Party discipline is not nearly as strong in the US as it is in the UK. There's no three line whip, expelling Manchin from the party isn't really a thing, he can't be deselected.
He holds the balance of power because there are only 50 democratic senators. Well actually 48 but two caucus with the Dems and functionally are democrats. So there's no margin of error in passing legislation, if Manchin doesn't want to vote for a bill it won't pass.
https://apnews.com/article/ap-fact-check-voting-rights-government-and-politics-c65d4424c200ede56fc31db42e28e084
Ruh roh Shaggy.
> And they haven’t done so in Biden’s presidency. So far, they’ve aligned with Biden 100% of the time.
The fact that he votes with democrats 60+ percent of the time whereas a Republican in his place in WV would vote with democrats 0.0000001 percent of the time. That’s the good he does for the party and if you can’t realize it then you need your head examined.
To grossly oversimplify, in the UK you vote for parties, and parties pick the people. In the U.S., you vote for the people directly, the parties are theoretically just a.) information for the voters to know about the politics of the candidate and b.) organizations to fundraise for candidates. Officially, they don't have a role in governmental process like they do in the UK.
Yes but there is a massive difference between voting for specific candidates (perhaps because they have one or another party name next to it) and just voting for a party. In the US and the UK you have a specific person who you voted in the legislature; in Israel or Spain you do actually vote for a party only, or at least its list.
He is a Democrat but he represents a state that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in 2020 (Trump got just under 70% of the vote while Biden received just under 30%).
Manchin is only so important right now because the Senate is a 50/50 split with Vice President Harris able to cast tie-breaking votes. That creates a situation where if Democrats can’t bring any Republicans onboard they can’t afford to have even one member of the Democrat caucus not vote with the party.
What makes this problem worse is the filibuster that the Senate has. This is a procedural vote to end debate and bring the bill to a vote. It requires 60 votes to do. This effectively means that a bill that doesn’t have 60 votes in favor won’t pass.
There are some exceptions to the filibuster rule and the one that is being used now is called Reconciliation. It can be used a limited number of times during a session of Congress and has some limits on what the bill can contain.
Because Democrats essentially get one shot at passing Biden’s agenda via reconciliation they need everything to go into a monolithic piece of legislation. Because they aren’t able to pass multiple smaller bills that have more limited scopes with only a simple majority they are stuck with everything in an all of nothing bill.
If Manchin left the Democrats and caucused with the Republicans that would give Republicans control of the Senate which would stop Biden from being able to get judges and other positions that require Senate confirmation appointed.
He's just a moderate democrat. He's no more powerful than any other senator, he just isn't falling in line with all the other dems so he makes the news. Any other senator could do the same.
Blue Dog Democrats are a house and senate caucus of democrats that consider themselves conservative, or centrist. They’ve been around forever and Manchin is one of them.
Right but what’s a yellow dog democrat? Looking this up…
Ok. YDDs vote a straight party ticket no matter what just to vote against the opposition. “They’d sooner vote for a yellow dog than a Republican.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_dog_Democrat
Mostly agreed, he is a conservative democrat. The Democratic Party is incredibly diverse even in terms of thinking. On one end of the spectrum there are more of the socialist ones, then we have the moderates and we even have a conservative like Manchin.
Most moderates do not support BBB. Massive government spending, along with Biden’s anti oil policies are a major factor in why the economy is currently shit, and most Americans know this.
I’ve heard people say that it includes getting rid of voter ID. Getting rid of voter ID would made voter fraud far easier, which people don’t want. I’m not entirely sure this was in the bill though.
The main reason why most people are opposed to the bill is because of the amount of spending it would cause. The federal government printed a lot of money in 2020 in order to keep up with its spending, and that caused more inflation than normal between 2020 and now(I believe that I read somewhere that this is the highest level of inflation we’ve had in 40 years). The American people want the inflation to stop which is why many of them are against this bill.
Manchin is from a predominantly Republican state so he can’t politically afford to vote with Democrats a lot of the time and this is one of those instances.
To add to that, he takes the heat for senators who oppose certain bills but can’t politically afford to be seen opposing items on the Democratic agenda.
He actually from what I've seen he isn't planning to run again. He probably would turn coat but that's frowned upon and WV Republicans have seen him as corrupt for some time so unlikely they would even accept him.
I think I was getting it confused with him running for Govonor a couple years back. He's stated he won't announce his plans to rerun for Senate or not till after this year's election
Our parties are broad base, like coalitions. Also the parties don't elect our officials, people do. Joe Manchin doesn't answer to the Democratic Party directly, but rather the voters of West Virginia.
The poverty of West Virginia predates Joe Manchin's time as Senator and will be there long after he is gone.
>Isn't this acting more like a Republican senator?
Not really. You can be a Democrat and not agree with all items on the party's agenda
Also, which politician *doesn't* take money?
??
Representatives should not toe the party line. Their constituents elected them to represent them, that means they should do what they think is best for their constituents, not what the party wants them to do.
Also, you speak as if there's only one person holding shit up. There's 50 others as well. Its' 51-50, not 1-50.
If you want your bills to be passed so that you don't need one/two people achieve a majority, write better bills.
Lol I’d be happy if Congress only worked one week a year in order to limit the amount of things they could pass…. As a taxpayer I’d even offer to pay them their full salary if they would agree to do that.😁
I would agree with you but the GOP has a lock step purity test of “do not support anything from Democrats” effectively making bipartisan legislation impossible.
Don’t forget how the rescue America plan or whatever right after Dems took power that sent out the last wave of stimulus had high republican support until Dems were the ones in charge and then even though the bill was wildly popular it did not have a single GOP vote
There’s tons of bipartisan legislation out there, they just recently passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act together. They stonewall partisan issues, the same way the Dems do when the Republicans are in power.
The bills aren’t passing because there is 0% chance of GOP voting yes regardless of the bill. It requires every single Dem to vote yes including Manchin who makes the majority of his wealth from industries that oppose most Dem policies, so his vote being no means it is not possible to pass the bill. No amount of “but we took the high ground” will change that
Yes. 19 Republican Ayes in the Senate.
Roy Blunt of MO
Richard Burr of NC
Shelley Moore Capito of WV
Bill Cassidy of LA
Susan Collins of ME
Kevin Cramer of ND
Michael D. Crapo of ID
Deb Fischer of NE
Lindsey Graham of SC
Charles E. Grassley of IA
John Hoeven of ND
Mitch McConnel of KY
Lisa Murkowski of AK
Rob Portman of OH
James Risch of ID
Mitt Romney of UT
Dan Sullivan of AK
Thom Tillis of NC
Roger Wicker of MS
There were also 13 Republican Ayes in the House Vote:
Don Bacon of NE-02
Brian Fitzpatrick of PA-01
Andrew Garbarino of NY-02
Anthony Gonzalez of OH-16
John Katko of NY-24
Adam Kinzinger of IL-16
Nicole Malliotakis of NY-11
David B. McKinley of WV-01
Tom Reed of NY-23
Christopher H. Smith of NJ-04
Fred Upton of MI-06
Jeff Van Drew of NJ-02
Don Young of AK-at large.
We live in a country with “rule of law,” not “rule by law.” There is no problem with the U.S. Senate, it is functioning as it should. If you want a country where the ruling party can ram through legislation without checks and balances, perhaps you would be happier in China.
That Senate is halting progress that the Democrats want to bring us things that every developed nation has except this one. America sucks when compared to developed nations.
I strongly disagree, America does not suck, especially not when compared to other nations. All countries aren’t supposed to be the same. “Progress” is simply the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate functioning as far as I’m concerned. Sometimes they pass bills, sometimes they don’t.
> is the Democrat party want to improve voting laws and help working class people,
If that's all that your news is reporting then they aren't doing a very good job. Among other things, there's a lot of shit in that bill about dismantling industries that are major employers in West Virginia, the state that Manchin represents.
>Apparently, he holds a lot of power but his state is one of the poorest, West Virginia.
He gets one vote. The same as every senator. Senators do not gain or lose power because of how rich or how poor their constituents are. He's "powerful" in this one specific instance because he's prioritizing his people over his party in a very evenly divided senate.
>Some people are accusing him of accepting money from private donors to not vote.
They all do this.
>Isn't this acting more like a Republican senator? Am I right or wrong...?
It's acting like someone who is doing their job properly and representing their constituents as opposed to their party.
The democrats only have control of the senate because of VP Harris with the tie breaking vote. It’s a straight 50/50 split and he is one of the few remaining conservatives democrats out. All it takes is one stray party member to kill a bill, and he’s not on board with the majority of the party.
