staff had given Manchin a heads-up on Thursday that the president was soon to put out a statement accepting a delay in the Build Back Better Act and that it was going to mention the West Virginia senator by name. Manchin objected, asking that either his name be left out or that he not be alone because his family had already been the target of abuse and he didn’t want to be singled out.
But the statement went out anyway, and contained only Manchin’s name. The senator then snapped at White House aides and told them that he was done negotiating.
A lot of focus is being put on Manchin’s thin skin. Some people are obviously blaming White House staff for making a gross error in judgment. But one key here is that Manchin’s emotional state was molded over time. His objection to being singled out wasn’t a reaction to prior inconsiderate behavior from the administration. It’s the administration’s supposed supporters who have bombarded him with the harshest kind of criticism, and this has gone on for months. Most importantly, Manchin expressed a concern for his family. It goes unmentioned in the cited paragraph above, but Manchin’s daughter has been a particular target of abuse.
Take, for example, our progressive “allies” at Jacobin who published “Meet Joe Manchin’s Appalling Daughter” in late October. That followed The Intercept‘s September profile, “Heather Bresch, Joe Manchin’s Daughter, Played Direct Part In Epipen Price Inflation Scandal.” In the midst of this, members of the progressive Sunrise Movement and DSA decided to go to Bresch’s home.
Pittsburgh members of the Democratic Socialists of America, Sunrise Movement, and the Ohio Valley Environmental Resistance woke up early on Tue., Oct. 12 to deliver a “job offer” to the gated Sewickley Heights home of Heather Bresch, daughter of U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and former lobbyist and pharmaceutical executive. Activist stood in front of the gate of suburban Pittsburgh early in the morning on Oct. 12.
Members of the organizations delivered speeches about Manchin’s refusal to support President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act, which has put the reconciliation bill in limbo.
I have never understood why progressives thought this kind of “activism” would be helpful. Don’t people know that politicians tend to be petty and vindictive? Politicians don’t like it when people say that they’re a crook in the pocket of dark money donors, Launching blistering attacks at Manchin and his daughter has always seemed like a good way to get him to do the opposite of what you want.
And it’s not just the Build Back Better bill that is at stake. Maybe you saw this in the news last week:
The Senate confirmed President Biden’s 40th federal judicial nominee early on Saturday morning, the most judges confirmed in a president’s first year in the last 40 years.
In a pre-dawn mad dash before leaving Washington for the holidays, lawmakers confirmed 10 district court judges, bringing the year-end total to 40 and notching an achievement not seen since former President Ronald Reagan. It underscored how the White House has set a rapid pace in filling vacancies on the federal bench, even besting the records set by the Trump administration, which maintained a laser focus on reshaping the judiciary.
You obviously know that few of those judges would have been confirmed without Manchin voting for cloture to end debate on their nominations, right? If Manchin were to change parties and stop voting with the Democrats on procedural issues, almost no White House appointments would be filled, and those that were would be less progressive and take a longer time to get a vote. Not only that, but the Senate could be reorganized and all committee gavels might get turned over to a Republican since they would be in the majority.
This isn’t to suggest that Manchin and his daughter don’t deserve criticism. My focus is on who is dishing out that criticism and why.
The White House has been respectful and solicitous to Manchin because it had to be. Everything they want to do depends on him. And yet the second they made a misstep, Manchin flipped out. This shows how emotion plays such an important part in how these decisions get made.
We’ve seen this before. Back in 2010, then-Sen. Joe Lieberman revealed in an interview with the New York Times that he decided to oppose a Medicare buy-in in the Affordable Care Act because liberals like Rep. Anthony Weiner thought it was a good idea. In other words, Lieberman spiked the reform purely for spite and because he had the power to sustain a filibuster against Obamacare.
I know there’s a school of thought that Manchin always intended to walk away and that the White House statement simply provided a convenient excuse. I have two thoughts on that. First, it’s basically irrelevant to the conversation about strategy. If Manchin could never be convinced, then there was no good or bad strategy. It was an impossible task, and Manchin should have made that clear from the outset.
