Joe Manchin, America’s Hope

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons.

Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, the political future of the Democratic Party appears bleak. Once again, pursuing policies that fundamentally misunderstand the American electorate and even their own voters, Democrats have squandered their electoral majorities and unified control over the United States government. Indeed, according to a 2021 ABC News-Washington Post survey, nearly two out of three registered voters believe the Democratic Party is out of touch with most Americans. Democrats have misunderstood their 2020 election victory as a mandate from the people. However, the results were no mandate—the Democrats won the Senate, House, and Presidency by a very thin margin—less than 30,000 votes in Georgia would have given the GOP a Senate majority. More so than a mandate, the results were a plea for what people hoped would bring moderacy, unity, and a return to normalcy to Washington. But instead of advocating for national unity and bipartisanship, the administration has ventured into supporting the packing of the Supreme Court, the removal of the filibuster, and has attempted to pass multiple spending packages worth trillions of dollars, which all fifty Republican Senators and some Democrats are against. Thinking of his victory as a decree, Biden has made big political moves that are actually at odds with what the people wanted. As a result, President Biden has lost more public support in his first months of office than any president since World War II and is now fielding a 40% approval rating. 

Fortunately, the Democratic caucus has a member that serves as a beacon of hope and opportunity for the party: Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Senator Manchin has single-handedly forced the Biden Administration to reconcile divisive policy initiatives, saving the United States of America trillions of dollars—yes, trillions—in spending. Last September, for example, the senator used his power as the deciding vote in the Senate to reduce Biden’s $3.5 trillion economic plan, the largest and arguably  most radical economic plan in American History, to $1 trillion. Manchin does not totally write off these initiatives; instead, he has been willing to support them in more conservative, fiscally responsible forms.  Thus, to the extent that Manchin deradicalizes the Democratic Party agenda, he is doing the party a huge favor, since a more radical agenda would ensure even worse electoral failure for Democrats in 2022. 

 Unfortunately, Senator Manchin has recently served as the punching bag of Democratic elites—angering them for stifling the progressive democratic agenda and not bending toward their will. Some even believe he might decide to switch caucuses. Rather than respecting Senator Manchin as a centrist willing to work across the aisle—the same spirit of compromise President Biden appealed to on the campaign trail—the administration, along with the Democratic commentariat, has ostracized the senator, and denigrated him for having justified reservations towards Biden’s massive $3.5 trillion dollar Build Back Better Proposal. Repudiating senators for acting in a centrist manner is not what something a “unity” president would–or should–do. Manchin’s political approach should be used as a template for both Democrats and Republicans to win and compete in battleground districts. Regardless of political affiliation, Senator Manchin’s ability to stand by his beliefs in the face of extreme scrutiny towards himself and the people of his state—in light of the Washingtonian elite—is honorable. 

As our nation continues to polarize around party banners, and as each election is increasingly perceived as a simplified fight between good and evil, the fate of our democracy becomes increasingly dim. States, regions, and political groups have only become more deeply entrenched in the realm of partisan politics, forming profound national cleavages.  Indeed, a supermajority of thirty-seven states currently operate as “trifecta” governments—that is, when a political party controls both state legislative chambers in addition to the governorship. Allotting total legislative and executive control to a single party is dangerous, especially if that party maintains the trifecta for a long period of time. Nobody knows this fact better than the people of West Virginia, who endured total Democratic control for eighty-two years (1932-2014). For nearly a century, a political party had total control; facing increasing economic, cultural, and social woes, they did little. When victory is certain, there is no pressure to perform. 

Indeed, Cathy Kunkel, a Bernie Sanders-endorsing progressive who served as the Democratic candidate for West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, argues that in the twentieth century, even with total legislative control, Democrats have failed to “develop an economic vision that would benefit West Virginian workers” and diversify the strong but coal-centric economy. Due to party corruption, political conformism, and a lack of political competition, the state now finds itself with a weak coal industry and a poorly diversified economy. For West Virginians, learning the impacts of polarization and total party control the hard way may be part of the reason why the “single most Republican-friendly state in the country,” according to a CNN article, is able to elect a Democrat, Joe Manchin, to the United States Senate time and again. Joe Manchin, unlike his Democratic colleagues, offers a compelling economic vision for his state. Supporting the expansion of funding to community-based development organizations, like AmeriCorps in the American Rescue Act—all while reflecting his constituents’ economically and socially conservative values. Manchin’s centrist approach to American politics is a breath of fresh air, and as a result, he has served the interests of the people of West Virginia well—maintaining a 61% approval rating in West Virginia. 

Despite the vitriol Manchin has received from the Democratic commentariat, the senator has remained true to his values and those of his constituents. Manchin owes nothing to liberals, nor the liberal commentators which use their national platforms to denigrate him, the interests of whom could not be further from those of his largely working-class, non-college-educated rural voters in West Virginia. If liberal commentators supported him, it would be an indication he was doing his constituents a disservice. The tendency to hold in contempt those who do not see issues and politics the same way as us is a dangerous practice: people, policy, and politics are nuanced. Senator Manchin is one of the few politicians in Washington D.C. that recognizes this and, instead of being excoriated by the democratic elite, he should be lauded for it. 

Cameron Adkins is a junior in Columbia College studying political science. Born and raised in Logan, West Virginia, a small coal-mining town in rural Appalachia, Cameron invests himself in the research of American domestic politics with an emphasis on his home region of Appalachia and rural America. As a Republican on Columbia’s campus, he has much interest in healing the partisan and rural-urban divide that plagues our political system.