Stop blaming Manchin and start blaming

[Edwcraig]

the feckless messaging and political malpractice that caused the State of West Virginia to turn its back on the working man's Party. Answering how this could have happened and fixing this is the key to saving Democracy.

[Hoyt]

1. WV has pretty much been Dixiecrat Light for one Senate seat for

decades. I’m not sure that will change unless the conservative voters who check Manchin just decide to vote for GOPers.

[Funtatlaguy]

2. Could we also blame the voters of Maine & NC.

If they had given us two more Dem Senators, Manchin and Sinema couldn’t hold us hostage.

[ms liberty]

15. The party wanted Cal Cunningham

Then in the GE campaign, it comes out that Cal Cunninham couldn't keep it in his pants and the solid christian, family man who served his country image that his campaign had been crafted on was blown. Losing was not NC voters fault.
I'm still furious about it. We could have had Jeff Jackson, and he would have won.

[Funtatlaguy]

37. True. We picked wrong horse. Still should've ridden him in general.

Any Dem…even a jerk that thinks with the little head is preferable to a Republican.

[XanaDUer2]

52. I donated to that idiot's campaign

and really believed he'd win. The fact that he thought he could play around and no one would find out enraged me. Thanks, Cal

[GPV]

39. Blame the Trump humpers.

[Funtatlaguy]

41. I do. But Biden carried Maine by a big margin.

But many Dems and Indys also voted for Collins. That hurt .

[GPV]

44. Yes it did, but this is not a blue state, really. Can't expect most Mainers to vote straight Dem.

[JohnSJ]

3. Messaging? Something like 75% of of people in WV went for trump. What was the messaging for

trump?

Racism, sexism, and bigotry

If what happened during the last for year that culminated in January 6th isn’t enough to convince the majority of people of WV, then nothing will.

Either they fail to recognize they were duped, or they have sympathies that align with groups like the proud boys

[BGBD]

6. What specifically

have Democrats done to try to win WV?

Five years ago our nominee came to the state and said she was going to close down the mines....which almost everyone in the state still has some connection to. What have we done to change that?

[JohnSJ]

10. That comment was taken out of context, or because people only listed to what they wanted to

hear

“Those people labored in those mines for generations, losing their health, often losing their lives to turn on our lights and power our factories. Now we've got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels, but I don't want to move away from the people who did the best they could to produce the energy that we relied on."

She was being honest, Coal isn’t the future. Clean burning coal plants are a myth

Energy will come from other sources, and while some may not agree, nuclear will be one of those sources

Hillary wasn’t running in 2016, and Biden didn’t say he would shut down coal or fossil fuels. He said there would have to be a transition

They didn’t buy that either, and suspect even if Biden said the future was coal, they would have still voted for trump

[BGBD]

12. You left out the bit that mattered.

"Because we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business."

[JohnSJ]

13. They didn't vote for Biden,

[BGBD]

14. Nope

That's to 20+ years of telling them Democrats would do exactly that. Is there a reason they shouldn't believe it?

[JohnSJ]

16. Obama, Bill Clinton, Carter, Humphrey, etc. When they campaigned they weren't pushing closing

Coal Mines

For WV it is more than just coal

[BGBD]

21. WV voted twice for Clinton

they voted for Carter, and they voted for Humphrey.

And yeah, Obama was talking about closing mines.

“If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them,” Obama said, responding to a question about his cap-and-trade plan. He later added, “Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”

I find it amazing that you expect to tell people to their face that you're going to kill the most important industry they have and then act surprised when they don't vote for you.

[iemanja]

24. So you're all for increasing coal?

But I'm guessing you're anti-fracking.

[BGBD]

30. At any point

did I say that?

I'm explaining why WV swung to the right beyond the lazy analysis of racism.

It's kind of campaigning 101 that you don't tell people you want to close the company they work for.

The simple fact is that WV is a safe Republican state because Democrats have decided that they aren't interested in competing there.

[iemanja]

32. because your argument is familiar

and, if typical, it is likely full of inconsistencies.

I asked you in another post what your solution regarding coal is? Do you want to mandate more consumption of it to satisfy some West Virginians?

[BGBD]

36. There's nothing wrong with my argument

You're trying to frame it as my personal views on coal rather than an explanation of WV voting behavior, which aren't the same thing

I haven't made a comment to you about the merits of coal or any other energy type, because it doesn't matter. You can take whatever policy stance on coal you want, but we shouldn't be surprised when people who still rely on it don't agree. You're making a greater good argument to the people who are going to be pruned and expecting them to like it. You should be able to understand somebodies point on view, even when you don't agree with it.