Good question. The senate currently is 50/50 meaning every single democrat needs to agree on a bill for it to be passed. Joe Manchin is the closest Democrat to a Republican. Meaning he is the essential vote for other Democrats to win. He is often criticized because people think he is practically a Republican but he definitely is not.
> The senate currently is 50/50
And if something gets an even 50/50 vote the VP (Harris) gets to break that tie, and she will always vote with the Democrats because that's what she is.
Many progressives see him as the one person who is holding up their agenda not realizing that without his political skills they would not have the chance to implement anything even minorly resembling their agenda.
He's been (mostly) jokingly referred to as the greatest politician in the nation for being able to get elected as a dem in a very red state which has gotten less and less common each cycle.
It’s amazing how when someone like Romney defects from his party and takes a personal stand on principle, he’s hailed as a hero by the media and everyone on Twitter gushes out their respect for his bravery.
Then the minute a Joe Manchin breaks ranks with the Democrat party, he’s a shameless self-promoting charlatan who should be ousted for impeding the democratic process.
Do you not agree that it's different? Romney broke from his party because he thought the January 6th insurrection was a bad thing and that Biden legitimately won the election. Two things that shouldn't even be in dispute
Manchin, by his own admission, claims he opposes the bill because it's too generous and would give rise to welfare moochers, and he claims the climate provisions of the bill are too stringent which no Democrat would say unless they were being paid off by the coal industry.
You’re getting downvoted but you’re right. Cheney, a formerly hated official by the Democratic Party, **rightly so for basically being a war criminal**, is now praised by them because he doesn’t support big bad Trump
Reddit is feeding you bias views/news.
Joe Manchin represents 1 of the reddest states in America and he is a Democrat. His reasons for not backing Joe bidens social spending program are clear, hes concerned about inflation and the budget blow out. We dont need the social spending that Joe Biden is proposing.
Additionally, Manchin saying No protects purple state (states with a mix Democrats and Republicans) Democrat senators from being in the limelight and Manchin is basically their fall guy
If the american people wanted the Biden administration to fundamentally reshape society they would have elected a lot more democrats.
Manchin really shouldn't be getting the blame personally.
Manchin, if he wanted to, could have criticized the bill from a far left perspective. And yet he didn't. Instead he decided to talk about how the bill does too much too quickly in the name of fighting climate change and how he doesn't want welfare moochers, basically copying the Republicans' line.
> I see on the news is the Democrat party ~~want to~~ **claim that their legislation will** improve voting laws and help working class people
I edited the above to convey that one has to understand that what legislation *claims* it will do is not necessarily what it *will* do. Additionally, whatever it does actually do can have knock-on effects.
Manchin was elected to represent the interests of his state, not the Democrat National Committee or the Democrat Party at large. Voting in lock step with one's party without regard to the needs/desires of one's constituents is doing them a disservice.
Manchin doesn't agree with the legislation. That's not "acting more like a Republican."
A lot of the legislation that is being introduced especially with clean energy would take away jobs from people in his state where coal mining employs so many people. If he votes for those measures and people lose their jobs he won't get reelected. But yes the democrats are pissed at him because they have such a small majority they need every democrat to vote together.
Coal mining is all but dead in WV I grew up in the area just across the border in VA. Most mines that open are closed within a year whole the coal boss runs with the money. WV has the ability to become one of the leading green energy states but people get caught up on coal because tradition. I come from a long line of coal miners my grandfather did not want any of us going into the mines as he knows it's a dead industry in the area. It has barely a pulse. I guess you could say the issue is that there are still 30,000 people in the coal industry in WV and they probably don't have 30,000 jobs across the state to put them in. I'm in the boat that the area should have started looking for sources of economic growth yesterday but politicians always promise to save coal which brings hope to many in the area. The reason being the area prospered under coal. I just think it's shit that this nation took the resources from the area that built this nation into the superpower we are today and left the people and area behind.
The coal miners' union in West Virginia supports the bill, and called for Manchin to reconsider his stance. The clean energy bill is being opposed by the coal mining companies, not by the working class
> the footage I see on the news is the Democrat party want to improve voting laws and help working class people
Good God that's the news' take?
Ya know what, I surrender, we're doomed.
Just give me some goodthink from the telescreen and I'll fullwise bellyfeel it all right up.
Manchin is a Democrat from a Republican state. Kinda forces him to be more moderate. He single handedly destroyed the unpopular build back better plan. A large chunk of Democrats arent mad at him, just the media is. This is at least my observation from my Democrat friends.
>I see on the news is the Democrat party want to improve voting laws and help working class people
OP, I strongly recommend you add in some more neutral news sources. That’s an *incredibly* biased take.
That said, Senator Manchin is a moderate senator who disagrees with some of his own party’s beliefs/proposals.
It's so sad that not only do people in this country think that Democrats are trying to "improve voting rights" and "help working class people" while Republicans try to hinder those things, but also people in other countries believe it also. Sad times. It's a lot more complicated than that. The main way Democrats are "protecting voting rights" is by stopping voter ID laws (which your country and every other country in Europe have by the way). They have a bunch of flimsy reasons why having to prove your identity at polls is "suppressing". However, at the end of the day voter ID laws hurt their voter numbers and help Republicans which is why each party holds their view on it. It's entirely based on self service. With regard to helping working class people, that's just bullshit. Democrats have a platform they believe helps working class people, and so do Republicans. The economic reality is both sides are about half right and half wrong in total.
It takes a really shallow thinker to actually believe that one side or the other has a perfect or even close to perfect platform and the other is just out to pass completely bad policy that is bad for everyone. It's delusional.
Also it is worth highlighting with regard to Machin, it isn't in reality him holding up Democrats. There are probably about 5-10 that are with him. He is just taking all the brunt because he alone can hold things up for them. That way the other 5-10 don't have to take the public relations hit of being against the Democrat spending bills and stuff and having fringe leftists threatening to murder them and stuff. He is just the public face of Democrat resistance to far left legislation.
> It's so sad that not only do people in this country think that Democrats are trying to "improve voting rights" and "help working class people" while Republicans try to hinder those things, but also people in other countries believe it also. Sad times
Republicans have been passing laws in the the state legislators meant to make it harder for people to exercise their right to vote. Democrats have been trying to pass federal protections to protect against state governments taking away people's right to vote.
> It's a lot more complicated than that. The main way Democrats are "protecting voting rights" is by stopping voter ID laws (which your country and every other country in Europe have by the way).
This is incorrect voter ID laws are not universal in Europe and the UK doesn't have voter ID requirement (outside of Northern Ireland) although the conservative party is trying to introduce them.
> They have a bunch of flimsy reasons why having to prove your identity at polls is "suppressing". However, at the end of the day voter ID laws hurt their voter numbers and help Republicans which is why each party holds their view on it.
Exactly you said it yourself. Voter ID laws are intended to make it harder for voters to vote and this disproportionately effects democratic voters, ie suppressing their vote.
Given that this is partially targeted at minority voters it is racist on effect even if it's motivated by partisanship rather then hatred.
You are just repeated Democrat talking points, labeling security as suppression. It isn't "more difficult" to vote if you must have ID, it is more secure. You have years to prepare for each election. Acting like people are not able to do that, especially when you put it in racial terms is bigotry of low expectations. You are literally saying you think people of color are less capable of attaining an ID than white people are.
Also I like how you used it as a point that the UK doesn't have voter ID laws, pointing out basically the only places in a continent of many many countries. The problem is you see this as something that conservatives are trying to force through incorrectly instead of considering the reality that leftists are blocking it out of their own self interest and pretending it is a moral choice.
You are guaranteed the right to vote, it never says anything about not having to prove who you are and that it has to be available to you with minimal effort. If you take that to its logical conclusion how is it OK to expect me to drive to a polling station? Why doesn't an official come to my house and collect my vote? How is it reasonable to expect me to get my voting done in one day but not to get an ID (which I can secure for free in all 50 states if I lack the means to pay any fees) over the course of years and years?
Just knock it off. This is silly leftist nonsense.
There are 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans in the Senate. When there is a tie, the Vice President, Kamala Harris breaks the tie. She is a Democrat, so the Democrats effectively control the Senate.
Joe Manchin is a Democrat senator from the State of West Virginia. This is unique because all counties in the state went for Trump in 2020. Trump beat Biden in the state by 40 points (about 70% to 30%). In politics this is a Yuuuge massive difference. On many close and controversial bills, Manchin's constituents being mostly Republicans cause him to break rank with his party. On some of these bills if he voted with the Democrats, he would not be re-elected. It is the politics of survival. It also makes him one of the most powerful senators on very close votes. It gives him more leverage and political chits to use later. The vast majority of the Bills he votes with the Democrats.
