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Goodbye, Joe Manchin—We Won’t Miss You (www.thenation.com)

submitted 10 months ago by spaceghoti@lemmy.one to c/politics@lemmy.world

24 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The thing is, Democrats have always had zero margin for error heading into 2024. Manchin was always unlikely to hang on to his seat. In West Virginia, the likely Republican candidate for Senate in 2024 is Jim Justice, the current governor of the state. Justice was elected governor as a Democrat, but switched parties at a Donald Trump rally in 2017, just a few months into his term, in one of the more pathetic “kiss the ring” maneuvers you will ever see from a full-grown adult. Manchin was most likely toast the minute Justice declared for the seat, and some polls have Justice beating Manchin by over 20 points.

Manchin was going to lose, and Democrats who hoped that he’d help them hang on to the Senate were simply fooling themselves. Frankly, instead of a conservative “Trump-lite” Democrat, the party should go find the most pro-abortion, pro-labor city commissioner in Wheeling and try to run a single-issue campaign on reproductive rights. That kind of candidate can lose just as hard as Manchin would have, but with a lot more dignity.

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[-] ME5SENGER_24@lemm.ee 74 points 10 months ago

Every official party switch, while in office, should disqualify a person from their position as it disenfranchises the voters as they elected someone from party A or B and they deserve to be represented by someone from the party that was elected into power

[-] billwashere@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago

It should immediately trigger a special election.

[-] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

or maybe we should stop voting for a party.

I know. Wild concept. but anyone who actually looked at his politics knew he was a DINO. maybe not a republican, but not a democrat either.

[-] PunnyName@lemmy.world 42 points 10 months ago

We need the alternative / ranked vote. That mitigates 2-party voting.

[-] MelodiousFunk@kbin.social 20 points 10 months ago

But it's not perfect, so we can't possibly do that.

- Signed, people scared of possible improvement threatening their position

[-] mjhelto@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

More like they (politicians) would:

have to actually campaign rather than going to key campaign areas and ignoring those that couldn't help them win,
couldn't easily rig the game by gerrymandering the shit out of their districts to disenfranchise millions of voters, and
wouldn't be able to ignore the voters as easily once in office.

There's probably a lot more I'm missing but I'm sleepy!

[-] halferect@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

Unfortunately it's a two party system so if you don't vote Democrat or republican your are just voting against the party you side with.

[+] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world -19 points 10 months ago

Ah yes. That tired refrain. "BUT BUT BUT YOU CAN'T HAVE THAT!"

it's a 2 party system BECAUSE you vote for one of two parties, and you're an idiot for abjectly refusing to even consider a 3rd party. In any case you say that as if Primaries aren't a thing that happens between candidates of the same party. not that the DNC doesn't fuck that over.

[-] halferect@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I voted 3rd party plenty of times and realized it's never gonna happen with our current system. So get fucked in your imaginary world where a 3rd party could ever win. And primaries don't exist for senate races

[-] javasux@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote_splitting#Spoiler_effect

[+] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world -10 points 10 months ago

It's amazing. How many of you have given up. Yeah. I KNOW. all these argument your tossing a large part of how we got here in the first place. 2 party systems inherently favor the right. which is why the Overton Window has only shifted conservative since I've been alive. probably since the Boomers were younger than I am now.

none of all the down votes, none of all the shit people are throwing at me change that. the 2 party system is how we got here, and the lack of YOUR ability to even conceive of something different is how we stay on the path sliding further into fascism.

there are solutions, but we'll never have them unless people start pressing for candidates who would put those solutions into law. as it stands now with the 'established' politicians and parties, they both benefit from sharing power in the 2 party system. democrats and republicans are both complicit.

Things like ranked choice ballots, taking steps to curb or eliminate gerrymandering, reversing Citizens United, etc. The reality is, however, neither of the 2 parties are going to support any of these changes until they start loosing votes because they don't. Which means you need to stop voting for people who don't support those things to have change. and you need to start being active in the local politics, advancing people who support these things.

Is it dangerous to vote for a 3rd party when trump is running? absolutely. I've said it before and I'll say it again: trump is the greatest modern argument for the 2a; a But voting for candidates, and pushing local party leadership to candidates that aren't merely "the lesser of two evils" is the only way to change the system.

