What a strange beast is Joe Manchin. The West Virginia senator is nominally a Democrat, and yet he has repeatedly voted against the Democrats' every move.
The latest is his decision to vote against Joe Biden's sweeping $1.7 trillion social and climate spending bill, the so-called Build Back better Act. He admitted this during an interview on Republican mouthpiece Fox News - well, of course he did - despite previous promises to toe the party line, and his private discussions this week with President Biden. Nobody really knows why Manchin is taking this line on this particular bill - he muttered something about inflation, and something about Joe Biden knowing the "real reasons" (something to do with White House staff, maybe)- it would be too much tonm expect him to justify himself.
With the Senate equally balanced (nominally), a vote anywhere other than with the Democratic caucus is essentially a vote for the Republicans. Indeed, the Democrats have lambasted Manchin, almost to a person; the only support he has received is from Republicans. Go figure. The Republican Party has repeated tried to get Manchin to cross the Senate to the GOP side and, for whatever reason, he has chosen not to. But if he continues to consistently oppose the Democrats, then he is a de facto Republican anyway, wherever he sits.
The Democrats have now had enough of Manchin. He has now gone past the stage of being a thoughtful, independent and principled maverick; he appears to be deliberately sabotaging the Democcrat agenda. You have to wonder whether someone isn't paying the man. Certainly, West Virginia is the centre of America's beleaguered coal industry, so that wouldn't surprise me at all.
The important bill is not quite dead in the water yet, but without Manchin's vote in the ultra-polarized political landscape of modern America, it will be very hard to pass it.
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