If we started saying we wanted to shut down all casinos do you think we'd still win Nevada? Pretty good argument to be made that they are exploitative and unfair to their customers. But, if you decide to take that stance you do it understanding that you aren't going to win those votes.

[uponit7771]

46. +1, same with MO! Deans 50 state was a START and now we're no where to be seen here

[JohnSJ]

29. You said Democrats for decades were talking about closing mines. I named a list of Democrats

who didn’t say that

In its heyday the primary source of using coal for energy was 90%. Today it is about 16%, and it will get less and less as time goes on.

The populous in WV is an older population.

The fact is coal mining is not so cheap, and the writing is on the wall, we are becoming less dependent on coal for energy

It will have nothing to do with politics, but governed by cost and safety. Mining coal is dangerous work, and that also makes it more expensive also

They can believe the false promises of politicians, but I believe that coal will not be a significant energy source within 10 years

[BGBD]

33. I didn't say "decades"

I specifically said 20 years....which would go back to Gore, who was talking about closing mines. The margin in WV shifted 15 points between Clinton winning and Gore losing. Had Gore won WV he's have been President and the biggest factor in that shift was Gore's stance on environmental policy. That isn't a comment on it being right or wrong, it's the political reality.

I agree that coals decline is market driven and directly in response power generators switching to cheaper natural gas. Natural gas is also getting to be pretty big business in WV...but Democrats have been known to say that needs to go away too, haven't they? Biden made a slip about natural gas that I think nearly cost us PA this past cycle, as a matter of fact.

It we're going to openly campaign on shutting down industries then we need to proactively put replacements for that lost income in place before we do it. Otherwise nobody is going to buy those promises and they're going to run to the party that says they'll protect their jobs.

[CrackityJones75]

51. Yer right we should just lie to them.

We shouldn’t tell them the truth and offer as good if not better paying jobs in a growing industry. We should just lir lie to them and hope to win an election and then not win the next time because they won’t believe us.

Look. We need to keep telling the truth. Eventually it will sink in. Coal os not coming back and when that hard truth sinks in we will have been working to create jobs for them. Provide the water. Keep providing the water and eventually the horse WILL drink it.

[iemanja]

18. She proposed an environmental regeneration plan

a large one. But they prefer to be unemployed coal miners than employed in a job society actually needs.

[BGBD]

22. And those jobs are where?

because they've been hearing about those theoretical jobs and they never happen. Promise don't pay bills. Want to convince them that they don't need coal then start sending those jobs there now.

[iemanja]

23. They didn't happen because they voted for Trump

It was Hillary's plan. She lost. Remember? They chose empty promises over jobs.

[JohnSJ]

31. The use of coal for energy has gone from 90% to 16%. The future for energy is not coal

I remember in 2000, George bush went to a GM plant and ridiculed hybrid cars

The American auto industry was decimated because they didn’t diversify, and GM only survived because President Obama bailed them out. For years they were pushing back on government fuel standards while foreign auto makers embraced it.


They have to adapt or they will be left behind

[betsuni]

26. Yes, a $30 billion comprehensive plan to diversify and revitalize the region's economy.

Improving infrastructure, broadband, training programs, support for schools. Her team worked with the United Mine Workers of American union to hold the coal companies accountable. Peabody Energy extended benefits to retired miners and their families. She paid a lot of attention to coal country. But nobody bothered to look at policies and plans.

[iemanja]

28. Thank you

for that informative reminder.

[Scrivener7]

45. She also had a bunch of clean energy companies ready to move

into the rust belt and the coal belt because she was going to make them opportunity zones and give the clean energy companies large incentives to move in.

[Budi]

4. K & R Thank You!

Perhaps they don't really want him gone, or they'd rather not put in the work to challenge his Senate seat.

Appears Manchin is teflon to the raging against him on social media.

Its come down to shit or get off the Manchin pot.

The daily ragging has outlived its effectiveness.
Do something about it besides repeat memes.

[JI7]

5. Not this shit again.West Virginia is full of White Racists. Their top interests are Racism over

economic issues . THEY turned their backs on economic issues once the country started getting more diverse and minorities started to gain power. Then along with many other white people they started voting on their racism.

