U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin reminds me of that mean kid everyone knew growing up who liked to sit by ant piles with a barbecue lighter and gleefully ignite the scurrying insects.
“Ooo, got that one before he went in the hole.”
“Yeah, look at that guy fry.”
Manchin is a tinhorn despot who loves flaunting the power he enjoys as a tiebreaker in the Senate. His latest and greatest abuse of that power is his declaration that he will not vote for the $2-trillion, social- and environmental-spending legislation President Biden is trying to get passed.
Manchin sounds like somebody who was cryogenically frozen in December 2019 and just woke up oblivious to the fact that the greatest health crisis in 100 years is dominating the world.
His hand-wringing about debt limits and responsible federal spending ignores Biden’s efforts to do all he can do to pump proverbial water out of the foundering U.S. economy.
Manchin was quoted as saying, in so many words, that voting for the spending package would be a disservice to his hardworking West Virginia constituents.
Somehow it doesn’t register in Manchin’s mind that trillions of dollars spent fighting climate change and providing child care helps his West Virginia constituents who — by any measure — are not among the nation’s most prosperous citizens.
But as frustrating as it is to have someone like Manchin pulling the levers in Washington, the real problem — and the answer to solving it — lies with that other Joe.
Joe Biden’s favorability rating based on a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken on Dec. 9-10 was 48 percent. His favorability rating has been under 50 percent since August.
I don’t think those numbers are accurate. I think just over 60 percent of the American people are reserving their opinion about Biden in hopes that he will get off the bench, run onto the field, and call some plays.
He needs to make a declaration to the American people as strong as the one Franklin Delano Roosevelt made when he told Americans confronted by The Great Depression, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He needs to make a speech like the one Michael Douglas makes at the end of “The American President.”
The problem with these suggestions is that Michael Douglas was a fictional president and FDR relied on one medium — radio — to get his message to Americans while Biden’s message is drowned out by social media.
In trying to figure out how Biden can finally put Manchin in his place, I turned to the most knowledgeable political expert I know: Former Lynn Mayor Thomas P. Costin Jr. In characteristic Costin fashion, he gave me a blunt assessment.
“The state of the country is in a bad way. We need leadership from the top down. Biden could buck Congress and the people would back him.”
At first glance, that analysis seemed overly simplistic. But once I gave it more thought, I realized the simple truth behind Costin’s thinking.
Biden’s role as president, as the person standing at the head of the executive branch, is to state clearly and unequivocally what the American people need and want. Let’s be clear: Manchin isn’t Biden’s only problem. So-called progressives like U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have done their best to obstruct Biden because they never wanted to see him elected in the first place.
But Manchin is Biden’s biggest problem because he wields more power than progressives. Biden needs to confront him publicly, face to face, and challenge Manchin to renounce his claim to being a Democrat.
That’s only the start. Biden should jump into campaign mode and travel around West Virginia by bus, dropping into coal mines and living rooms, and let Manchin’s constituents tell him what’s on their minds.
In turn, Biden can tell them why we need to spend billions now on addressing climate change, child care and the other needs highlighted in the $2-trillion spending plan.
It’s time for Biden to call out everyone in Congress, Democrat and Republican, and challenge them to abandon intransigence. More importantly, he needs to take Tom Costin’s advice and go directly to the American people with a clear-cut explanation for why spending on basic needs now will benefit the country the same way the New Deal saved it 90 years ago.