You'll note, that I've never called anyone to not vote for biden- and will likely be supporting him, knowing full well I'm selling the future for the present. Doesn't mean I'm not pushing for people who support changing the system. But the established parties, as they are now, will never change the system, and the system can't be fixed without change.

Ergo, the only change we can accomplish is by how we vote. and our votes are valuable- which is why asshole corpos are dropping millions of dollars in campaign donations to get their bought-and-paid for people to win, why Russian and China and who knows who else are running social media and propaganda campaigns to get their guy to win.

you and @halferect are now singing the main verse in the tired old song of "My Ass Won't Wipe Itself, So I just Sit in My Shit." and it pisses me off. Your ass won't wipe itself so you wipe it. politics won't change itself, so you change it- and you change politics by voting for different people. it's totally profound, right? (/s on that. it's pretty freaking self evident. see why Manchin is leaving the senate- people are realizing he's always been a coal stooge, realizing he is a coal stooge, and will always be a coal stooge. The only way to get not-a-coal-stooge is to put someone else in office.)

[-] mjhelto@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

Gotta love victim blaming the voting block for how the system is rigged. "Why aren't you all changing the world, ya lazy fucks?"

If you really are older than the boomers than at least we'll be rid of you soon enough!

[-] ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

MOCs who live by partisan politics deserve for their careers to die by partisan politics too. Changing party affiliations while in office is a high crime that only somebody holding public office would be capable of even committing.

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago

If you defended him when he was blocking progressive legislation for you, don't you dare start acting like you don't like him now. You knew exactly who he was when he was doing what you wanted. He's the exact same person now that he was then.

We told you so. He got done betraying us and got around to betraying you.

[-] derf82@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

I’ll miss him running for senate 2 reasons:

First, sure, he isn’t likely to win, but you never know. Nov 2024 is a long way away.

Second, if he is running for senator, he isn’t running as a spoiler 3rd party candidate for president.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yeah, but realistically, who wants him to run for president? He's about as charismatic as Mike Pence and has no ideas that appeal to anyone enough that would pull them away from either Trump or Biden. He's a fake centrist that just wants what's best for the coal industry.

He's also 1 year younger than Trump and 4 years younger than Biden. So just another old white guy.

[-] Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Yeah, but realistically, who wants him to run for president?

People who like the second worst option.

[-] spaceghoti@lemmy.one 9 points 10 months ago

Second, if he is running for senator, he isn’t running as a spoiler 3rd party candidate for president.

FTA:

Still, even Democrats who belatedly accept that Manchin was never going to help them hang on to the Senate now worry about Manchin throwing his jawline into the presidential race as a third-party candidate—perhaps with the “No Labels” party, perhaps as a running mate to Mitt Romney—and hurting Biden’s reelection chances that way. I am not concerned. If anything, Manchin’s candidacy would be more likely to take votes from Trump than Biden. There just isn’t a lot of data to suggest that there are Republicans who are willing to vote for Biden because of Trump’s unique threat to democracy but would throw their democracy-saving vote away on a third-party candidate. And the kind of Democrats who hate Trump but also hate Biden are generally on the more progressive end of the spectrum and hate Manchin most of all. Moreover, there is simply no evidence that Manchin is well positioned to appeal to any distinct block of third-party voters. The myth of Manchin as some kind of independent iconoclast has always been more powerful than the objective reality of Manchin: a coal lobbyist nobody trusts who lives on a houseboat.

So even then, he's likely to hurt Trump more than Biden as a political spoiler.

[-] derf82@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Never underestimate the stupidity of the American people. Lots of people hate both Trump and Biden.

[-] PeleSpirit@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

I didn't know Manchin was going to lose anyway, that does change some things.

[-] badbytes@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Least democratic democrat ever. Hope you enjoy your cake.

[-] Seraph@kbin.social 6 points 10 months ago

"Don't let the door hit you on the way out... because I don't want ass prints on my new door."

[-] PunnyName@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Thanks Mom™

[-] Iwasondigg@lemmy.one 4 points 10 months ago

Michael Scott singing Goodbye Toby running through my head.

this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023

265 points (98.5% liked)

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