LBJ said it would happen and it did . Only reason the South is leaning Democratic again is because of increase in percentage of minorities in those areas.

[iemanja]

19. Some people believe America was better before the Civil Rights Act

and they don't even pretend otherwise.

[betsuni]

35. [phone]

[dsc]

60. actually that and northern transplants

NC to take one example does have a good sized minority population but we also have a lot of transplants for the tech industry which has made the white vote less conservative over time.

[Ohio Joe]

7. Well...

Since 2000 WV has steadily moved to the right. We should look to move all states to the left. That does not absolve Manchin of blame or give him any kind of pass when he supports repugs over Dems.

[JHB]

8. Why are you even asking when the answer is obvious?

There's only one side that has a messaging apparatus that saturates the whole country with hours-long harangues about how things ought to be and how evil ones side is. Hour after hour, channel after channel, day after day, year after year.

So stop the "Stop blaming Manchin" (since yeah, we can blame him) and chew on how to fix the real problem: the conservative media machine that turns their view into the background radiation most people live under.

[uponit7771]

47. THANK YOU !!! I've been going nuts telling people its our messaging !! Our media machine is a Yugo

... there's is 5,500 horse power electric dragster.

We get beat off the line EVERY damn time and respond so slowly, look at CRT !!

What's been our response? That's a black person problem ?!

Just damn!!

[ProfessorGAC]

57. Great Analogy

Dems consistently get outsold, despite their ideas being far better, benefitting tens of millions more people.
But, here we are!
Messaging & salesmanship are glaring weaknesses.

[JHB]

62. I'll only agree partially to "messaging & salesmanship"...

...although those do have problems.

The main issue is bandwidth. We have eyedroppers, they have -- not just fire hoses -- 4-foot-wide pipelines.

How many times have we had conversations where a little progress seems to be made, only for it to evaporate after the that person gets a fresh dose of FOX or whatever their poison of choice is?

Repetition, repetition, repetition counts, and repetition is what bandwidth buys you.

[orleans]

9. i blame george bush for practically everything that goes wrong and has gone wrong

i've been blaming him for years and i don't plan on stopping now

[sprinkleeninow]

11. With you on that.

[iemanja]

17. It's called the Civil Rights act of 1964

That is what caused Southern whites to turn their back on the Democratic Party. And they haven't changed a bit since segregation.


Enough with the tired attacks on the Democratic Party. Machin--not all Democrats--is responsible for his own actions.

[BGBD]

25. 1964....

If that's the reason then why did WV vote democratic in almost every election for the next 35 years?

[iemanja]

27. Why do you think the South is Republican?

WV isn't the only Southern state that took time to move to the GOP. The entire South used to be single party--the Democratic Party. The winning message is racism. Your fantasy about a working class message is irrelevant. That is not what motivates voters. Few people vote on issues. They vote based on cultural signifiers. The fact is the party of the white working class is the GOP, while the Democrats are the party of the working class--people of color who certain elements erase from the very notion of working class.

So what is your solution? Force consumption of more coal? Raise the global temperature by 3 more degrees? Or lie, like the GOP does, and promise to bring back coal and do nothing? That's what wins votes in WV. Oh, and the fact that like most of the rest of white America, they want to see people of color subjugated.

So spare me your good old days mantra.

[BGBD]

40. You're not giving proper consideration of

the differences in southern and Appalachian culture or their origins. Look no further than the vote share George Wallace got in each state, the deep south gave him 20 or 30%+ while WV gave him under 10%, much more in line with midwestern industrial states.

WV is the only wholly Appalachian state and have a history and culture that is unique to it. You can't just pigeonhole it with Mississippi. They have nothing in common.

[JI7]

43. Still doesn't change the fact they are racist. Just look at the amount of support

Trump got in 2016 and 2020 .

[JohnSJ]

34. You realize Byrd voted against the Civil Rights Act. Also you seem to forget that after the Civil

Rights Act, many of those Southern Democrats switched parties and became republicans

Let’s not rewrite history. Many of the Democrats in the South had no problem with the prejudice that occurred there, and it was the Civil Rights Act which was the catalyst that motivated those southern Democrats to become republicans

LBJ called it

[BGBD]

38. Byrds vote doesn't

change the results of WV elections over the next 30+ years.

That bill was signed into law on what day? Roughly four months before the 1964 election? Remind me...how did LBJ do in WV in '64 on the heels of it passing?

