--- title: Joe Manchin Has Double-Crossed Democrats Yet Again description: The entire country’s agenda is set by the one Senator who stands in the breach, leaving Democrats in a precarious position. canonical: https://time.com/6198779/joe-manchin-democrats-fate-biden/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-07-19T20:09:48.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T14:31:19.864Z article:section: Politics og:title: Why Joe Manchin Does Not Care if Democrats Hates Him og:description: He values his constituents’ contempt of Washington far more than he fears his colleagues’ contempt of him. og:url: https://time.com/6198779/joe-manchin-democrats-fate-biden/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54649393d9780836/698a33db0116820ae798215f/GettyImages-1239656972.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Capitol Hill og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Joe Manchin Does Not Care if Democrats Hates Him twitter:description: He values his constituents’ contempt of Washington far more than he fears his colleagues’ contempt of him. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt54649393d9780836/698a33db0116820ae798215f/GettyImages-1239656972.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Joe Manchin Does Not Care if His Party Hates Him ## Video: What to Know About Stephen Bannon's Contempt of Congress Trial [Watch (HLS stream): What to Know About Stephen Bannon's Contempt of Congress Trial](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Uf4cur6W.m3u8) (0:38)  _Published 2022-07-19. Three days before the start of his trial for contempt of Congress, Steve Bannon didn’t sound worried about it. On his podcast, he directed his listeners to tune in to a CNN special airing that weekend called “Steve Bannon: Divided We Fall.”_  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Jul 19, 2022 8:09 PM UTC  Sen. Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, and Sen. Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, head to a vote on Capitol Hill on March 30, 2022, in Washington, DC. Sen. Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, and Sen. Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, head to a vote on Capitol Hill on March 30, 2022, in Washington, DC.Jabin Botsford—The Washington Post/Getty Images  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Jul 19, 2022 8:09 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ The contempt was sincere when Sen. Bernie Sanders took the airwaves last weekend to voice a common frustration in the Senate’s [Kennedy Caucus Room](https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Caucus%5FRoom.htm): Sen. Joe Manchin was an unreliable negotiator who had [double-crossed](https://www.npr.org/2022/07/15/1111675233/manchin-rejects-climate-and-tax-provisions-in-democrats-spending-package) Democrats once again. “The problem was that we continue to talk to Manchin like he was serious. He was not,” he [told](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sanders-manchin-intentionally-sabotaging-presidents-agenda/story?id=86941518) ABC’s _This Week_. In a Senate famed for its comity, this was the equivalent of unleashing an airhorn inside an oboe recital. There’s one problem with this [rage](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/18/sanders-eruption-manchin-democratic-party/). Manchin has always been a proud [fly](https://time.com/6144441/joe-manchin-build-back-better-dead/) in the legislative ointment, an unrepentant [naysayer](https://time.com/6080621/congress-infrastructure-negotiations/) to party orthodoxy who is not worried about his relationships in the Capitol. And that’s why he will probably be the last statewide elected Democrat to represent West Virginia for a long time: he values his constituents’ contempt of Washington far more than he fears his colleagues’ contempt of him. And when it comes to President Joe Biden’s frustrations with Manchin’s singular and capricious veto-proof whimsy, Manchin truly cannot be bothered. Voters in West Virginia prize Manchin’s perceived indifference to party politics, and Manchin likes to serve them a skillet of stick-it-to-the-man every chance he gets. Manchin had [committed](https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/30/manchin-proposed-15t-topline-number-to-schumer-this-summer-514803) in private last year to supporting the parts of the second iteration of Biden’s Build Back Better plan with plenty of strings attached. Manchin didn’t like parts of the first one, but promised to like the second one—that is until the sequel also [ran](https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/07/14/manchin-climate-tax-bbb/) afoul of his need to scuttle huge swaths of Democrats’ agenda, such as a tax hike on the wealthy. So Manchin pivoted, and tried a third time to outline what he could accept, and Democrats acquiesced. And then, again, the proposal ran aground of the SS Manchin’s norms because, in his mind, more government spending would only hasten inflation. --- ### More from TIME --- Welcome to governing in 2022, with Prime Minister Manchin running the show. (Credit where it’s due to _The New Republic_ for the [analogy](https://newrepublic.com/article/167070/joe-manchin-terrible-prime-minister).) The entire country’s agenda is set by the one Senator who stands in the breach. The Senate is split 50-50, and on matters extraneous