I get it, coal is big in your state, but coal is dying and no amount pro-coal governance is going to bring it back. Quit pandering to this sector, it’s time to move on and figure out new ways to support the former coal workers.
It doesn’t matter if coal is dying, it matters if coal is paying him.
I don’t think you realize, he’s not pandering - he IS coal. That’s where his family made their money and he continues to directly benefit from coal cut-outs in legislation that he forces in.
He’s doing both
He’s playing both sides so he comes out on top.
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What a knob.
Piggie wanna be closer to the trough.
What pile of pork and bribes does this almost Republican want now?
Almost Republican? When his vote really, really matters, he doesn’t vote for democracy. There’s a reason why people abhor Sinema and him.
Why would so many voters be into coal? How many of them actually work in coal mines? If they do, they like it? They want their children in there next?
He’s merely protecting his and his family’s interests. His son runs the coal business he started and he has been making special deals for it ever since.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/08/manchin-family-coal-company-00003218
“If it was good enough for my grandpa (dead at 45 from black lung), my father (currently in hospice with lung cancer) and me (on disability after a collapse), its good enough for my kids (TBD)!”
I think its partially familiarity, and partially that a lot of the communities were formed around these mines… and without them the community will dry up and wither away. Which is a hard pill to swallow for people who’ve lived there for multiple generations.
It also doesn’t help that Appalachia has basically been reduced to an internal resource colony. Never mind the people who actually live there, its only purpose has been extraction, and everything was built around that. Yes it’s brutal, but it paid well. When that dries up it’s basically an existential threat. It’s not just a case of being set in their ways.
To me, there’s little difference between the desire in Appalachia to bring back coal and the desire to bring back factories from overseas.
First I will say the sooner we are off coal the better.
But will answer your question. First off, coal is one of the cheapest energy sources. There is a reason the world is using record breaking amounts today. Keeps their energy prices down. Secondly thru taxes it benefits every person in said state. Not only do these companies pay normal taxes on high profits, but they pay an additional tax in the form of royalties. Third. Have you ever worked in a mine? They take safety serious. Not only that, jobs that pay over 100k a year with little education. Not too much complaining by those that work there.
Short answer. Pay lots into government taxes, keeps energy costs down while creating some of the highest paid jobs. That against the damages to global warming.
Alright, but I’m not too sure about working in the mine being a good gig. I watched something on a small coal town in west Virginia and the citizens didn’t exactly like the job. They spent a lot of time in the dark, doing labor. They worked it because the entire town was built on it and there isn’t any options for the people that didn’t move away. If it’s high paying, these guys sure didn’t show it.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin (D) says he is “thinking seriously” about leaving the Democratic Party and declaring himself an independent before the 2024 election, when he will have to decide whether to run for a fourth Senate term or wage a third-party bid for president.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) arrives for a Senate Armed Services Committee nomination hearing for U.S. Air Force Gen. Charles Brown to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Tuesday, July 11, 2023.
Manchin says he will decide at the end of the year whether to run for a fourth Senate term or run for president as a third-party candidate backed by No Labels, a bipartisan centrist group that plans to raise $70 million to put an independent, third-party candidate on the presidential ballot next year.
An East Carolina Center for Survey Research poll published in May showed Manchin trailing West Virginia Gov.
Democratic strategist David Axelrod earlier this year speculated that Manchin may decide to run for president as “a graceful exit” from the Senate, instead of risking defeat in West Virginia.
But Manchin’s colleagues on both sides of the aisle have warned that if he runs for president in 2024, he will likely wind up helping Trump — who is leading the rest of the GOP presidential primary field by more than 30 points — win the general election.
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Leave already. So tired of this attention whore.
the dems are better one vote down than with joe mccoalstack on ‘their side’.
He votes with the Repubs anyway
Let’s hope they replace him with someone that’s not a goon for the republicans (they won’t)
If Joe Manchin can’t win in WV as a Democrat, no one can. If he wins as an Independent and still caucuses with Democrats, that doesn’t change much.