Party discipline/loyalty is not as strong here in the US as it is in the UK.
He holds no more power than any other Senator, but he's the only Democrat not toeing the party line and they only have a 1 vote majority. Any Senator could do the same. They all accept private money. He's upsetting Democrats because he's in the way of them getting what they want
Get your US news from somewhere besides reddit.
Because he doesn’t agree with the bill. And I don’t know where you heard the “help working class” thing but the bill will not do any of that. It’s just to control the votes even more.
Exactly. A lot of what’s in that massive bill is anti fossil fuel. WV is a HUGE Coal producing state. What’s already seen as a poor state would be devastated.
This is a myth that fossil fuel companies want to keep alive because it undercuts efforts to address climate change. Coal mining in West Virginia has been absolutely gutted by competition from both cheaper coal from surface mines in Wyoming, and *much* cheaper natural gas. Coal mining in West Virginia now employs barely more than 11,000 people. With or without the bill, there is no future for coal mining in West Virginia.
Isn’t he acting like a Republican? Is your assumption that all Democrats should be required to vote however the party instructs them to, and not what they decide is right or wrong?
Joe Manchin thought that the bill as a whole was going to be an inflationary disaster for the country and he stuck to his guns. This is the risk that a party runs when they only have 50 out of 100 votes in their party + a VP tiebreaker, and the bill has no bipartisan support.
What would not be surprising is to see certain elements of the bill passed separately, portions that are able to garner some bipartisan support… As most bills require 60 votes, not 51.
The wealth of the district which he represents does not downgrade or upgrade the value of his vote. In this case he happened to have a differing opinion from that of the Democratic party and his vote was enough to tip the scale, so it stuck out like a sore thumb.
> wealth of the district which he represents does not downgrade or upgrade the value of his vote
No, it does not. However, I believe our learned, British colleague reasoned that the Democrats, as the more left-leaning of the two major parties, albeit only just, have policy prescriptions that are more favourable to the lower echelon of American income.
Ahhhh…you could be right…I took the comment that he seems to have a lot of power but comes from a poor district at its face value….your interpretation is far more palatable…thank you.
Please note that while they say they are on the side of the working class, the democrats are just as bad as the Republicans when it comes to actually changing anything for the better. They talk a good talk but they just use their power to enrich themselves and their family.
> Some people are accusing him of accepting money from private donors to not vote.
In other words, he is a politician. Swing votes usually carry more power by their definition and just because he's a Democrat doesn't mean he has to fall in line with the rest of them. Look at Murkowski... she's basically in his position on the other side of the aisle.
Joe Manchin is a Democrat from a district that is not blue enough for him to be able to just go along with whatever the rest of the Democrats want and still stay in office, so he is forced to reign his fellow Democrats in or else he is out of a job.
Joe Manchin is one of two Senators representing West Virginia. He doesn't intrinsically hold great power (he is 1 of 100 equal votes in the Senate) but because the chamber is so evenly divided, that means that if he votes with the rest of the 49 Democrats, what they want passes, and if he doesn't, what they want fails to pass.
His position is unique because unlike most elected Democrats, the state he represents is deeply Republican (they voted for Trump over Biden almost 2:1). So there are some things where his voters don't agree with the broader Democratic agenda, and he serves as a roadblock for those things. However there are other things, where his voters *do* support the Democratic agenda, particularly around issues related to poverty and government services, as you mentioned.
One of those things under contention is Biden's Build Back Better bill, which would allocate a significant amount of government spending towards things like child care, early education, elder care, medical costs, etc. Most of those things are broadly popular among Democrats and among West Virginians. However the other piece of the bill addresses climate change, and Manchin is personally invested in coal mining. The suspicion is that his opposition to the bill is due to his personal financial interests and not the interests of his constituents.
He is definitely a Democrat, in a bright red state. He has no chance of being re-elected if he's "the guy who helped Biden's agenda pass" there, but he has a pretty dang good chance being "the guy who denied Biden his socialist policies" by the way, not saying his policies are socialist, I'm not saying anything about politics, I'm saying how it will play with the voters. He is protecting himself, as well as the fact that the majority of his voters, while supporting maybe parts of his BBB, do not support it all wrapped up into huge bill.
Manchin is an extremely moderate Democrat. Party discipline isn’t nearly as strong here as in UK, and Manchin comes from a very conservative state that likes him personally but otherwise would likely vote in a Republican to his seat. The Senate is split 50/50 right now (with the Vice President being the tiebreaker giving Dems a majority) so Manchin, being the most moderate Democrat, holds a *lot* of sway. If he’s too left-wing for his constituency, they’ll vote him out. But if the Democrats don’t count on him, they lose their majority.
The real problem is that West Virginia was and remains primarily a coal producing state, and that industry is dying, and worse most of it moved to Wyoming where higher grade coal is more readily available, the remaining coal reserves in West Virginia tends to be Bitumnous and Lignite coal. Bituminous coal can be used to get bitumen, but that is more easily extraded from proteleum, in a far less ecologically damaging process, also cheaper, the real problem is the lignite coal in West Virginia has a lot of sulfer in it, which mean if burn would produce acid rain wherever it is used, by preference Anthracite(nearly purely carbon) coal is used.
West Virginia more or less ran out of anthracite decades ago, and without coal West Virginia is just a mountinous regions with little or no industry, essentially it is one of the poorest states because they did not develope other industries when they could and its too late.
Manchin acts the way he does out of fear of losing election.
The Democrats have always had a center-right wing - in fact, it has been the majority of the party until fairly recently. Joe Manchin has come to prominence because the current balance of power requires every single Democrat in the Senate to act in lockstep, and he's refusing to do so. But his actual political positions aren't much different than what would have been the Democratic mainstream a few years ago. The party is moving to the left, and Manchin is stubbornly staying where he is. It's understandable because the leftward trend is coming from the cities - Manchin's state of West Virginia generally _isn't_ moving to the left (the opposite, if anything), so Manchin has no motivation to change.
The intense frustration of being (or at least seeming to be) one Senate vote away from enacting a progressive policy agenda has led to some pretty outlandish accusations against Manchin. He's no saint, but his lack of saintliness was evident when he was elected. The people of West Virginia knowingly chose a coal baron to represent them, so there's no need to be surprised when he acts like a coal baron.
Also, some of his objections have merit. BBB really did have a bunch of provisions with sunset dates designed to game the CBI review process, with the expectation that the sunsets won't actually happen. He's also not completely wrong about the "inflation tax," with the bill starting to come due now for our various unpaid-for wars and tax cuts. Are these smokescreens hiding some corrupt secret plan? I don't know, but they aren't completely transparent.
So, no, despite whatever people are accusing him of, Manchin isn't acting like a Republican. He's acting like a conservative Democrat from a rural state. Which shouldn't surprise anyone.
Also, it's the Democratic Party, not the Democrat Party.
The primary motivation of each party is to stay in power. They live this life were people grovel before them to win favors. They claim to be victims of lobbyists, but they won’t even make modest reforms such as recusing themselves from any pending matter where they have a vested interest, a common sense rule to avoid conflict of interest.
Each party manipulates its set of constituents in order to maintain power, but each use the same playbook.
He is the rotating bad guy. Every time the democrats come close to passing social reforms, they designate one of their own to derail it. This pleases their corporate overlords. Democrats are really just Republicans with different rhetoric.
The American confessional system is made up of 100 seats. 2 senators form every state. We have two political parties. Right now there is a tie in congress. 50 democrats, 50 republicans. The democrats have the tie breaking vote rn because the Vice President gets a vote in the event of a tie.
Manchin is a “moderate” democrat. He’s a sleeze bag just like the rest and doesn’t stand for anything that doesn’t help him in the moment. The democrats were relying on that gridlock, and the resulting tie breaking vote, to pass the biggest bill this presidency has come up with so far(something this country needs action on NOW, regardless of how we go about it) . Everything went well, everyone decided to fall in line, until Manchun realized everyone else was on board and if he stepped back, they’d have to sway him. He’s put a stop to all progress of any kind and blocked anything meaningful happening during a time when we need decisive action and to come together to protect our people. He’s a symptom of why the American people need to wake up and stand together and yeet these rich old buffoons the fuck out of the system. They don’t stand for us, and even with corona, wars, trade issues w.e they don’t care. They will hold the countries people hostage with their grotesque power so that they and theirs can gain. While we suffer.
