Joe Manchin Belongs in Hell

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) had a fun little laugh at a D.C. party earlier this week about how everyone hates him.

After acknowledging that he is asked constantly why he doesn’t switch parties when he is very clearly not a Democrat, and even that his life “would be much easier” as a Republican, he claimed, “I don’t think the Rs would be any more happier [sic] with me than the Ds right now.”

“I don’t know where in the hell I belong,” Manchin added, for the LOLs.

In hell, bud. Your soul belongs in the actual eternal pit of fire.

Manchin’s apparently thinking of becoming an Independent, and likened himself to Sen. Bernie Sanders, which is incredibly offensive to America’s Jewish Papa and also very far off the mark.

Whereas Sanders is an Independent because of the Democrats’ longstanding lack of moral conviction or even clarity, Manchin finds himself in the opposite position: He is the living embodiment of the fact that “centrist” has no meaning anymore. Manchin is not a “centrist;” he is a capitalist and an opportunist. His state of being recalls Dante’s Inferno: He is one of those avaricious hoarders in the fourth circle of Hell with whom, Virgil warns Dante, any attempt at conversation would be pointless, because he has lost all individuality, to the extent of being unrecognizable as a being with humanity. This is the trap constituents find themselves in with so-called “centrists” like Manchin and his fashion-nightmare counterpart Kyrsten Sinema: There’s no conversation to be had with people who have no actual values beyond hoarding wealth and power for themselves.

What’s especially sad about Manchin is that he’s an abject failure in all the ways that would be meaningful to him. He’s not even in the top fifty richest people in Congress. Maybe this is why he’s getting so much out of ruining not just the Democratic Party, but the lives of the vast majority of Americans. Maybe that’s why he’s so completely unashamed to be a little errand boy for the worst corporations in America, apparently at the beck and call of their lobbyists’ speed dial.

It’s also a clear indication of the source of the real rot here. Why is a coal baron legally allowed to weigh in on climate policy? Why is someone with a daughter who conspired to monopolize and raise the price of EpiPens while funneling money to daddy’s political campaign anywhere near discussions on healthcare or public health?

Manchin’s little comedy routine at the D.C. party occurred a few days before he apparently tanked paid leave for all Americans, his excuse being concern about the social security trust funds. The trust funds are not expected to be depleted for another 13 years; meanwhile, we are experiencing a massive public health and labor crisis right the fuck now. Millions of women have left the workforce since the start of the pandemic, and that’s not even taking into account the women who left their jobs regularly before the pandemic because of an economic system openly hostile to parents, especially those who give birth.

Also, the money for Social Security benefits comes largely from payroll taxes, so it would pretty obviously follow that keeping parents in the workforce—and being paid a decent wage, which can subsequently be taxed—is a goal completely aligned with maintaining Social Security funding. Parents can’t stay in the workforce if they can’t take time off to care for their children after they have them—or they can’t have children, which feels like it should be a concern for people who won’t stop squawking about the declining US birth rate.

These people won’t raise the minimum wage so that everyone can make enough to support their families, but they’re mad people aren’t making new families. They don’t want anyone to have abortions, but they also want mothers to go back to work sooner than most breeding dogs can legally be separated from their puppies in more than half of U.S. states.

The purpose of a political party is to amass enough power to pass legislation—particularly legislation on which most of its candidates based their entire campaigns. Those campaigns are promises, and it should be a given that everyone benefiting from the party’s resources and financing can coalesce around the goal of delivering on those promises. The original bill was the Democrats’ chance to finally deliver real results to improve the lives of middle-class Americans, and watching it be stripped bare due in large part to skin tags like Manchin and Sinema, who don’t even deliver for their constituents, increasingly makes the numeric majority their presence in the party affords Democrats seem close to worthless. Truly, it makes the Democratic Party seem entirely worthless.

This is why the only not completely disheartening thing happening in America today is the massive organized labor movement rippling through various industries and sectors. If there was some chance the Democratic Party could recognize its job is to effectively fight, much like a labor union, for the rights and well-being of the middle class, then perhaps there would be some reason to hold out hope for politics alone. But so long as wealthy politicians are so willingly and willfully in the deep pockets of the corporate class and the mega-rich, the only chance we really have is a massive, large scale organized labor apparatus that can act as a countervailing force.

Coal miners in Manchin’s home state of West Virginia support a Green New Deal, but this schmuck would rather live on a houseboat in D.C. and try desperately to be liked by energy scions who couldn’t give less of a shit about him beyond what he can do for them. He’s a truly worthless sack of shit, and it’s a damning indictment of the entire American political system that he’s able to hold this much power in his pathetic little hands.

In the meantime, in no particular order, here is a list of ideas for where Joe Manchin belongs:

• Jousting and chest-bumping in the fourth circle of Hell with Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, ideally
• The center of the sun, so he can test-drive the temperatures his policy goals will leave us coping with
• Shot into space and I mean actually into, not just peeking in from the doorway like that baby-headed weenie Jeff Bezos
• Inside a butt
• At the bottom of whatever body of water his yacht is floating in

Don’t let the door hit you on your way out, Joe.