Second, if there was some glimmer of hope, however small, the strategy needed to be based on changing Manchin’s mind. If he wasn’t interested in the merits because he’s bought off by corporate interests, then pretty much the only way to bring him around was to appeal to his emotions. This has pretty much been the Republicans’ approach. They say nothing but nice things about him. They continually invite him to join their party. They understand that Manchin is under a ton of pressure to side with Biden and his own party, and they don’t want to give him more reasons to go along.
These progressive activists, however, seem to think Manchin should have been punched harder.
The problem isn't that people were trying to beat Manchin into submission, it's that they weren't. His coal company and his daughter are both leverage points which could have easily been used against him, but weren't. https://t.co/jbIjj3XFGq
— Ian Welsh (@iwelsh) December 20, 2021
Reverend Barber has been a relentless and strident critic of Manchin, and he’s still at it.
“Senator Manchin, I was raised to not lie! … You’re looking ahead to get yourself elevated to another position, while you’re stepping right on all of us. We are under your feet. I don’t wanna be under your feet. … You are a big liar!” —Jean Evansmore @WestVirginiaPPC pic.twitter.com/TwAGxMPkLI
— Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II (@RevDrBarber) December 20, 2021
Ian Welsh is an idiot. As for Rev. Barber, I admire him greatly and I’m not going to tell him what to do or how to do it. But if he thinks he’s making Manchin more inclined to support filibuster reform to enact a voting rights bill, he’s simply mistaken. And of course there will be no voting rights bill without Manchin.
In 2020, Trump carried all 55 counties in West Virginia. Biden received less than thirty percent of the vote. Let’s look at what these voters think about Biden now.
By a 74%-to-25% margin, Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters (who we’ll call potential Republican primary voters) say that Biden didn’t win enough votes to win the 2020 election legitimately…
The margin grows to 86% to 13% that Biden didn’t win legitimately among potential Republican primary voters who are extremely enthusiastic about voting next year. Compare that to Republicans who are not enthusiastic about voting in 2022: They believe Biden didn’t win legitimately by a 62% to 38% margin.
Those are national numbers from a September CNN/SSRS poll. A MetroNews West Virginia Poll from the same month showed that 43 percent of the state’s residents believe “voting fraud and election rigging” account for Biden’s victory. Do these people sound like they’re clamoring for a bill that will make it easier for Democrats to vote?
A November survey of West Virginia from a Republican pollster found Manchin with a 61-37 approval rating compared to 32-65 for the president. So, while it may be true that West Virginians are poorer, less educated and in worse health than average, and that they stand to gain tremendously from many of the programs in the Build Back Better bill, it’s simply not the case that they want Manchin to enact it. He’s doing just fine with them doing what he has been doing, which is acting like a very conservative Democrat and a constant irritant to liberals.
Why would he defy his own constituents on this?
Maybe because he knows that they’d be better off in the long run. Maybe because the president said nice things about him.
Maybe there was never a chance, but it sure as hell didn’t help to keep calling him names and going after his family.
And this isn’t over. The Build Back Better bill isn’t fully dead, nor is the voting rights bill. There’s a whole year left of appointing and legislating before the Republicans retake Congress. Maybe we’ll want 50 senators for that?
Just a thought.
Blacks voted for Democrats to help usher in a counter to voter suppression and police reform. No action will be taken on voter suppression because two Democrats have stronger ties to the filibuster than Blacks being able to vote. Senator Booker was used like a rag doll by Senator Tim Scott when it came to police reform. The Democrats were worthless. Yet, Blacks will be blamed when Democrats lose seats in 2022.
The Republicans just sat back and watched Democrats destroy policies important to Black people. Blacks expect life under authoritarian Republicans to be Hell, but we have lived through political Hell before. Democrats let us down. We expect to hear how BLM and CRT lost votes when Democrats throw Blacks under the bus.