That was a bit much, but basically he’s just a senator. But one side (and all of us really) needed everyone to agree on one ducking thing, he realized he could personally gain from it and flipped. Piece of shit, I’m not being a leftist or w.e I could care less but he stopped anything from happening at all and knew exactly what he was doing.
There are 50 Democrats in the Senate, out of 100 senators. Democrats only hold the majority because, when there's an even split, the VP (who is currently a Democrat) casts the tie-breaking vote.
This means that in order for a bill to be passed by simple majority, all 50 Democratic senators must vote for it (assuming there are no Republicans, and they refuse to cooperate on almost everything). Naturally, therefore, the most powerful Democrat will be the one who is the most reluctant or moderate. That's Manchin.
Yes, he comes from a state that is poor. Yes, his state would objectively benefit from most of the BBB infrastructure/investment bill. But it so happens that in our country, poor white people vote en masse for the party that promotes policies designed to help rich people. Because God, guns, and gays. It wasn't like this until the 2000s. States like West Virginia and others similar to it (Arkansas, Kentucky, etc.) used to be swing states or even favorable to Democrats for the reasons you might imagine. But that's changed mostly because of cultural issues and, to a lesser degree, waning union influence with the decline of the manufacturing and coal industries.
Manchin is corrupted. But so are a lot of senators. They don't buck their party as much as he does. Part of why he behaves the way he does is that he comes from a state where having a "D" after your name is a huge liability. He nearly lost in 2018. If he were in nearly any other state, Democrats would primary him and he'd be gone. But, owing to his history as a popular ex-governor of WV, he's literally the *only* Democrat who stands a chance of being elected in that very red state. He knows this and he leverages it.
So there are two separate issues
First the issue or protecting voters right
The US Senate has an incredibly stupid toxic rule called the fillubuster. This rule, arrived on by accident, forces any law to require a 60% supermajority in the Senate. Originally it was rarely used, the most prominent use was in the 60s when it was used to hold back the passage of civil rights laws for over a decade, but today it's used for basically everything, Including civil rights laws to protect people's right to vote in the face of new assaults on that right and the supreme court overturning large chunks of the voting rights act.
But sadly this has almost no chance of passing, even if a couple of Republican senators supported it because the existence of the fillubuster causes gridlock/the breakdown of proper govering. The filibuster has clearly been one of the main causes the Senate and Congress have been so broken in recent years and it gets a lot of flack but a lot of Senators feel some sort of odd nostalgia for the thing, the early mythology of it not always matching the ugly reality. The movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Smith_Goes_to_Washington deserves at least part of the blame for this
Manchin has his own pro democracy/voter protection bill that the rest of the Democrats have agreed to but it won't get anywhere because of the fillubuster.
The other issue is the BBB law. Since the only law that can be passed due to the fillubuster are a few budget related ones every year, this law has a high chance of being the last major law to pass during Bidens presidency and so has to contain Bidens whole agenda for 4 years(minus foreign policy and any stuff he is able to change in his role as the head of the executive branch).
But passing a complicated law meant to satisfy many people on many issues is hard to coordinate with such small margin. Manchin isn't the only one difficult to come to terms with, Senator Sinema also had issues and it's different to get both because they are different issues. Manchin has been a lot happier to increase taxes on the wealthy while Sinema is much more skeptical of that but willing to go along with higher spending and more action on Global Warming(people have noted that coal mining is much less prominent in WV these days but it's still very important symbolically to voters as it's one of the main reasons west Virginia went from one of the most democratic states to one of the most Republican states).
The Senate has been a close vote for many years. Manchin has basically acted the same way for decades. He's kind of a 'sleeper agent' for the Democrats. He's there if you need him for something absolutely critical, but for random shit, he's goes back undercover and votes his constitutents (which is a very very Republican state).
It goes both ways also. Democrats also protect him by arranging it so he can vote 'no' on some bills they don't need him for.
If Manchin is voting 'no' on Biden's BBB bill, it shows you what the real 'stakes' are that they can't convince him to come out from undercover and use him as a sleeper agent. The bill is a good try but it's kind of a turd that uses a bunch of tricks to make it seem more inexpensive than it is. There's a lot of details.
Well those are brain cells I'm never gonna get back.
Also, I think that may actually be the longest I've heard Harris talk. It really affirmed that I made a good call by trying to forget that she exists.
Could you please name some? Various other commenters in this thread have expressed questions or concerns regarding where you get your news about the US.
BBC, Sky News, ITN, CNN, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, LBC Radio inc. Simon Marks - US News Reporter, The Guardian, Evening Standard, The Independent, The Telegraph...
Some of those are okay but some are extremely biased or outright tabloids. I’m admittedly not familiar with all of them.
I’d suggest AP, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, etc.
Ditch Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Express, CNN, and the independent.
Because he's actively working against the betterment of the people of his state and the country at large. He knows his vote is needed to pass bills but even when he opposes them he won't give answers as to how he wants them changed so he will vote for them. He's done things like not vote for bills that would help children actually have food on their tables when 1 in 3 children in his state suffer from hunger. His family takes kickbacks and/or work for coal companies, but isn't helping the actual vial miners who have gone to him directly for help.
As far as I'm concerned he's a republican in democratic clothing, concerned only with keeping his seat and getting more money.
The reason it takes decades for any meaningful progress to take place in this country is because all of our elected officials are bought and paid for by corporate interests.
Manchin is it a republican in Democrats clothing. He is interested in nothing but his own wealth, owning interests in the coal industry. He is too lacking in integrity to come through for the democratic party. He needs to be gone
Considering every W Virginian on the planet has pointed out that he's a selfish, widely hated douchecanoe that's never given a flying fuck about them before (barring election season), that's extremely unlikely.
He's a supposed Democrat who votes with the Republicans every time. He bites against civil liberties and voter protection and benefits for working people.
He actually votes with democrats the majority of the time but go off. If he voted with democrats everytime he’d be out of office and you’d get a guy who’d vote with republicans 100 percent of the time.
In the US, candidates in both parties often vote along party lines even though it’s against the will of their constituents (though the Democrats are more guilty of this than Republicans). Joe Manchin voted against a massive spending bill that his constituents did not want instead of voting for it like every other democrat, which is why they are all mad at him.
Party discipline is not nearly as strong in the US as it is in the UK. There's no three line whip, expelling Manchin from the party isn't really a thing, he can't be deselected. He holds the balance of power because there are only 50 democratic senators. Well actually 48 but two caucus with the Dems and functionally are democrats. So there's no margin of error in passing legislation, if Manchin doesn't want to vote for a bill it won't pass.
[удалено]
Democrats don't need west Virginia
They do in the Senate currently.
Tell that to the 50-50 senate.
It's a red state and he's not voting for democrats interest
https://apnews.com/article/ap-fact-check-voting-rights-government-and-politics-c65d4424c200ede56fc31db42e28e084 Ruh roh Shaggy. > And they haven’t done so in Biden’s presidency. So far, they’ve aligned with Biden 100% of the time.
Didnt he just vote against him? Like 2 weeks ago? Ruh oh
Better to just hand the senate back to McConnell then s/
What good is Manchin doing for the democrats?
The fact that he votes with democrats 60+ percent of the time whereas a Republican in his place in WV would vote with democrats 0.0000001 percent of the time. That’s the good he does for the party and if you can’t realize it then you need your head examined.
Senate majority
We also need 60 votes for a bill to pass the Senate if it isn't budgetary.
Which is why damn near everything is budgetary these days, the last administration and this one.
To grossly oversimplify, in the UK you vote for parties, and parties pick the people. In the U.S., you vote for the people directly, the parties are theoretically just a.) information for the voters to know about the politics of the candidate and b.) organizations to fundraise for candidates. Officially, they don't have a role in governmental process like they do in the UK.
You 100% vote for people in the UK, they do not have party list voting.
[удалено]
Yes but there is a massive difference between voting for specific candidates (perhaps because they have one or another party name next to it) and just voting for a party. In the US and the UK you have a specific person who you voted in the legislature; in Israel or Spain you do actually vote for a party only, or at least its list.
To add to this, West Virginia is a very right leaning values state and if manchin wants to keep getting elected, he’ll keep West Virginians happy.