Oh, and the other WV Senator at the time was Jennings Randolph. He voted in support of the bill, along with with one in 1960 and 1965. He also supported the 24th amendment, the the voting rights act, and the confirmation of Thurgood Marshall. He also was one of the principle drivers of the 26th amendment, which further expanded voting rights. He had no problems being reelected in WV for the next 20 years until he retired and was replaced by another democrat, Jay Rockefeller.

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/09/us/senator-jennings-randolph-of-west-virginia-dies-at-96.html

So, I'm going to continue to reject the premise that WV voting behavior was largely affected by '64, namely because WV continued strong support for the people who passed it. It's a pretty hard sell to say that a state made a large swing in voting based on a law that was 36 years old when the swing happened.

[JI7]

42. Minorities did not suddenly gain power overnight after

civil rights were passed.

Many whites were ok pretending to support civil rights until minorities actually started to gain power as we saw with the reaction to Obama being president.

[BGBD]

48. uh huh

But this shift happened nearly a decade before anyone ever heard of Obama.....

It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure Al Gore and John Kerry are white guys.

Up until 2000 or so, environmental policy was bipartisan. Major environmental policy passed into law during both the Nixon and H.W. Bush administrations. The 1990 amendments to Clean air only had 10 no votes in the Senate, and two of those were from Democrats Byrd and Rockefeller, both WV Democrats. By the 2000 election environmental policy was becoming sharply partisan. Republicans began to win in WV in way they hadn't done since Lincoln-Republicans existed and as they gained power they were able to weaken unions, which then further increased their margins. This was a strategy developed by Newt Gingrich in the late 70's when he figured out he was losing elections to democrats who were attacking his environmentalist lean at the time. He moved away from that and began to win elections. He took over congress in the mid 90's without a lot of discussion of environmentalism, but within a few years the divide between democratic environmentalism and republican anti-regulation were becoming very clear.

It's a much clearer explanation of WV realignment.

[JI7]

49. No, the 2012 democratic Primary for president gave almost half

the votes to someone in prison over Obama. This was the Democratic Primary where Obama wasn't running against any serious challenger. Yet still almost half the DEMOCRATS voted for someone in prison over Obama.

[BGBD]

50. Obama got essentially the same

vote share as Gore and Kerry in 2008. Clinton in 2016 lost vote share from Obama in 2012.

Again, pretty sure Obama was black in 2008 as well. WV voters largely blamed him for losses in coal over his first term. There were over 65k people in WV who voted for Obama in 2008 and didn't in 2012. Do you think they just suddenly realized his was a black guy?

[JI7]

53. of course they blame the black guy . While voting in huge numbers

for the white racist who gave them racism but nothing else in terms of jobs. Obama gave them more with health care.

[BGBD]

56. They blamed

The guy who specifically told them he was going to make sure no coal plants were opened. Then a whole bunch of coal plants shut down and got replaced with NG.

Like I said, the party makes their policy choices, but you donit understanding if your against coal you're going to lose WV by 35 or 40 points and that's going to bleed into parts of VA, PA, and OH.

[JI7]

61. They never voted for Obama. They voted for Trump multiple times

These excuses don't work anymore. They voted for a guy that ran on causing harm to minorities.

Trump didn't give them any jobs but they were fine voting for him in huge numbers again.

[StevieM]

58. Yep. West Virginia was one of ten states to vote for Mike Dukakis in 1988. (eom)

[KentuckyWoman]

54. I doubt you understand that part of America.

Given a choice between economics and christian white supremacy, they'll pick christian white supremacy.

I grew up over the line in Kentucky. Same type people. In my childhood, racism and bigotry were total non issues. "Blacks" weren't abundant enough to be seen as competition and everyone was some version of Christian. The racial tensions elsewhere would filter into our news but generally seen as a peculiarity of some other place. There were more important things to worry about.

But as the fortunes of coal fade and times get harder, and the world becomes smaller and more diverse - now it becomes an issue. This isn't a matter of "branding" or strategy. It is based in a people's basic values. A value the Democratic party should never embrace.

If someone cannot stomach opportunity and fairness for all and choose to turn their backs on their fellow workers because of it, then it is a choice made... and not a good one.

Edit to add the above certainly does not apply to everyone. Obviously I come from that background and do not fit that description. A good many people of WV don't hold with racism over economics ... but there are enough to tip an election ...

[Iggo]

55. Fuck Manchin.

He’s a big boy and he knows exactly what he’s doing.