Joe Manchin is the New Hero. Is There Anything Heroic About Him?

The corporate media has now made Joe Manchin into a hero because he suggests he may be willing to accept a climate package arrangement. Likewise, the Democrats are applauding Manchin’s alleged coming around to the party’s environmental positions. Both the media and the Democrats miss the real issue. The real issue is how is it that in a democratic nation that the United States supposedly is, Manchin can spurn the will of the majority, even though he represents less than one twentieth the number of voters that California senators represent and less than one tenth the number of voters that New York’s senators represent. All four of those senators favor progressive environmental legislation. Do the media ever raise this issue? Never. Does the Democratic Party raise them? Never. Yet it’s the key issue that needs to be raised and brought to the attention of the people of this country because only a radical overhaul of the nation’s political system will allow for the kinds of changes that are needed and that most people in the U.S. support.

 

Not only should the Democratic Party raise the issue, but they should strip Joe Manchin of his chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and, in fact, should kick him out of the party. Why did the Democrats allow him to be chairman in the first place, since he opposed all of Obama’s energy policies, as well as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Repeal Act of 2010, voted to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood, supported Trump’s border wall and immigration policies, voted to confirm Grett Kavanaugh’s appointment, etc., etc. etc. Are the Democrats showing their true colors by kowtowing to Manchin instead of kicking him in the butt?