to the budget, a 60-vote [threshold](https://time.com/5946162/filibuster-reform-senate/) is needed. However, if the Senate [rule-maker](https://time.com/5943567/congress-minimum-wage-covid-relief/) gives the lawmakers a pass, Democrats can play with a 51-vote majority on anything deemed budget-adjacent, thanks to Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote. All that means that if every member of the Senate’s Democratic caucus sticks together to tuck novel ideas into the budget, they can actually get stuff done. Democrats know they’re in a precarious position. Their governing majority is as fragile as they come, the political equivalent of a faberge egg. Anything approaching a slammed door crashes this souffle. And a dozen or so midterm races from Washington state to New Hampshire threaten those egg whites’ stability as much as any jackhammer on the street. Put another way: Manchin has the detonator to the Democratic majority in his paws and is at best indifferent to their fate. (In his latest thwarting of the White House’s agenda, Manchin could ultimately damage U.S. credibility by derailing a [global minimum tax](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/18/us/politics/joe-manchin-tax.html) the Biden administration negotiated with more than 100 countries.) Manchin has long [insisted](https://www.businessinsider.com/manchin-west-virginia-coal-industry-jobs-shrinking-democrats-reconciliation-bill-2021-10) that he cannot hurt his constituents. That means [catering](https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/environment/2014/11/20/as-coal-jobs-vanish-workers/23581809007/) to his state’s vaunted—but [vanishing](https://www.businessinsider.com/manchin-west-virginia-coal-industry-jobs-shrinking-democrats-reconciliation-bill-2021-10)—coal industry. Anything broaching green jobs is toxic for his coal-country neighbors. It’s a [branding](https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a40641665/world-heatwaves-joe-manchin/) exercise that may, perhaps, keep him holding on as West Virginia’s last Democratic Senator. President Donald Trump won West Virginia by 39 points in 2020; Manchin won re-election two years earlier by three points. Manchin knows his value to his party, and Democratic [leaders](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/blame-schumer-for-democrats-failures-not-so-fast/2022/07/18/27c8fb74-0696-11ed-80b6-43f2bfcc6662%5Fstory.html) are careful to [give](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/us/politics/manchin-reelection-this-place-sucks.html) him sufficient space to stay in the seat as long as he wants. But there are limits, especially when Democrats realize their coast-to-coast hopes [hinge](https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/16/opinions/manchin-biden-administration-problem-dent/index.html) on a Red State legislator who has an effective [veto](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/16/joe-manchin-makes-democratic-program-disappear/). Democrats had hoped to defend their slim majority on an agenda that [defeated](https://time.com/6161109/white-house-covid-blame/) Covid-19, [rebuilt](https://time.com/6100781/five-reasons-why-infrastructure-is-dead-and-one-why-its-not/) roads and bridges and tunnels, [stitched](https://time.com/6090037/the-senate-gets-ready-to-spend-a-sum-of-money-unseen-since-world-war-ii/) a new social safety net, [saved](https://www.npr.org/2022/07/15/1111771318/sen-joe-manchin-pulled-the-plug-on-major-spending-to-address-climate-change) the planet, and [lowered](https://time.com/6113779/democrats-drug-pricing-spending-bill/) drug prices. At [best](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/07/18/sanders-eruption-manchin-democratic-party/), their to-do list is half done, and Democrats now are [saying](https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/18/manchin-insists-hes-not-walking-way-from-talks-00046388) they’ll take a [mini-version](https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/07/14/manchin-climate-tax-bbb/) of the to-do list just to show some progress and boost Biden’s [abysmal](https://time.com/6196544/biden-polling-obama-blame/) polling. Manchin now says he may support a two-year [provision](https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022/07/16/white-house-manchin-biden/) to cap prescription drug prices but wants to wait until the fall for the big-ticket items left in the queue, meaning they’ll slip past Election Day and likely into a lame-duck Congress, when it will be too late for these measures to energize voters in tight races around the country. It’s not hard to imagine why so many of Manchin’s colleagues in tough re-election fights hold him in such [contempt](https://www.axios.com/2022/07/16/democrats-manchin-rage). _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6198779/joe-manchin-democrats-fate-biden/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6198779/joe-manchin-democrats-fate-biden/"},"headline":"Why Joe Manchin Does Not Care if His Party Hates Him","datePublished":"2022-07-19T20:09:48.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T14:31:19.864Z","description":"He values his constituents’ contempt of Washington far more than he fears his colleagues’ contempt of him.","url":"https://time.com/6198779/joe-manchin-democrats-fate-biden/","keywords":["The D.C. 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