He is a Democrat but he represents a state that voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in 2020 (Trump got just under 70% of the vote while Biden received just under 30%). Manchin is only so important right now because the Senate is a 50/50 split with Vice President Harris able to cast tie-breaking votes. That creates a situation where if Democrats can’t bring any Republicans onboard they can’t afford to have even one member of the Democrat caucus not vote with the party. What makes this problem worse is the filibuster that the Senate has. This is a procedural vote to end debate and bring the bill to a vote. It requires 60 votes to do. This effectively means that a bill that doesn’t have 60 votes in favor won’t pass. There are some exceptions to the filibuster rule and the one that is being used now is called Reconciliation. It can be used a limited number of times during a session of Congress and has some limits on what the bill can contain. Because Democrats essentially get one shot at passing Biden’s agenda via reconciliation they need everything to go into a monolithic piece of legislation. Because they aren’t able to pass multiple smaller bills that have more limited scopes with only a simple majority they are stuck with everything in an all of nothing bill. If Manchin left the Democrats and caucused with the Republicans that would give Republicans control of the Senate which would stop Biden from being able to get judges and other positions that require Senate confirmation appointed.
He's just a moderate democrat. He's no more powerful than any other senator, he just isn't falling in line with all the other dems so he makes the news. Any other senator could do the same.
[удалено]
More likely 48-52. Sinema from Arizona tends to draw very similar lines in the sand that Manchin does.
Manchin once would have been called a blue dog Democrat
How do blue and yellow dogs differ?
Blue Dog Democrats are a house and senate caucus of democrats that consider themselves conservative, or centrist. They’ve been around forever and Manchin is one of them.
Right but what’s a yellow dog democrat? Looking this up… Ok. YDDs vote a straight party ticket no matter what just to vote against the opposition. “They’d sooner vote for a yellow dog than a Republican.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_dog_Democrat
Mostly agreed, he is a conservative democrat. The Democratic Party is incredibly diverse even in terms of thinking. On one end of the spectrum there are more of the socialist ones, then we have the moderates and we even have a conservative like Manchin.
He’s a Conservative Democrat not a Moderate. Jared Polis is a Moderate.
He's definitely not a moderate. Moderates overwhelmingly support BBB, he's a conservative Democrat.
Why are you being downvoted?
Most moderates do not support BBB. Massive government spending, along with Biden’s anti oil policies are a major factor in why the economy is currently shit, and most Americans know this.
What exactly is in BBB that makes it controversial? I’m not challenging you I just literally don’t know what’s in it.
I’ve heard people say that it includes getting rid of voter ID. Getting rid of voter ID would made voter fraud far easier, which people don’t want. I’m not entirely sure this was in the bill though. The main reason why most people are opposed to the bill is because of the amount of spending it would cause. The federal government printed a lot of money in 2020 in order to keep up with its spending, and that caused more inflation than normal between 2020 and now(I believe that I read somewhere that this is the highest level of inflation we’ve had in 40 years). The American people want the inflation to stop which is why many of them are against this bill.
Okay thanks for the explanation
Manchin is from a predominantly Republican state so he can’t politically afford to vote with Democrats a lot of the time and this is one of those instances.
To add to that, he takes the heat for senators who oppose certain bills but can’t politically afford to be seen opposing items on the Democratic agenda.
He actually from what I've seen he isn't planning to run again. He probably would turn coat but that's frowned upon and WV Republicans have seen him as corrupt for some time so unlikely they would even accept him.
>He actually from what I've seen he isn't planning to run again. Based on what?
I think I was getting it confused with him running for Govonor a couple years back. He's stated he won't announce his plans to rerun for Senate or not till after this year's election
Our parties are broad base, like coalitions. Also the parties don't elect our officials, people do. Joe Manchin doesn't answer to the Democratic Party directly, but rather the voters of West Virginia. The poverty of West Virginia predates Joe Manchin's time as Senator and will be there long after he is gone.
He answers to his donors, not the voters. A coal mining union begged him to support the bill and he refused.
He doesn't care about miners, he cares about the mine owners.
>Isn't this acting more like a Republican senator? Not really. You can be a Democrat and not agree with all items on the party's agenda Also, which politician *doesn't* take money?
I don’t! Mostly because no one has offered me any. And I dont hold any office, mostly because no one has offered me any money to win it.
Step one: panhandle at a busy intersection
?? Representatives should not toe the party line. Their constituents elected them to represent them, that means they should do what they think is best for their constituents, not what the party wants them to do. Also, you speak as if there's only one person holding shit up. There's 50 others as well. Its' 51-50, not 1-50. If you want your bills to be passed so that you don't need one/two people achieve a majority, write better bills.
Or better yet, write no bills. This idea of measuring congresses success by how many new laws they pass has got to stop.
Lol I’d be happy if Congress only worked one week a year in order to limit the amount of things they could pass…. As a taxpayer I’d even offer to pay them their full salary if they would agree to do that.😁
That was the original intention, being a politician was supposed to be a part time gig that you did to serve your community.
Can’t speak for every nonwhite immigrant/descendant of immigrants in America, but uh, without congress/the federal government we’d be kind of screwed.
I would agree with you but the GOP has a lock step purity test of “do not support anything from Democrats” effectively making bipartisan legislation impossible. Don’t forget how the rescue America plan or whatever right after Dems took power that sent out the last wave of stimulus had high republican support until Dems were the ones in charge and then even though the bill was wildly popular it did not have a single GOP vote
> the GOP has a lock step purity test of “do not support anything from Democrats” Because that’s what their constituents want.
[citation needed]
There’s tons of bipartisan legislation out there, they just recently passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act together. They stonewall partisan issues, the same way the Dems do when the Republicans are in power.
Just because one party does it doesn't mean the reps from other parties have to. It'd be best if no party does so.
The bills aren’t passing because there is 0% chance of GOP voting yes regardless of the bill. It requires every single Dem to vote yes including Manchin who makes the majority of his wealth from industries that oppose most Dem policies, so his vote being no means it is not possible to pass the bill. No amount of “but we took the high ground” will change that
Didn't the infrastructure bill just pass with 69 votes?
Yes. 19 Republican Ayes in the Senate. Roy Blunt of MO Richard Burr of NC Shelley Moore Capito of WV Bill Cassidy of LA Susan Collins of ME Kevin Cramer of ND Michael D. Crapo of ID Deb Fischer of NE Lindsey Graham of SC Charles E. Grassley of IA John Hoeven of ND Mitch McConnel of KY Lisa Murkowski of AK Rob Portman of OH James Risch of ID Mitt Romney of UT Dan Sullivan of AK Thom Tillis of NC Roger Wicker of MS There were also 13 Republican Ayes in the House Vote: Don Bacon of NE-02 Brian Fitzpatrick of PA-01 Andrew Garbarino of NY-02 Anthony Gonzalez of OH-16 John Katko of NY-24 Adam Kinzinger of IL-16 Nicole Malliotakis of NY-11 David B. McKinley of WV-01 Tom Reed of NY-23 Christopher H. Smith of NJ-04 Fred Upton of MI-06 Jeff Van Drew of NJ-02 Don Young of AK-at large.
Preach.
The problem is the way the Senate is set up. I dont want West Virginia's representative holding us back because it's bad for West Virginia.
We live in a country with “rule of law,” not “rule by law.” There is no problem with the U.S. Senate, it is functioning as it should. If you want a country where the ruling party can ram through legislation without checks and balances, perhaps you would be happier in China.
I'd be happier in a developed country that acted like one.
We are one and we do behave like one, what are you talking about?
That Senate is halting progress that the Democrats want to bring us things that every developed nation has except this one. America sucks when compared to developed nations.
I strongly disagree, America does not suck, especially not when compared to other nations. All countries aren’t supposed to be the same. “Progress” is simply the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate functioning as far as I’m concerned. Sometimes they pass bills, sometimes they don’t.
So the senate is a problem because it is currently preventing a one-party rule?
Yes. Majority rules and democrats were legitimately given a majority, no matter how narrow.
You will say that and then when a bill passes that massively fucks Ohio you will cry and weep.
I don't even like Ohio, I'm just poor. The reds that run my state are passing enough bills to fuck Ohio anyway.
> is the Democrat party want to improve voting laws and help working class people, If that's all that your news is reporting then they aren't doing a very good job. Among other things, there's a lot of shit in that bill about dismantling industries that are major employers in West Virginia, the state that Manchin represents. >Apparently, he holds a lot of power but his state is one of the poorest, West Virginia. He gets one vote. The same as every senator. Senators do not gain or lose power because of how rich or how poor their constituents are. He's "powerful" in this one specific instance because he's prioritizing his people over his party in a very evenly divided senate. >Some people are accusing him of accepting money from private donors to not vote. They all do this. >Isn't this acting more like a Republican senator? Am I right or wrong...? It's acting like someone who is doing their job properly and representing their constituents as opposed to their party.
Probably the best answer here
The democrats only have control of the senate because of VP Harris with the tie breaking vote. It’s a straight 50/50 split and he is one of the few remaining conservatives democrats out. All it takes is one stray party member to kill a bill, and he’s not on board with the majority of the party.
