"But the fact of the matter is that the day Warnock and Ossoff won in Georgia, the art of the possible flipped from “what Mitch McConnell is willing to do” to “what Joe Manchin is willing to do,” and every hour of every day that was not spent in polite, friendly conversation aimed at making sure all his needs were met was a wasted hour."
I love this sentence, and I don't understand why democrats have spent so much time not doing this. Maybe legislating in DC is just a lot of different personalities with different levels of understanding of how things work, so it's all big and messy, or maybe legislators in DC just aren't good at legislating anymore.
We need to develop a baseball-style VARS (Votes Above Replacement Senator) in order to help folks appreciate the value Manchin brings to the Democratic Party. He might be our top player outside Brown!
Seems to me that progressive hatred of Manchin is what keeps him viable electorally—like the worst thing for Manchin’s re-election would be for AOC to be out there saying ‘well actually Joe is super important for achieving progressive goals’.
Great post. Far too few people understand that the Majority Leader has absolute power over what comes to the Senate floor. When McConnell didn’t bring Garland up for a vote, there was nothing Obama could do about it. Manchin’s vote for Schumer on Day 1 is only the reason Biden can do anything at all.
The people reading this are not the people who need to read it. The choice in West Virginia is between Joe Manchin and a Republican. Of far more interest is the situation in New Jersey. The Democrats continue to limp on with Robert Menendez, when they could win with literally anyone that could fog a mirror.
It's funny, when you mentioned that Biden is appointing judges at a record-setting pace, I was like "Huh, I've actually never heard about that." And I consider myself reasonably well plugged into US politics, for a European at least.
Back when it was Trump's turn to reshape the judiciary, Republicans and right-wing media would not shut up about it. And that might explain the apprehension about Joe Manchin: Democrats don't care enough about winning.
I think the situation highlighted at the end of the article is even worse than MY makes it out to be. The democrats could run Manchin style candidates in all of those states and they'd likely all lose, not because the candidates would be unelectable but because they would be tied to a party that has really botched the historical opportunity to shore up the center that was presented by Trump. I've never voted republican and am a solidly, predictable democratic voter, and even I am rolling my eyes with frustration at the party. People in the center, independents that flipped from Obama to Trump and back to Biden, and suburban voters who were horrified by Trump, all seem to be exasperated and confounded at the things the democratic party seems to want to focus all of its energies on. I think the leadership of the democratic party needs to dramatically alter its stance and framing of key issues and make it clear that they're not focused on things the progressive and "woke" aspects of the party want to harp on all day, every day. Until that happens, democrats in swing states will find it almost impossible to win state wide races for national office because voters are smart enough to realize that voting for any democrat is providing a vote to the democratic party platform in Washington, regardless of how moderate or acceptable that particular candidate might be to voters in the state otherwise.
Manchin’s VORP is so much higher than almost any other politician it’s not even funny! Every Democrat should be thanking him on bended knee every time he agrees to do anything even remotely liberal or progressive.
Incidentally, while I initially blamed him for the collapse of BBB, now we know there was a framework he and Schumer agreed to in the summer, and then Schumer pulled the rug out from him and shot way higher. While Manchin also did some flip-flopping of his own, the fault doesn’t solely lie with him!
"Everyone also understands that whatever disappointment they may feel about the current state of the Biden legislative agenda, everything would be worse if Mitch McConnell were Majority Leader." --> This is, I think, incorrect. Not everyone understands this. Some progressives would actually prefer this outcome, or at least that's their revealed preference.
I think one cause of this anger is that there are a lot of causes are important and are not making progress (climate change, child poverty, voting rights, etc) and you need someone to blame.
The correct answer is that there are a lot of people who have more conservative opinions about politics than Joe Manchin who vote, and thus they have a big impact on the direction of the country even though they're wrong. But there's a lot of discomfort with that answer on the left, both because it implies the need for the kinds of compromises that Matt suggests but more fundamentally because it's in tension with believing good things about your fellow citizens, and about democracy more generally. So instead it's easier to blame Manchin.
I repeat my suggestion that in red states where Dems have no chance of winning, they should reach a backroom agreement with a non-Democrat to run for office as an independent, and the Dems should agree to just not run anyone. The independent guy or gal can make a bunch of noise about how much they hate socialism and Nancy Pelosi, while also, you know, not being a member of the Trump North Korean-Style Personality Cult Party. In the vein of this piece, a bunch of Manchins from Indiana, Wyoming, Idaho, the Dakotas, Missouri etc. would certainly be *better* than the alternative. They might be economically populist to a greater or lesser degree (higher minimum wage, etc.), depending on their state.
