Joe Manchin fights hard against what the Democratic Party most needs to do: show Americans that government can improve the lives and futures of average working families, that an empowered Democratic Party can take on corporate masters of greed for economic justice, higher living standards and quality of life for our working class.

West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin’s September 1 speech to the Chamber of Commerce reaffirmed the truth that he won’t help pass any legislation his corporate masters oppose. In that speech and in an op-ed in the next day’s Wall Street Journal he announced his opposition to President Biden’s $3.5 trillion human infrastructure reconciliation plan.

For labor, progressives and all Democrats fighting for economic justice, Joe Manchin is worse than a Republican. He will never support viable legislation for economic justice, and he prevents the Democratic Party from achieving it.

“Inside the Democratic Party Manchin does much more harm than any Republican could. He both weakens and kills Democratic priorities for everyday Americans, thus stopping Democrats from the change voters crave, locking in top-down failed policies and politics.”

Manchin is proud of his support for the smaller steel and concrete infrastructure that was supported by all corporate America.  All those 1.2 trillion dollars of concrete and steel work are critical as are the good paying, family sustaining union jobs.

But the bigger, broader $3.5 trillion Biden and Democratic plan is about shoring up human infrastructure for working families. It would enact and fund policies to strengthen working families including childcare, home care, green energy investment, expanded healthcare, free community college, DACA, Native Nation health and well-being, upgrades to Veterans Affairs facilities.  

In other words, Biden’s full plan would begin to shift resources allocated from the top down for 40 years for massive corporate welfare and tax giveaways to the rich for the health and well-being of working families. The package would strengthen our country and our economy from the ground up.

This $3.5 trillion human infrastructure plan is, of course, anathema to the masters of Joe Manchin who’ve been the masters of misery and a failed American economy for four decades.

Manchin does this on issue after issue, legislation after legislation: minimum wage, Covid relief, voting rights, infrastructure.

He bargains Democrats down in the legislative process, opposes any and all measures to address economic inequality and justice. Then he pleads and wheedles Democrats with the theme of his career: he is the best you can get, like a particularly cruel abuser.

Inside the Democratic Party Manchin does much more harm than any Republican could. He both weakens and kills Democratic priorities for everyday Americans, thus stopping Democrats from the change voters crave, locking in top-down failed policies and politics.

Long ago, back in 1994 Joe Manchin made his bed with the oligarchy. He became the West Virginia State Chairman of ALEC, the Koch brothers’ vehicle to take over state legislatures.  Manchin still appears on the ALEC website. It’s no wonder as governor he refused union recognition and collective bargaining with AFSCME for state employees. His career long symbiotic relationships with coal colonialists and all fossil fuel corporations have made him the enemy of the future. He is the most powerful defender and friend of fossil fuels in Congress.

The only reliable predictor of Manchin’s legislative decisions is his own most naked and immediate financial well-being.  For Joe Manchin, government is just another way to make money.  He and his family have lived well off the largesse of a senator’s contacts and payoffs.

Tragically, Joe Manchin fights hard against what the Democratic Party most needs to do: show Americans that government can improve the lives and futures of average working families, that an empowered Democratic Party can take on corporate masters of greed for economic justice, higher living standards and quality of life for our working class.

By refusing to act in the interests of working people in this historic moment of possibility, Joe Manchin assures us nothing can change, nothing will get better, the status quo is the most we can hope for.

That’s enough damage to Democrats and our agenda, but there is more.

Joe Manchin controls the West Virginia Democratic Party, ensuring all decisions are based on what is best for him, making the entire state apparatus a vehicle for only one man who doesn’t even share Democratic values.

Finally, Joe Manchin has convinced too many Democrats that he is the best we can do, that we could never win that Senate seat with any Democrat except Joe Manchin.

That is the worst effect of Joe Manchin. 

By killing our agenda, Joe Manchin condemns us to lose.

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