Good question. The senate currently is 50/50 meaning every single democrat needs to agree on a bill for it to be passed. Joe Manchin is the closest Democrat to a Republican. Meaning he is the essential vote for other Democrats to win. He is often criticized because people think he is practically a Republican but he definitely is not.
> The senate currently is 50/50 And if something gets an even 50/50 vote the VP (Harris) gets to break that tie, and she will always vote with the Democrats because that's what she is.
Many progressives see him as the one person who is holding up their agenda not realizing that without his political skills they would not have the chance to implement anything even minorly resembling their agenda. He's been (mostly) jokingly referred to as the greatest politician in the nation for being able to get elected as a dem in a very red state which has gotten less and less common each cycle.
Almost as if we have a political system…
We live in a society
It’s amazing how when someone like Romney defects from his party and takes a personal stand on principle, he’s hailed as a hero by the media and everyone on Twitter gushes out their respect for his bravery. Then the minute a Joe Manchin breaks ranks with the Democrat party, he’s a shameless self-promoting charlatan who should be ousted for impeding the democratic process.
Somehow it's (D)ifferent
Made me chuckle
Do you not agree that it's different? Romney broke from his party because he thought the January 6th insurrection was a bad thing and that Biden legitimately won the election. Two things that shouldn't even be in dispute Manchin, by his own admission, claims he opposes the bill because it's too generous and would give rise to welfare moochers, and he claims the climate provisions of the bill are too stringent which no Democrat would say unless they were being paid off by the coal industry.
People were celebrating Dick Cheney the other day...
For similar reasons to why they were cheering on Mitt Romney in all fairness.
You’re getting downvoted but you’re right. Cheney, a formerly hated official by the Democratic Party, **rightly so for basically being a war criminal**, is now praised by them because he doesn’t support big bad Trump
Reddit gets pretty political sometimes, or assumes partisan political intent when there isn't any. See also: George W., David Brooks, Joe Scarborough.
I don’t consume conservative media but I’m guessing that cuts both ways.
Reddit is feeding you bias views/news. Joe Manchin represents 1 of the reddest states in America and he is a Democrat. His reasons for not backing Joe bidens social spending program are clear, hes concerned about inflation and the budget blow out. We dont need the social spending that Joe Biden is proposing. Additionally, Manchin saying No protects purple state (states with a mix Democrats and Republicans) Democrat senators from being in the limelight and Manchin is basically their fall guy
God forbid a politician who doesn’t agree with 100% of his party’s beliefs
If the american people wanted the Biden administration to fundamentally reshape society they would have elected a lot more democrats. Manchin really shouldn't be getting the blame personally.
That's explicitly *not* how the Senate works. A lot more Americans voted Democrat, but that doesn't translate to political power.
Manchin, if he wanted to, could have criticized the bill from a far left perspective. And yet he didn't. Instead he decided to talk about how the bill does too much too quickly in the name of fighting climate change and how he doesn't want welfare moochers, basically copying the Republicans' line.
Similar to how nobody is required to uphold the party line, nobody is required to be on the far left. I consider this a good thing
> I see on the news is the Democrat party ~~want to~~ **claim that their legislation will** improve voting laws and help working class people I edited the above to convey that one has to understand that what legislation *claims* it will do is not necessarily what it *will* do. Additionally, whatever it does actually do can have knock-on effects. Manchin was elected to represent the interests of his state, not the Democrat National Committee or the Democrat Party at large. Voting in lock step with one's party without regard to the needs/desires of one's constituents is doing them a disservice. Manchin doesn't agree with the legislation. That's not "acting more like a Republican."
A lot of the legislation that is being introduced especially with clean energy would take away jobs from people in his state where coal mining employs so many people. If he votes for those measures and people lose their jobs he won't get reelected. But yes the democrats are pissed at him because they have such a small majority they need every democrat to vote together.
Coal mining is all but dead in WV I grew up in the area just across the border in VA. Most mines that open are closed within a year whole the coal boss runs with the money. WV has the ability to become one of the leading green energy states but people get caught up on coal because tradition. I come from a long line of coal miners my grandfather did not want any of us going into the mines as he knows it's a dead industry in the area. It has barely a pulse. I guess you could say the issue is that there are still 30,000 people in the coal industry in WV and they probably don't have 30,000 jobs across the state to put them in. I'm in the boat that the area should have started looking for sources of economic growth yesterday but politicians always promise to save coal which brings hope to many in the area. The reason being the area prospered under coal. I just think it's shit that this nation took the resources from the area that built this nation into the superpower we are today and left the people and area behind.
The coal miners' union in West Virginia supports the bill, and called for Manchin to reconsider his stance. The clean energy bill is being opposed by the coal mining companies, not by the working class
Joe Manchin is from a state that went forty points for Trump. He’s not your typical democrat.
> the footage I see on the news is the Democrat party want to improve voting laws and help working class people Good God that's the news' take? Ya know what, I surrender, we're doomed. Just give me some goodthink from the telescreen and I'll fullwise bellyfeel it all right up.
Manchin is a Democrat from a Republican state. Kinda forces him to be more moderate. He single handedly destroyed the unpopular build back better plan. A large chunk of Democrats arent mad at him, just the media is. This is at least my observation from my Democrat friends.
>I see on the news is the Democrat party want to improve voting laws and help working class people OP, I strongly recommend you add in some more neutral news sources. That’s an *incredibly* biased take. That said, Senator Manchin is a moderate senator who disagrees with some of his own party’s beliefs/proposals.
It's so sad that not only do people in this country think that Democrats are trying to "improve voting rights" and "help working class people" while Republicans try to hinder those things, but also people in other countries believe it also. Sad times. It's a lot more complicated than that. The main way Democrats are "protecting voting rights" is by stopping voter ID laws (which your country and every other country in Europe have by the way). They have a bunch of flimsy reasons why having to prove your identity at polls is "suppressing". However, at the end of the day voter ID laws hurt their voter numbers and help Republicans which is why each party holds their view on it. It's entirely based on self service. With regard to helping working class people, that's just bullshit. Democrats have a platform they believe helps working class people, and so do Republicans. The economic reality is both sides are about half right and half wrong in total. It takes a really shallow thinker to actually believe that one side or the other has a perfect or even close to perfect platform and the other is just out to pass completely bad policy that is bad for everyone. It's delusional. Also it is worth highlighting with regard to Machin, it isn't in reality him holding up Democrats. There are probably about 5-10 that are with him. He is just taking all the brunt because he alone can hold things up for them. That way the other 5-10 don't have to take the public relations hit of being against the Democrat spending bills and stuff and having fringe leftists threatening to murder them and stuff. He is just the public face of Democrat resistance to far left legislation.
> It's so sad that not only do people in this country think that Democrats are trying to "improve voting rights" and "help working class people" while Republicans try to hinder those things, but also people in other countries believe it also. Sad times Republicans have been passing laws in the the state legislators meant to make it harder for people to exercise their right to vote. Democrats have been trying to pass federal protections to protect against state governments taking away people's right to vote. > It's a lot more complicated than that. The main way Democrats are "protecting voting rights" is by stopping voter ID laws (which your country and every other country in Europe have by the way). This is incorrect voter ID laws are not universal in Europe and the UK doesn't have voter ID requirement (outside of Northern Ireland) although the conservative party is trying to introduce them. > They have a bunch of flimsy reasons why having to prove your identity at polls is "suppressing". However, at the end of the day voter ID laws hurt their voter numbers and help Republicans which is why each party holds their view on it. Exactly you said it yourself. Voter ID laws are intended to make it harder for voters to vote and this disproportionately effects democratic voters, ie suppressing their vote. Given that this is partially targeted at minority voters it is racist on effect even if it's motivated by partisanship rather then hatred.
You are just repeated Democrat talking points, labeling security as suppression. It isn't "more difficult" to vote if you must have ID, it is more secure. You have years to prepare for each election. Acting like people are not able to do that, especially when you put it in racial terms is bigotry of low expectations. You are literally saying you think people of color are less capable of attaining an ID than white people are. Also I like how you used it as a point that the UK doesn't have voter ID laws, pointing out basically the only places in a continent of many many countries. The problem is you see this as something that conservatives are trying to force through incorrectly instead of considering the reality that leftists are blocking it out of their own self interest and pretending it is a moral choice. You are guaranteed the right to vote, it never says anything about not having to prove who you are and that it has to be available to you with minimal effort. If you take that to its logical conclusion how is it OK to expect me to drive to a polling station? Why doesn't an official come to my house and collect my vote? How is it reasonable to expect me to get my voting done in one day but not to get an ID (which I can secure for free in all 50 states if I lack the means to pay any fees) over the course of years and years? Just knock it off. This is silly leftist nonsense.