Manchin wasn’t forced to write op-eds or go on TV and say whatever stupid shit he had to say about this bill, so I’m not sure he has much to complain about being unfairly singled out. He seems to have done that all by himself. No, no one should have to suffer threats to their family, etc., but the idea that they would drop BBB without explaining why (the reasons for which would have been obvious anyway) seems unrealistic. This seems to be the death knell for Biden’s presidency (or at least has the potential for it), which I think changes the dynamic. Happy to be wrong, though.
Give me a break. Manchin is a liar and has been negotiating in bad faith. He’s been angling to be the “hero” to the fox news crowd and he got his moment of fame as the guy that killed BBB. He has no interest in helping Democrats out and he won’t be in the party much longer regardless. You can blame whoever you want for hurting his fee-fees, but he never was a team “D” player and all the ass-kissing in the world isn’t going to change his mind. The most likely scenario is that he’s going to take his ball home, become an “independent” and make moscow mitch the Senate leader so he can get at least one more moment of glory on fox. Of course, all the “savy” pundits will blame progressives but the sad fact is that this was in the cards all along. The only strategy left is to try to get as many people confirmed as possible before he bolts and then it’s back to playing the same executive action game that Obama was stuck with.
Well if you like you can kiss voting rights goodbye if Manchin becomes an independent and maybe even another Supreme Court justice to McConnell. Like him or not he has the power to get even with gamesmanship.
If Manchin becomes an Independent, the voting bill is toast
If Manchin remains a Democrat, the voting bill is toast.
Manchin has no problem with Blacks being disenfranchised.
Indeed, Manchin would have been Manchin regardless if anyone, including “progressives” had said nothing. And I put progressive in so-called scare quotes to denote the term tends to be used as a label to cover anyone who doesn’t toe the “centrist” line while not dutifully excusing and/or cheering on the likes of Manchin, Sinema, et al, with the standard line, “don’t worry what he just did, he’s going to come around in the end, so SFTU!” — His actions weren’t reaction to some insult from the left, as much as it was the plan all along, which always included the escape hatch of blaming progressives, an easy target.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with much of the criticism of the left here, many of whom are childish and unreasonable, and are socially and financially positioned to have the “luxury” of playing at being revolutionaries without cost, when they, for example, join BLM protests and riot and start fires in the name of black lives, doing more harm than good. But the DEMOCRATIC stumbling blocks for BBB and voting rights have been Manchin and Sinema, and I don’t get the need to leaven their atrocities with pleasing tales of progressives gone wild. It certainly doesn’t help.
Progressives don’t do persuasion, they do pronouncements and scorn and ridicule, and love nothing so much as a heretic hunt.
Going into the 2020 election progressives turned all that scorn on Joe Biden. They maintained that Bernie or Warren would energize some vast, untapped progressive voting bloc that could reach out to Republicans on economic justice issues. That was b.s.. Then progressives moved on to dark assumptions that Biden would sell them out. Instead Biden absorbed most of the progressive agenda as well as the more mainline liberal agenda, wrapped it all up in BBB and ran into a brick wall. At which point, predictably, progressives attacked Biden and Nancy Pelosi on the theory that if we had just threatened some theoretical future WV freeway, Manchin would have cracked.
The one thing progressives are really good at is making unnecessary enemies. Incapable of persuasion, incapable of loyalty, ready to stab long-time friends in the back over any deviation from orthodoxy, while childishly expecting unstinting support in return. Too many progressives are thoroughly disconnected from the 300 million or so Americans who are not college faculty or graduate students. Dear progressives: America is just not that into you.
Interestingly, Bernie and Warren have not echoed the lunacy of some of their followers. They’re mature, rational politicians. With some exceptions, progressive leaders aren’t the problem. I’ve donated to both Bernie and Warren, and once it was clear Biden had it in the bag, I threw my California primary vote to Warren. I’d like to be allied with progressives whose agenda I agree with about 85%, but there’s that pesky 15%. . .
