The Democrats are coming out of the trees and bushes, forming battalion columns, and everyone has their bayonets fixed. It’s the legislative version of Pickett’s Charge, and they’re all geared towards destroying Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). The West Virginia Democrat killed his party’s last hope of passing a substantial spending bill. One of the provisions addressed global warming. The meltdown that occurred last week was biblical. Some Democrats were declaring that we were all going to die without the new spending bill. Others scoffed at Manchin’s position of power with these negotiations under a 50-50 Senate. I don’t get why anyone is shocked? Look at his record. Manchin is the last moderate-to-conservative-ish senator on the Hill. He hails from a deep red state. His likability and retail political skills are what keep him afloat. That’s not a knock on the man, who reportedly enjoys a nice glass of moonshine now and then. He’s a reminder of his party’s glaring and long-term political weakness: the Democrats need more folks like him to accomplish their legislative goals in Congress.
This isn’t new. Again, I feel like folks of all political stripes have been yelling about the Democratic Party’s unsustainable future being one made up of college-educated whites. The coasts and the cities will not secure a long-term future. Meanwhile, Trump has created a coalition that is one of the most efficiently dispersed in recent memory. Trump folks live in areas where elections are decided. They’re motivated and a mish-mosh of a variety of political views. Many are former Democrats, while others are first-time voters. White working-class voters have flocked to the GOP. Now, nonwhite working-class voters are doing the same. That’s electoral death in an election.
New York Magazine does well to highlight that point. It also gives some political cover to Manchin, who is not the sole reason for the Democrats’ two years of failure in governing. Jonathan Chait documents what went wrong, which solely hinges on Democrats’ inability to prioritize with slim congressional majorities. The social items are now a messy subject to debate among these folks since everyone has lost the plot on simple things like basic biology and scientific facts. Democrats, men, are unable to carry children. Chait credits other Democrats in Manchin’s mold, like Sen. Krysten Sinema (D-AZ), for being some of the most vocal supporters of tax increases on the rich in trying to maintain the party’s populist roots (via NY Mag) [emphasis mine]: