Manchin-ian Heresy

 

 Senators Manchin & Sinema

There are parallels between West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin’s heretical approach to an overwhelmingly Democrat-supported $1.75 trillion compromise social infrastructure bill and the Christian/Zoroastrian spinoff religion, Manichaeanism. According to Encyclopedia.com, “The teaching of Mani (216–277 ce) [, a Persian,] was essentially Gnostic, its constituent elements deriving from Judaism, Judeo-Christianity, and Iranian religion, especially Zoroastrianism…  Mani considered himself an apostle of Jesus Christ and, moreover, the Paraclete [embodiment of the Holy Spirit] promised by Jesus. Within the Roman Empire the Manichaeans claimed to be the true Christian believers (veri Christiani), while they saw the members of the Catholic Christian Church as ‘semi-Christians.’” But to most Christians this was labeled the Manichean Heresy.  

To many Democrats, Joe Machin’s opposition to the $3.5 trillion add-on Biden’s Build Back Better infrastructure bill, literally teetering in a 50-50 Senate where a reconciliation bill could pass without risk of filibuster only if the Dems voted as a bloc, resulted in a slicing and dicing of that bill down to $1.75 trillion. To all but two of Democrats in the Senate, Manchin’s continued refusal to join 48 Democratic Senators in support of even that pared-down bill was effectively a Manchin-ian Heresy. The other Democratic Senator-apostate, Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, was more mystical in her conservative opposition to this massive spending proposal.

Once a staunch pro-union/Democratic West Virginia turned red as its miners and farmers felt left behind as “elitist Party leaders” embraced causes that denigrated the state’s concentration of coal workers and pushed back against the Christian fundamentalism that define local attitudes. They’re “salt of the earth” mountaineer West Virginians, living within an Appalachian-driven culture, fiercely independent, deeply mistrustful of authority and government, working hard on farms and in coal mines, as their fathers and grandfathers before them had done. Change comes very slowly to these parts. Global warming countermeasures and regulation are the enemy.

Global outsourcing, anti-coal regulations and a new focus on gender and racial equality put Democrats on the wrong side of West Virginia values. Republicans, now populists, pushed evangelical values, guns, culture wars and played to the locals’ biases. And coal. That populist sentiment ravaged Democrats as the GOP took over. Democrat Manchin keeps his Senate seat because he has never accepted the new progressive aspect of his Party, even as most of the social programs in that proposed Biden legislation would go a long way to help what is currently ranked as the third poorest state in the union. Being labeled a spendthrift, lockstep liberal could easily cost Manchin his Senate seat, which would undoubtedly go to a Trump Republican. So, Dems cannot afford to let Manchin lose, but they also need him desperately to help salvage popular support for their candidates.

Joe Biden left for global conferences in Rome and Glasgow believing that he had convinced Manchin and Sinema to vote for the bill that they themselves had downsized. But even as Biden was a keynote speaker at the opening of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow – attempting to resurrect post-Trump credibility on America’s commitment to combat climate change as evidenced by the bi-partisan trillion dollar infrastructure and the Democratic $1.75 trillion add-on – Manchin pulled his support from the latter on November 1st, arguing for much more time (and a Congressional Budget analysis of the potential impact of the legislation, noting how it would be funded). He told gathered reporters that progressives’ not voting for the bipartisan bill unless both infrastructure bills were passed was effectively allowing them to hold a viable bipartisan legislative proposal “hostage.”

Progressives within the Democratic Party had vowed not to support the basic and smaller bi-partisan bill unless the companion $1.75 trillion legislation were passed at the same time. Result: Stalemate? Surprise number 1: that House progressive faction actually agreed to pass the bipartisan lower amount infrastructure bill without a guarantee that the second bill would have Manchin’s vote. 2. Manchin’s demand for that budgetary analysis as a condition for his vote was superfluous; it is standard procedure and was already in process. 

Aside from the obvious embarrassment to Biden’s efforts in Glasgow, the failure of the Democrats to deliver quickly on what is a very popular focus on infrastructure, interparty bickering coupled with Biden’s precipitous drop in the approval polls would seem to push a closely contested gubernatorial race in Virginia toward the GOP. Trump-supporting Republican Glenn Youngkin might gain support at the expense of Democrat Terry McAuliffe. Youngkin’s focus is on the culture wars, notably banning critical race theory from being taught in Virginia schools. Climate change is not at the top of Virginia’s issue list, even as it slowly turns blue. Without infrastructure success, however, the Dems would have little to brag about in this contest. In recent years Virginia has not elected a Democratic governor, however, when there has been a Democrat in the White House.

But wait, could it get worse for the Democrats? The Virginia contest is considered a reasonable barometer for the 2022 mid-terms, where the minority party traditionally makes gains against the party in power. And if Manchin is the lynchpin to a Democratic success story based on an ability to deliver that infrastructure bill that has such voter popularity, failure to get that West Virginia Senator quickly on board just might doom the Dems beyond the Virginia contest well into those mid-terms. And perhaps even into the 2024 presidential election where Trump or his surrogate might just gain a major strategic advantage over any Democratic opponent… a candidate presiding over a fractious progressive-versus-moderate battle for the heart of the party. 

Is this obvious enough to move the progressives in the House? Would the progressives vote at least for the bipartisan infrastructure bill? Would that be enough of a Democratic victory to undo the damage from the inter-party-political wrangling? Would that vote happen before the Virginia election? Would it make a difference? And finally, would Manchin support that second, larger infrastructure bill… sooner rather than later?

I’m Peter Dekom, and it is fascinating how one US Senator from one small and lightly populated state, just might control the fate of the Democratic Party for years to come.