The Patriot Post® · Joe Manchin Joins Demo Back-Paddlers

West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin threw cold water on Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s promise to “Change America” by retaking control of the Senate. As I noted of the threat posed by Schumer’s “Georgia Path to Tyranny,” winning the two January Senate runoff seats in Georgia clears a path to a 50/50 tie in the Senate, and Kamala Harris would be the tiebreaker vote to implement the Left’s agenda.

Not so fast, Chuck.

Joe Manchin, whose state overwhelmingly supported President Donald Trump in this year’s election by a margin of almost 40%, got the message. Regarding Schumer’s Georgia strategy, Manchin publicly declared, “If one senator does not vote on a Democratic side, there is no tie, and there is no bill. … I commit to you tonight … when they talk about, whether it be packing the courts or ending the filibuster, I will not vote to do that. I will not vote to pack the courts, and I will not vote to end the filibuster.”

So why doesn’t Manchin switch parties? He says he’s a proud “conservative Democrat,” but the real reason is that he receives a LOT of attention and leverage as a swing Demo Senator, whereas he would receive little attention as a Republican. So for Manchin, is it all about the attention or doing what is right to sustain constitutional Rule of Law and American Liberty?

In addition to his swing-vote commitment, Manchin added, “I don’t know any Democrats in the caucus who are for defunding the police. We’re not for that whatsoever. … And when they talk about Medicare for All, we can’t even pay for Medicare for some. It doesn’t make any sense at all.”

But will Manchin hold when it comes to issues like the filibuster – or adding DC as a state?

Manchin is not alone in his post-mortem regrets about the Demo leftist proxies who were singing the “defund police” tune, including Joe Biden and Harris, who, with their silence, supported the leftist urban violence.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) blamed the “defund the police” mantra for the fact that Biden did better in the states than House members, lamenting Republican seat pickups. Clyburn cited the loss of his former aide Jaime Harrison, who challenged Senate incumbent Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. According to Clyburn, “Jaime Harrison started to plateau when ‘Defund the Police’ showed up with a caption on TV right across his head. That stuff hurt Jaime. And that’s why I spoke out against it a long time ago. I’ve always said that these headlines can kill a political effort.”

Of course, those were more than just “headlines.” The Demos’ assault on cops is much deeper and deadlier than headlines.

The House parade of cop haters were also promoting socialism — led by leftist adolescent Representative Sandy Cortez (D-NY) and her socialist Gang of Four. They have aggressively pivoted to the left without an ounce of caucus pushback. Post-election, Cortez now claims: “Not a single member of Congress that I’m aware of campaigned on socialism or defunding the police in this general election. These were largely slogans or they were demands from activist groups.” Then she turned around and defended her “defund the police” mantra.

Whose activist groups?

The Left’s surge toward socialism gained enormous traction under socialist Senator Bernie Sanders.

But some House Democrats who, unlike Cortez and company, have substantial educational and career backgrounds, are protesting that trend and they are at least feigning caution. That is especially true given Republican gains in the House. Currently a 219 to 204 Democrat lead, there are 12 undecided seats and Republicans are leading in 10 of those, which could narrow Nancy Pelosi’s margin to just seven seats. Demos know 2022 is on the horizon and could be a tough year for the House if Biden/Harris run to the Left.

In a leaked private caucus call, Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), a New Jersey native who is part of the DC bureaucracy spillover into northern Virginia which has turned the state hard Left, feigned high criticism of the Demos’ metastasizing socialist advocacy.

In the call, Spanberger yelled: “Nobody should be talking about socialism. … I think that we need to be pretty clear about the fact that Tuesday, from a congressional standpoint — it was a failure. It was not a success. … We lost members who shouldn’t have lost. … We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again because, while people think it doesn’t matter, it does matter. And we lost good members because of that. … If we are classifying Tuesday as a success from a congressional standpoint, we will get f—g torn apart in 2022.”

Her point is, Democrats should not say the word “socialism” despite the fact that they have a socialist agenda.

Spanberger, who won re-election by a very narrow 0.2 percent margin, joined Clyburn on cops: “No one should say ‘defund the police’ ever again.”

To that end, Spanberger knows full well that the Virginia state legislature has recently, approved legislation to eliminate a six-month mandatory minimum sentence for assaulting a police officer, approved legislation to end immunity for police officers, and approved other sweeping reforms to restrict police from enforcing basic laws.

Finally, regarding the Democrat Party’s advocacy for Left-elite special interests, Andrew Yang, who received far more votes than Harris after her early departure, was brutally honest.

Yang, a successful New York entrepreneur, offered this observation about the reaction of voters he encountered: “I would say, ‘Hey! I’m running for president!’ to a truck driver, retail worker, waitress in a diner. And they would say, ‘What party?’ And I’d say ‘Democrat’ and they would flinch like I said something really negative or I had just turned another color or something like that.”

Yang concluded: “There’s something deeply wrong when working-class Americans have that response to a major party that theoretically is supposed to be fighting for them. So you have to ask yourself, what has the Democratic Party been standing for in their minds? And in their minds, the Democratic Party, unfortunately, has taken on this role of the coastal urban elites who are more concerned about policing various cultural issues than improving their way of life that has been declining for years! … If we don’t change that, then we’re going to see a continued acceleration towards the institutional mistrust that animated the Trump vote and will continue to do so.”

To Yang’s point, recall Michelle Obama’s post-election gloat about all those working-class Americans who supported Trump — those “deplorables” in the infamous words of Hillary Clinton. Obama declared: “Let’s remember that tens of millions of people voted for the status quo, even when it meant supporting lies, hate, chaos, and division. We’ve got a lot of work to do to reach out to these folks in the years ahead and connect with them on what unites us.”

Predictably, each of the Demo Party critics were subject to immediate Leftmedia rebukes because the leaders of the Democrat Party and their Leftmedia talkingheads are elitist hacks who support socialism.

Bottom line, it is time for Trump force Manchin’s hand – threaten him with a recall if he does not switch parties – as West Virginia governor Jim Justice did in 2017.