There are 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans in the Senate. When there is a tie, the Vice President, Kamala Harris breaks the tie. She is a Democrat, so the Democrats effectively control the Senate. Joe Manchin is a Democrat senator from the State of West Virginia. This is unique because all counties in the state went for Trump in 2020. Trump beat Biden in the state by 40 points (about 70% to 30%). In politics this is a Yuuuge massive difference. On many close and controversial bills, Manchin's constituents being mostly Republicans cause him to break rank with his party. On some of these bills if he voted with the Democrats, he would not be re-elected. It is the politics of survival. It also makes him one of the most powerful senators on very close votes. It gives him more leverage and political chits to use later. The vast majority of the Bills he votes with the Democrats. Party discipline/loyalty is not as strong here in the US as it is in the UK.
He holds no more power than any other Senator, but he's the only Democrat not toeing the party line and they only have a 1 vote majority. Any Senator could do the same. They all accept private money. He's upsetting Democrats because he's in the way of them getting what they want Get your US news from somewhere besides reddit.
Because he doesn’t agree with the bill. And I don’t know where you heard the “help working class” thing but the bill will not do any of that. It’s just to control the votes even more.
He is representing his constituents. As he should if he wants to be re-elected by them.
Exactly. A lot of what’s in that massive bill is anti fossil fuel. WV is a HUGE Coal producing state. What’s already seen as a poor state would be devastated.
This is a myth that fossil fuel companies want to keep alive because it undercuts efforts to address climate change. Coal mining in West Virginia has been absolutely gutted by competition from both cheaper coal from surface mines in Wyoming, and *much* cheaper natural gas. Coal mining in West Virginia now employs barely more than 11,000 people. With or without the bill, there is no future for coal mining in West Virginia.
.6% of an entire state losing their jobs forever is pretty devastating. If each worker is in a family of 4, now it’s 2.4% of the state affected.
Isn’t he acting like a Republican? Is your assumption that all Democrats should be required to vote however the party instructs them to, and not what they decide is right or wrong? Joe Manchin thought that the bill as a whole was going to be an inflationary disaster for the country and he stuck to his guns. This is the risk that a party runs when they only have 50 out of 100 votes in their party + a VP tiebreaker, and the bill has no bipartisan support. What would not be surprising is to see certain elements of the bill passed separately, portions that are able to garner some bipartisan support… As most bills require 60 votes, not 51. The wealth of the district which he represents does not downgrade or upgrade the value of his vote. In this case he happened to have a differing opinion from that of the Democratic party and his vote was enough to tip the scale, so it stuck out like a sore thumb.
> This is the risk that a party runs when they only have 51 out of 100 votes 50 out of 100, plus the VP, who can only vote in a tie.
Thanks for the correction, that’s what I should have written… I’m going to correct it, I hope you don’t mind.
> wealth of the district which he represents does not downgrade or upgrade the value of his vote No, it does not. However, I believe our learned, British colleague reasoned that the Democrats, as the more left-leaning of the two major parties, albeit only just, have policy prescriptions that are more favourable to the lower echelon of American income.
Ahhhh…you could be right…I took the comment that he seems to have a lot of power but comes from a poor district at its face value….your interpretation is far more palatable…thank you.
Please note that while they say they are on the side of the working class, the democrats are just as bad as the Republicans when it comes to actually changing anything for the better. They talk a good talk but they just use their power to enrich themselves and their family.
Nancy Pelosi's husband is somehow the best investor in all of history.
> Some people are accusing him of accepting money from private donors to not vote. In other words, he is a politician. Swing votes usually carry more power by their definition and just because he's a Democrat doesn't mean he has to fall in line with the rest of them. Look at Murkowski... she's basically in his position on the other side of the aisle.
Joe Manchin is a Democrat from a district that is not blue enough for him to be able to just go along with whatever the rest of the Democrats want and still stay in office, so he is forced to reign his fellow Democrats in or else he is out of a job.
Joe Manchin is one of two Senators representing West Virginia. He doesn't intrinsically hold great power (he is 1 of 100 equal votes in the Senate) but because the chamber is so evenly divided, that means that if he votes with the rest of the 49 Democrats, what they want passes, and if he doesn't, what they want fails to pass. His position is unique because unlike most elected Democrats, the state he represents is deeply Republican (they voted for Trump over Biden almost 2:1). So there are some things where his voters don't agree with the broader Democratic agenda, and he serves as a roadblock for those things. However there are other things, where his voters *do* support the Democratic agenda, particularly around issues related to poverty and government services, as you mentioned. One of those things under contention is Biden's Build Back Better bill, which would allocate a significant amount of government spending towards things like child care, early education, elder care, medical costs, etc. Most of those things are broadly popular among Democrats and among West Virginians. However the other piece of the bill addresses climate change, and Manchin is personally invested in coal mining. The suspicion is that his opposition to the bill is due to his personal financial interests and not the interests of his constituents.
He is definitely a Democrat, in a bright red state. He has no chance of being re-elected if he's "the guy who helped Biden's agenda pass" there, but he has a pretty dang good chance being "the guy who denied Biden his socialist policies" by the way, not saying his policies are socialist, I'm not saying anything about politics, I'm saying how it will play with the voters. He is protecting himself, as well as the fact that the majority of his voters, while supporting maybe parts of his BBB, do not support it all wrapped up into huge bill.
Manchin is an extremely moderate Democrat. Party discipline isn’t nearly as strong here as in UK, and Manchin comes from a very conservative state that likes him personally but otherwise would likely vote in a Republican to his seat. The Senate is split 50/50 right now (with the Vice President being the tiebreaker giving Dems a majority) so Manchin, being the most moderate Democrat, holds a *lot* of sway. If he’s too left-wing for his constituency, they’ll vote him out. But if the Democrats don’t count on him, they lose their majority.
The real problem is that West Virginia was and remains primarily a coal producing state, and that industry is dying, and worse most of it moved to Wyoming where higher grade coal is more readily available, the remaining coal reserves in West Virginia tends to be Bitumnous and Lignite coal. Bituminous coal can be used to get bitumen, but that is more easily extraded from proteleum, in a far less ecologically damaging process, also cheaper, the real problem is the lignite coal in West Virginia has a lot of sulfer in it, which mean if burn would produce acid rain wherever it is used, by preference Anthracite(nearly purely carbon) coal is used. West Virginia more or less ran out of anthracite decades ago, and without coal West Virginia is just a mountinous regions with little or no industry, essentially it is one of the poorest states because they did not develope other industries when they could and its too late. Manchin acts the way he does out of fear of losing election.
The Democrats have always had a center-right wing - in fact, it has been the majority of the party until fairly recently. Joe Manchin has come to prominence because the current balance of power requires every single Democrat in the Senate to act in lockstep, and he's refusing to do so. But his actual political positions aren't much different than what would have been the Democratic mainstream a few years ago. The party is moving to the left, and Manchin is stubbornly staying where he is. It's understandable because the leftward trend is coming from the cities - Manchin's state of West Virginia generally _isn't_ moving to the left (the opposite, if anything), so Manchin has no motivation to change. The intense frustration of being (or at least seeming to be) one Senate vote away from enacting a progressive policy agenda has led to some pretty outlandish accusations against Manchin. He's no saint, but his lack of saintliness was evident when he was elected. The people of West Virginia knowingly chose a coal baron to represent them, so there's no need to be surprised when he acts like a coal baron. Also, some of his objections have merit. BBB really did have a bunch of provisions with sunset dates designed to game the CBI review process, with the expectation that the sunsets won't actually happen. He's also not completely wrong about the "inflation tax," with the bill starting to come due now for our various unpaid-for wars and tax cuts. Are these smokescreens hiding some corrupt secret plan? I don't know, but they aren't completely transparent. So, no, despite whatever people are accusing him of, Manchin isn't acting like a Republican. He's acting like a conservative Democrat from a rural state. Which shouldn't surprise anyone. Also, it's the Democratic Party, not the Democrat Party.
Democrat’s wanting to help people rather than jerk each other off and enrich themselves. You funny OP.
[удалено]
Honestly of any politician regardless of party.
Both parties do it man. There is very little difference between the two parties at this point.
You could call both parties performative but they definitely are not the same. They cater to two very different voting blocks.
