A broken America should build a monument to Joe Manchin's massive ego

[progressoid]

Will Bunch

The self-centered, greedy West Virginia senator is a poster child for everything wrong with U.S. politics. So what is the Joe Manchin workaround?

As the summer of 2021 comes to an ignominious end this week...

No ideological label explains what Manchin has been doing this summer. He’s not even a political centrist. He’s a self-centrist — measuring his worth less on how much bacon he brings back to almost-heaven West Virginia and more on his number of hits on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. In recent days, the take-down in neighboring Virginia of the post-Confederacy statue of Robert E. Lee was a reminder of a nation’s ever-changing iconography. If America ever wants to memorialize the 2020s, we should build a monument to Manchin’s massive ego.

James Downie recently took down Manchin’s politics of the self in the Washington Post, writing that “he described his concerns about West Virginia’s economy as ‘I can’t lose one job. I don’t have one to spare,’ as though his Senate office is the state’s employment center.” But Manchin isn’t really unique — just an extreme example of the political careerism that’s made far too many in Washington savvier about catering to their own needs than those of the voters. This West Virginian embodies most of the deadly sins of modern politics, including:

Greed. Manchin boasts that he’s put all of his considerable business holdings into a blind trust in order to not affect his politics, but the senator is not too blind to see that zealously pro-business, anti-tax, and — most important — anti-environment policies are boosting his multimillion-dollar portfolio. The Intercept reported earlier this month that since entering the Senate Manchin has personally grossed more than $4.5 million from coal companies that he founded in the 1980s and are run by his son — even as he holds the deciding vote on Biden’s plan to wean America off fossil fuels.

Sloth. Still, Manchin knows he can’t keep millionaire taxes low all by himself, so he works closely with a network of pro-business lobbyists. The senator is trying to deny the tape-recorded comments of an ExxonMobil lobbyist who claimed he speaks regularly with Manchin’s office. But he did lash out at the “far left” in a recent phone call with billionaire donors, and his passionate embrace of austerity is surely pleasing to the right-wing Koch network, which has been currying favor with the senator, or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose political action committee recently gave to both Manchin and his political soullessness-mate, Arizona Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

Pride. In what’s probably just a coincidence (right?), Manchin’s kids have also done very well during their dad’s political career. That includes his daughter Heather Bresch — the former CEO of the pharmaceutical firm Mylan, which had to pay the U.S. Justice Department $465 million for overcharging Medicaid for anti-allergy EpiPens, a controversy that Manchin never weighed in on. When Manchin was West Virginia governor, a reporter covering Bresch’s promotion at Mylan learned she didn’t have the M.B.A. degree listed on her resumé, but somehow West Virginia University officials came up with not just an explanation to suddenly hand her a sheepskin but grades for unfinished courses were pulled out of thin air. Ultimately, the university president, provost, and business school dean resigned, but nothing bad happened to Bresch or to Manchin. That kind of outcome happens a lot.

more...https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/joe-manchin-power-greed-ego-20210916.html

[Thomas Hurt]

1. That has been my suspicion. He is another narcissist playing the spoiler to get attention.

[modrepub]

2. No Need

There are plenty of slag piles in WV and Appalachia that could be dedicated to him (and other's like him). I'd pick one that's on fire and leaching yellow AMD just for Joe.

[48656c6c6f20]

3. Hmm.

The Manchin police are coming. Be warned.

[NewHendoLib]

4. they may all be at the Sinema

[crickets]

5. ⭐

[progressoid]

6. !