This is where I disagree with David Shor- I don't think there's anything most candidates can do to win in some states, so long as they have a D next to their name. It kind of doesn't matter what positions they take, popularism or no. Increasing our total number of Congressional Manchins (the Strategic Manchin Supply?) would probably be a good thing for the health of the country!
Every time I bring this sort of thing up with non-Missourians, I get some version of you Missouri people are stupid racists or rural americans should move to the city if they want to live. Every time I bring this sort of thing up with Missouri democrats, I get some version of, f off, we know what we are doing and you are stupid. I gave up. My only hope is external forces convincing people to act differently.
1. First, you're underrating Tester's chances in 2024. Every time he runs, he wins a bigger slice of the electorate than in his previous election. As opposed to Manchin, whose tally shrinks every election.
2. Manchin, in my estimation, too often negotiates in bad faith. His stance on the filibuster is part of that. He likes the filibuster because it means he doesn't have to do the right thing when it's difficult, like on the voting rights package he negotiated. Or when he brought the voting on Covid aid to an unexpected halt in the middle of the night, prompting Jon Tester to remark, "I have no idea what he's doing." Manchin may not be the villain progressives cast him as, but he's also far from being a sober, even minded moderate who puts the public first. He's an illogical egotist, and just as easily offended as some of the more progressive Senators. You don't have to hate him, but don't buy the BS that he has a finger on the pulse of America. He's as misguided and blinkered as everyone else in DC, with the added complication that a small tribe of moderates and contrarian progressives (points at MY) take time every few months to write up something to inflate his ego.
I'm at my wits ends dealing with Joe Manchin; Secret Republican conspiracy theories from folks who think that he's definitely going to get challenged from the Left and somehow he is scared of that. As someone who went to and graduated high school in small town West Virginia, i implore folks to educate themselves on what exactly happened to Stephen Smith's populist "West Virginia Can't Wait" campaign for governor in 2020. He didn't even make it out of the Democratic Primary, despite outraising other candidates...and everyone knew the guy who won the Democratic primary was going to lose to Justice ANYWAY.
Leave a like to appreciate Joe Manchin.
"But the fact of the matter is that the day Warnock and Ossoff won in Georgia, the art of the possible flipped from “what Mitch McConnell is willing to do” to “what Joe Manchin is willing to do,” and every hour of every day that was not spent in polite, friendly conversation aimed at making sure all his needs were met was a wasted hour."
I love this sentence, and I don't understand why democrats have spent so much time not doing this. Maybe legislating in DC is just a lot of different personalities with different levels of understanding of how things work, so it's all big and messy, or maybe legislators in DC just aren't good at legislating anymore.
We need to develop a baseball-style VARS (Votes Above Replacement Senator) in order to help folks appreciate the value Manchin brings to the Democratic Party. He might be our top player outside Brown!
Seems to me that progressive hatred of Manchin is what keeps him viable electorally—like the worst thing for Manchin’s re-election would be for AOC to be out there saying ‘well actually Joe is super important for achieving progressive goals’.
Great post. Far too few people understand that the Majority Leader has absolute power over what comes to the Senate floor. When McConnell didn’t bring Garland up for a vote, there was nothing Obama could do about it. Manchin’s vote for Schumer on Day 1 is only the reason Biden can do anything at all.
The people reading this are not the people who need to read it. The choice in West Virginia is between Joe Manchin and a Republican. Of far more interest is the situation in New Jersey. The Democrats continue to limp on with Robert Menendez, when they could win with literally anyone that could fog a mirror.
It never ceases to amaze me how many progressives, in their condemnations of members of their own party, seem to forget that half of 100 is 50.
It's funny, when you mentioned that Biden is appointing judges at a record-setting pace, I was like "Huh, I've actually never heard about that." And I consider myself reasonably well plugged into US politics, for a European at least.
Back when it was Trump's turn to reshape the judiciary, Republicans and right-wing media would not shut up about it. And that might explain the apprehension about Joe Manchin: Democrats don't care enough about winning.
