In a bombshell interview, outgoing US Senator Joe Manchin delivered a blistering rebuke of his former Democratic party, warning it has become “toxic” and too extreme for everyday Americans. The West Virginia lawmaker, who left the Democratic party earlier this year to become an Independent, painted a grim picture of a party that has lost its way.
“The Democratic brand has been so maligned from the standpoint of – it’s just, it’s toxic,” Manchin told CNN in his characteristically blunt style. The centrist Democrat-turned-Independent, who has frequently clashed with the progressive wing of his former party, said he could no longer consider himself a Democrat “in the form of what the Democratic party has turned itself into”.
A Party Disconnected from American Values?
In a stinging assessment, Manchin accused the Democratic party of abandoning its focus on bread-and-butter issues like “good jobs and good pay” in favor of divisive social issues and a censorious, dictatorial approach to governing. “They have basically expanded upon thinking: ‘Well, we want to protect you there, but we’re going to tell you how you should live your life from that far on,'” Manchin said, singling out the party’s stance on LGBTQ+ rights as an example of overreach.
The senator’s comments underscore a growing disconnect between the Democratic party’s progressive activism and the more traditional values of heartland voters who once formed the backbone of the party. Manchin, who hails from the historically blue-collar state of West Virginia, has long positioned himself as a voice for these disaffected moderates.
Warning Signs for Democrats
Manchin’s departure and stinging parting words should ring alarm bells for Democratic strategists eyeing the electoral map. The senator flatly predicted that the country “is not going left” and argued that both parties have been led astray by their extreme flanks, with Democrats pushing for outright bans on hot-button issues like guns while Republicans adopt a laissez-faire “let the good times roll” approach.
“Every red-blooded American should want your president to succeed, whether you vote for him or not, whether the same party or not, whether you like him or not.”
Senator Joe Manchin
The West Virginian reserved particular ire for suggestions by progressive upstarts that the party needs to tack even further left, calling such arguments “insane”. He pointed to the struggles of Democrat Kamala Harris to shake off her progressive baggage and cast herself as a moderate in her losing presidential bid as a cautionary tale, saying “if you try to be somebody you’re not, it’s hard.”
A Call for a New ‘American Party’?
Perhaps most intriguingly, Manchin floated the idea of a new third party, a centrist “American party” that would give voice to moderate voters and tug the two main parties back from what he sees as the ideological brink. “Neither side does [govern from the center]. They go to their respective corners,” Manchin said. “If the center had a voice and had a party that could make both of these – the Democrat, Republican party – come back, OK, that would be something.”
It’s a tantalizing vision – but one that faces steep hurdles in America’s entrenched two-party system. Manchin himself declined to say whether he would champion such a party. But his words should give ample food for thought to party elders as they survey the smoldering rubble of Democratic defeats and ask how they lost their way.
As he prepares to leave the Senate after 15 tumultuous years, Joe Manchin has lobbed a parting grenade into the bunker of his former party. The question now is whether Democrats will heed the warning shot from one of their erstwhile own – or risk even greater losses if they continue to careen leftward away from the moderate American mainstream.