He might run for President with No Labels and hand the presidency to Trump.
Why would that benefit Trump? Outside of WV, no one’s fooled him by. Everyone knows he’s a selfish conservative. He’d split the conservative vote if anything.
Outside of WV, no one’s fooled [by him]
Oh, we know full well who he is and who he represents (himself and his financial interests). The problem is that we have no other democratic candidate who could possibly beat whichever Republican ghoul makes it to the general election.
We’re kinda stuck with him and have been for years. If we voted him out, his replacement would be solidly red and worse.
Extremely unlikely, he uses tough rhetoric because he knows who his WV voters are, but in the end Manchin is solidly pro-Biden
Are centrists unreliable voters or something?
Yeah, he’s running in an R+22 state that voted Trump over Biden by 40 points. He knows the D brand is dogshit in his state, and so he’s gonna drag it through the mud over the next year to give himself as much breathing room as possible. People don’t understand how blood red West Virginia is nowadays. The best way to make his comings and goings absolutely irrelevant is to hold Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, and Montana, and potentially take Florida and Texas. This map is absolutely brutal, as Dems are running to keep several R-leaning states, and Republicans aren’t running to keep anything D-leaning.
He can’t win as a democrat. He’s behind Jim Justice 32-54. That’s a 22 point spread. He loses 16 points if he goes I. This is him trying to save a flagging campaign.
Honestly, I wish he’d go I and the dems pull his committees and his funds, and send them to races they have a chance of winning with candidates who will not extort them in an ongoing power play.
Exactly this. Anyone who replaces him would likely be as MAGA a Republican as they come, vs Manchin who supports much of the Democratic agenda. We want Manchin to keep his seat, and we want more Democrats in the Senate so he and Sinema can’t block anything single handedly.
Speaking of, I’m all in on Colin Allred beating Ted Cruz next year, I think he’s a much better candidate than Beto was last time around.
Yeah, all the cheerleading for Manchin to get out is unbelievably shortsighted. As soon as people get their wish, we lose control of the Senate and Mitch “30 second pause” McConnell runs it again. That’s what people want?
IMO I think the real problem is the resources. Is the DNC wasting any resources backing manchin that could possibly help win an actual democrat in a contested campaign? I mean I get a half democrat is better than a full republican, and we can’t get a real democrat in his state. But is there an opprotunity cost of keeping these at best half democrats, on resources that could be used to get an actual democratic majority that doesn’t require gutting the hell out of major changes to get our own partys vote.
The No Labels ticket will only help Trump. Manchin needs to just retire.
Why? I thought centrists were all reliable voters who will vote blue no matter who. Progressives sure as fuck won’t vote for him.
Good riddance. You can tell he’s absolutely reveling in his outsized influence. No matter how evil the republicans may be, at the very least they are proud of what they are. joe “centrist” machin is by all accounts a double-dipping coward who wants to have his cake and eat it too. At least Sinema had the guts to own up to it.
Good. Make room for a real dem
Room where? In West Virginia?
Whether he retires, switches to the Republican Party, dies, or serves until 2050 as a Democrat, Joe Manchin is the last Democratic senator from West Virginia for the rest of our lifetimes.
Maybe we can take all the money we would have wasted propping up Manchin and spend it on better candidates in better states.
Think faster, jackass.
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I know everyone hates him, but without him Dems lose the senate and can’t appoint judges
Also Trump won every single county in WV, I don’t know if any other “D” candidate could win there
Well, the good news is if he leaves, we can replace Feinstein without any additional penalty.
He can’t hold his seat anymore regardless. Dems and Dem caucusing Is are 51-49 so they can lose him and still have the Senate with Harris as VP. Realistically, at least one other D is going down on the 2024 senate map, so they’ll need to bump off Cruz to compensate and keep it 50-50.
bye Felicia