I think the situation highlighted at the end of the article is even worse than MY makes it out to be. The democrats could run Manchin style candidates in all of those states and they'd likely all lose, not because the candidates would be unelectable but because they would be tied to a party that has really botched the historical opportunity to shore up the center that was presented by Trump. I've never voted republican and am a solidly, predictable democratic voter, and even I am rolling my eyes with frustration at the party. People in the center, independents that flipped from Obama to Trump and back to Biden, and suburban voters who were horrified by Trump, all seem to be exasperated and confounded at the things the democratic party seems to want to focus all of its energies on. I think the leadership of the democratic party needs to dramatically alter its stance and framing of key issues and make it clear that they're not focused on things the progressive and "woke" aspects of the party want to harp on all day, every day. Until that happens, democrats in swing states will find it almost impossible to win state wide races for national office because voters are smart enough to realize that voting for any democrat is providing a vote to the democratic party platform in Washington, regardless of how moderate or acceptable that particular candidate might be to voters in the state otherwise.
Manchin’s VORP is so much higher than almost any other politician it’s not even funny! Every Democrat should be thanking him on bended knee every time he agrees to do anything even remotely liberal or progressive.
Incidentally, while I initially blamed him for the collapse of BBB, now we know there was a framework he and Schumer agreed to in the summer, and then Schumer pulled the rug out from him and shot way higher. While Manchin also did some flip-flopping of his own, the fault doesn’t solely lie with him!
"Everyone also understands that whatever disappointment they may feel about the current state of the Biden legislative agenda, everything would be worse if Mitch McConnell were Majority Leader." --> This is, I think, incorrect. Not everyone understands this. Some progressives would actually prefer this outcome, or at least that's their revealed preference.
I think one cause of this anger is that there are a lot of causes are important and are not making progress (climate change, child poverty, voting rights, etc) and you need someone to blame.
The correct answer is that there are a lot of people who have more conservative opinions about politics than Joe Manchin who vote, and thus they have a big impact on the direction of the country even though they're wrong. But there's a lot of discomfort with that answer on the left, both because it implies the need for the kinds of compromises that Matt suggests but more fundamentally because it's in tension with believing good things about your fellow citizens, and about democracy more generally. So instead it's easier to blame Manchin.
I repeat my suggestion that in red states where Dems have no chance of winning, they should reach a backroom agreement with a non-Democrat to run for office as an independent, and the Dems should agree to just not run anyone. The independent guy or gal can make a bunch of noise about how much they hate socialism and Nancy Pelosi, while also, you know, not being a member of the Trump North Korean-Style Personality Cult Party. In the vein of this piece, a bunch of Manchins from Indiana, Wyoming, Idaho, the Dakotas, Missouri etc. would certainly be *better* than the alternative. They might be economically populist to a greater or lesser degree (higher minimum wage, etc.), depending on their state.
This is where I disagree with David Shor- I don't think there's anything most candidates can do to win in some states, so long as they have a D next to their name. It kind of doesn't matter what positions they take, popularism or no. Increasing our total number of Congressional Manchins (the Strategic Manchin Supply?) would probably be a good thing for the health of the country!
Every time I bring this sort of thing up with non-Missourians, I get some version of you Missouri people are stupid racists or rural americans should move to the city if they want to live. Every time I bring this sort of thing up with Missouri democrats, I get some version of, f off, we know what we are doing and you are stupid. I gave up. My only hope is external forces convincing people to act differently.
1. First, you're underrating Tester's chances in 2024. Every time he runs, he wins a bigger slice of the electorate than in his previous election. As opposed to Manchin, whose tally shrinks every election.
2. Manchin, in my estimation, too often negotiates in bad faith. His stance on the filibuster is part of that. He likes the filibuster because it means he doesn't have to do the right thing when it's difficult, like on the voting rights package he negotiated. Or when he brought the voting on Covid aid to an unexpected halt in the middle of the night, prompting Jon Tester to remark, "I have no idea what he's doing." Manchin may not be the villain progressives cast him as, but he's also far from being a sober, even minded moderate who puts the public first. He's an illogical egotist, and just as easily offended as some of the more progressive Senators. You don't have to hate him, but don't buy the BS that he has a finger on the pulse of America. He's as misguided and blinkered as everyone else in DC, with the added complication that a small tribe of moderates and contrarian progressives (points at MY) take time every few months to write up something to inflate his ego.
I'm at my wits ends dealing with Joe Manchin; Secret Republican conspiracy theories from folks who think that he's definitely going to get challenged from the Left and somehow he is scared of that. As someone who went to and graduated high school in small town West Virginia, i implore folks to educate themselves on what exactly happened to Stephen Smith's populist "West Virginia Can't Wait" campaign for governor in 2020. He didn't even make it out of the Democratic Primary, despite outraising other candidates...and everyone knew the guy who won the Democratic primary was going to lose to Justice ANYWAY.