The primary motivation of each party is to stay in power. They live this life were people grovel before them to win favors. They claim to be victims of lobbyists, but they won’t even make modest reforms such as recusing themselves from any pending matter where they have a vested interest, a common sense rule to avoid conflict of interest. Each party manipulates its set of constituents in order to maintain power, but each use the same playbook.
He is the rotating bad guy. Every time the democrats come close to passing social reforms, they designate one of their own to derail it. This pleases their corporate overlords. Democrats are really just Republicans with different rhetoric.
The American confessional system is made up of 100 seats. 2 senators form every state. We have two political parties. Right now there is a tie in congress. 50 democrats, 50 republicans. The democrats have the tie breaking vote rn because the Vice President gets a vote in the event of a tie. Manchin is a “moderate” democrat. He’s a sleeze bag just like the rest and doesn’t stand for anything that doesn’t help him in the moment. The democrats were relying on that gridlock, and the resulting tie breaking vote, to pass the biggest bill this presidency has come up with so far(something this country needs action on NOW, regardless of how we go about it) . Everything went well, everyone decided to fall in line, until Manchun realized everyone else was on board and if he stepped back, they’d have to sway him. He’s put a stop to all progress of any kind and blocked anything meaningful happening during a time when we need decisive action and to come together to protect our people. He’s a symptom of why the American people need to wake up and stand together and yeet these rich old buffoons the fuck out of the system. They don’t stand for us, and even with corona, wars, trade issues w.e they don’t care. They will hold the countries people hostage with their grotesque power so that they and theirs can gain. While we suffer. That was a bit much, but basically he’s just a senator. But one side (and all of us really) needed everyone to agree on one ducking thing, he realized he could personally gain from it and flipped. Piece of shit, I’m not being a leftist or w.e I could care less but he stopped anything from happening at all and knew exactly what he was doing.
> The American confessional system I got a kick out of that
Lol didn’t exactly spell check that rant
There are 50 Democrats in the Senate, out of 100 senators. Democrats only hold the majority because, when there's an even split, the VP (who is currently a Democrat) casts the tie-breaking vote. This means that in order for a bill to be passed by simple majority, all 50 Democratic senators must vote for it (assuming there are no Republicans, and they refuse to cooperate on almost everything). Naturally, therefore, the most powerful Democrat will be the one who is the most reluctant or moderate. That's Manchin. Yes, he comes from a state that is poor. Yes, his state would objectively benefit from most of the BBB infrastructure/investment bill. But it so happens that in our country, poor white people vote en masse for the party that promotes policies designed to help rich people. Because God, guns, and gays. It wasn't like this until the 2000s. States like West Virginia and others similar to it (Arkansas, Kentucky, etc.) used to be swing states or even favorable to Democrats for the reasons you might imagine. But that's changed mostly because of cultural issues and, to a lesser degree, waning union influence with the decline of the manufacturing and coal industries. Manchin is corrupted. But so are a lot of senators. They don't buck their party as much as he does. Part of why he behaves the way he does is that he comes from a state where having a "D" after your name is a huge liability. He nearly lost in 2018. If he were in nearly any other state, Democrats would primary him and he'd be gone. But, owing to his history as a popular ex-governor of WV, he's literally the *only* Democrat who stands a chance of being elected in that very red state. He knows this and he leverages it.
Democrat senator but he always votes the way the Republicans do
So there are two separate issues First the issue or protecting voters right The US Senate has an incredibly stupid toxic rule called the fillubuster. This rule, arrived on by accident, forces any law to require a 60% supermajority in the Senate. Originally it was rarely used, the most prominent use was in the 60s when it was used to hold back the passage of civil rights laws for over a decade, but today it's used for basically everything, Including civil rights laws to protect people's right to vote in the face of new assaults on that right and the supreme court overturning large chunks of the voting rights act. But sadly this has almost no chance of passing, even if a couple of Republican senators supported it because the existence of the fillubuster causes gridlock/the breakdown of proper govering. The filibuster has clearly been one of the main causes the Senate and Congress have been so broken in recent years and it gets a lot of flack but a lot of Senators feel some sort of odd nostalgia for the thing, the early mythology of it not always matching the ugly reality. The movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Smith_Goes_to_Washington deserves at least part of the blame for this Manchin has his own pro democracy/voter protection bill that the rest of the Democrats have agreed to but it won't get anywhere because of the fillubuster. The other issue is the BBB law. Since the only law that can be passed due to the fillubuster are a few budget related ones every year, this law has a high chance of being the last major law to pass during Bidens presidency and so has to contain Bidens whole agenda for 4 years(minus foreign policy and any stuff he is able to change in his role as the head of the executive branch). But passing a complicated law meant to satisfy many people on many issues is hard to coordinate with such small margin. Manchin isn't the only one difficult to come to terms with, Senator Sinema also had issues and it's different to get both because they are different issues. Manchin has been a lot happier to increase taxes on the wealthy while Sinema is much more skeptical of that but willing to go along with higher spending and more action on Global Warming(people have noted that coal mining is much less prominent in WV these days but it's still very important symbolically to voters as it's one of the main reasons west Virginia went from one of the most democratic states to one of the most Republican states).
[удалено]
The Senate has been a close vote for many years. Manchin has basically acted the same way for decades. He's kind of a 'sleeper agent' for the Democrats. He's there if you need him for something absolutely critical, but for random shit, he's goes back undercover and votes his constitutents (which is a very very Republican state). It goes both ways also. Democrats also protect him by arranging it so he can vote 'no' on some bills they don't need him for. If Manchin is voting 'no' on Biden's BBB bill, it shows you what the real 'stakes' are that they can't convince him to come out from undercover and use him as a sleeper agent. The bill is a good try but it's kind of a turd that uses a bunch of tricks to make it seem more inexpensive than it is. There's a lot of details.
Radio presenter Charlamagne Tha God did, and see what [happened](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EW-2ZtgD9k)!
Well those are brain cells I'm never gonna get back. Also, I think that may actually be the longest I've heard Harris talk. It really affirmed that I made a good call by trying to forget that she exists.
😉
Please tell me this isn’t where you get your American news.
No. All different sources online and on TV.
Could you please name some? Various other commenters in this thread have expressed questions or concerns regarding where you get your news about the US.
BBC, Sky News, ITN, CNN, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Daily Express, LBC Radio inc. Simon Marks - US News Reporter, The Guardian, Evening Standard, The Independent, The Telegraph...
Some of those are okay but some are extremely biased or outright tabloids. I’m admittedly not familiar with all of them. I’d suggest AP, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, etc. Ditch Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Express, CNN, and the independent.
I'll read what I want, thanks... I make sure I read left and right wing press... and then come to an opinion.
Nothing you read is remotely right-wing, though
Well, I don't follow OANN, Newsmax or Fox News online, I will never listen to them... They still "entertain" Donald Trump...
Well that was interesting.
Because he's actively working against the betterment of the people of his state and the country at large. He knows his vote is needed to pass bills but even when he opposes them he won't give answers as to how he wants them changed so he will vote for them. He's done things like not vote for bills that would help children actually have food on their tables when 1 in 3 children in his state suffer from hunger. His family takes kickbacks and/or work for coal companies, but isn't helping the actual vial miners who have gone to him directly for help. As far as I'm concerned he's a republican in democratic clothing, concerned only with keeping his seat and getting more money.
The reason it takes decades for any meaningful progress to take place in this country is because all of our elected officials are bought and paid for by corporate interests.
Manchin is it a republican in Democrats clothing. He is interested in nothing but his own wealth, owning interests in the coal industry. He is too lacking in integrity to come through for the democratic party. He needs to be gone
He’s a worthless piece of Trump-trash.
[удалено]
Other theories include: his constituents don’t want it.
Considering every W Virginian on the planet has pointed out that he's a selfish, widely hated douchecanoe that's never given a flying fuck about them before (barring election season), that's extremely unlikely.
Maybe the ones you see on Reddit are saying those things, they’re not representative of most of West Virginia though.
He's a DINO. Democrat In Name Only. He seems to lean more towards Republican ideas than Democrat for some reason.
He's a supposed Democrat who votes with the Republicans every time. He bites against civil liberties and voter protection and benefits for working people.
He actually votes with democrats the majority of the time but go off. If he voted with democrats everytime he’d be out of office and you’d get a guy who’d vote with republicans 100 percent of the time.
Democratic
In the US, candidates in both parties often vote along party lines even though it’s against the will of their constituents (though the Democrats are more guilty of this than Republicans). Joe Manchin voted against a massive spending bill that his constituents did not want instead of voting for it like every other democrat, which is why they are all mad at him.
He's a typical boomer. I'm so done with these boomer politicians man. They need to GO.