On Sunday, multimillionaire coal baron and US Senator Joe Manchin decided that supporting the Build Back Better plan wouldn’t sit well with his wealthy Republican donors; so he announced his opposition on Fox News effectively killing the legislation.
This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Manchin has alienated both the moderates and liberals in the Democratic Party while at the same time raking in millions of dollars from GOP billionaire donors – so who do you think is likely to fund his reelection campaign? Certainly not the Democrats.
Democrats should remove Manchin from the caucus thereby stripping him of his committee assignments and taking away his leverage and fundraising platform.
There’s no downside to kicking him out of the caucus.
If he’s not a fascist, he’ll become an Independent and occasionally support the Democrats (on say voting for outrageous “defense” spending bills). If he is the self-dealing snake in the grass most suspect him of being he’ll become a member of the anti-democracy party. Either way, by kicking him out of the caucus, the Democrats deplatform him depriving him of media attention and fundraising dollars.
As an aside, the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), which represents West Virginia coal miners, has urged Manchin to reconsider his opposition to the Build Back Better plan. Not shockingly, the guy who founded a coal brokerage isn’t listening to the workers.