Don’t mistake this but since the all out assault on Manchin by progressives, I have come to dislike many of them and their tactics. If you really want something like BBB you need to stay in the game until there is no more. It is the same sort of betrayal they want to accuse Biden of in my mind.
Seems to me the progressives, for all their faults and well deserved criticism, have been relatively reliable reliable supporters of Biden’s BBB in this process. Sure, they criticized him at times, in some cases going over the top, but they’ve been as reliable partners as the so-called moderates, who have also criticized Biden, and thrown up roadblocks at times during the process. When it comes to them, we excuse it and say, that’s politics, and they’ll come around in the end, the arm twisting from Pelosi notwithstanding. For progressives, there is little tolerance for the same “independence,” and I believe there’s a lot more going on there with the critics than meets the eye.
Moderates are not reliable partners when it comes to fighting voter suppression. In fact, moderates will blame Blacks when Democrats lose seats in the midterms. There is no reason to trust moderates. Voter suppression is not a major issue for moderates. Blacks may sit out 2022 and 2024 because moderates are not reliable partners. For those who say Blacks will lose the voter suppression battle if we stay home, we are losing the voter suppression batlle with you as partners. Nothing will change.
“And this isn’t over. The Build Back Better bill isn’t fully dead, nor is the voting rights bill.”
This, to my mind, is the key part of this post. Maybe Manchin really is like Lieberman in 2009 and he’ll vote no on BBB just to piss off the people who are harassing his daughter…or to get back at some of Biden’s staff who don’t treat him with proper (in his view) respect…or any number of other petty reasons.
But the reactions by Democrats to Manchin’s statement on Fox News indicate, among other things, that *they* don’t think BBB is dead. Schumer is talking about an early vote in January. White House sources are carefully leaving space for a renegotiation with Manchin.
What’s clear is that *if* some version of BBB does pass the Senate, it will *not* include several progressive goals. (Based on nothing, I’d guess immigration reform and the child tax credit don’t make it into the final bill…among other things.) What progressives and moderates will then need to decide is whether they’re willing to grit their teeth and vote for a bill that includes $500 billion in climate change investments, plus child care, health care, and a bunch of other goodies.
The house is in fire my friend. Many know this. Unfortunately the majority of the low information voters do not. And double unfortunately, we need them in order to put the fire out. Biden’s approval level does not bode well in this regard.
The house is on fire and people in the know are panicking while scrambling for solutions.
One such solution is to bribe the low information voters into supporting government and thus resisting the pull of inaction while an energized opposition party completes our transformation into an un democratic fascist state.
The idea is that BBB is just such a bribe.
As such anyone who positions themselves against BBB is seen, logically btw, as promoting our cliff dive into fascism. And the panicked people in the burning house become even more panicked.
THAT, is why people are acting the way they do toward Manchin. Is it helping? I don’t know. Personally I don’t think the guy is a “square dealer” and it seem to me like he’s actively trying to add kindling to the fire.
But, voting rights will be the true “tell” for him and Semina.
At any rate, I think your frustration with people who are freaking out is misplaced. It should be with leadership. SOMEONE has got to provide a blueprint that reassures everyone the fire trucks are on the way.
Just this week alone:
Officer (im going to misspell his name) Faccone announced he was quitting the force because too many officers seemed to him, pledged allegiance to tRump and not the Constitution. He is a Republican btw.
Newsweek publishes an article about how thousands of US servicemen are ready to engage in a civil war.
Russia admits that they are actively engaged in a cyber war with us.
Kyle RottenCrap gets a standing ovation and Rockstar status for….. killing liberals I guess?
And Manchin goes on Fox News (no message in that I’m sure) to blow up one of the few things this administration is doing to put the fire out.
Remember to renew your passports kids.
Things are fine…..