Joe Manchin is a bona fide centrist, a political animal nearing extinction in the Democratic Party, whose home state of West Virginia gave Donald Trump his second-highest winning percentage last fall, with 69 percent of the vote. … Manchin’s the kind of senator that presidential candidate Joe Biden and, once […] Read more »
Evidence and experts or common sense
In our hyperpolarized society, the left can’t talk to the right and the right can’t talk to the left. … Liberals and conservatives not only reach different conclusions, they arrive at them in different ways. One of the important distinctions is in who we look to for guidance. We Democrats […] Read more »
Writing the Narrative Of the 2022 Midterms
For more years than I would like to think about, a phrase coined by my freshman college English professor has come to my mind. Trying to coax a class into explaining the essence of a particular short story, the professor facetiously asked, “What is its aboutness?” That’s how I often […] Read more »
How Joe Manchin Survives as a Democrat in West Virginia
… Mr. Manchin’s unique ability to survive in West Virginia is the last vestige of the state’s once-reliable New Deal Democratic tradition, dating to old industrial-era fights over workers’ wages, rights and safety. It was one of the most reliably Democratic states of the second half of the 20th century, […] Read more »
Want a different U.S. Senate? Elect different senators
The Democratic-led Senate is heading toward showdowns on two critical pieces of legislation: President Biden’s ambitious infrastructure plan and a bill to stop state legislatures from making it harder to vote. But there’s a roadblock in the Democrats’ way, and it’s not Republican leader Mitch McConnell. It’s Joe Manchin III, […] Read more »
The dangerous GOP voting laws change who counts the votes
The Republican efforts to change voting laws around the country after Donald Trump’s 2020 loss are often all lumped together as one push. And while they almost all seek to ameliorate fear of widespread fraud that no one has proven exists, the modifications sought actually fall into two distinct groups. […] Read more »