Same thing throughout the South during Jim Crow. George Wallace was a master of the tactic. Wallace lost his first state-wide race because he wasn’t strident enough. After losing, Wallace told aides, “I’ll never be out Ni(clang)ered again.”
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People see different aspects of the truth, depending on their situation and the way it’s presented. If you ask the people of WV and other predominantly poor Appalachian areas if they believe that it’s important to make sure we’ve got clean air, that our drinking water isn’t poisoned, and that children aren’t getting sick from toxic chemicals in meat and vegetables they eat, they’ll say ‘of course’, and they’ll mean it, 100%.
If you ask them if we should be getting the hell off of coal, most of them will likely tell you ‘no’… and if you drill down into that, you’ll find out it’s because that’s the only economy in the area that lets them put any food in their childrens’ mouths. And they don’t like that any more than the rest of us do, but the feeling of powerlessness and inability to escape that trap leads them to put blinders on. ‘I feel like I have to live with it’ becomes ‘this is our lives’.
When outsiders try to persuade them of things that deep down, they already know… they do what everyone does: they get defensive. Saying ‘we need to get off of coal because of the environmental problems it causes’ becomes ‘YOU, specifically, are poisoning the water, you are causing global warming. You are responsible for all of this bad shit because you’re bad people.’
They’re not bad people. They’re people trying to survive and get by, and there’s damned little else available to them. People always talk about retraining and relocation… but you have to be able to retrain to something that’s there, and not everyone can afford to relocate. Just moving across town costs a hell of a lot of money, and that’s without having to find a new job.
You wanna win those people over to a liberal, progressive agenda… we gotta figure out a way to give them options, and offer those things as options—not as ‘you need to stop doing what you know and do this instead because we said so’, either. It has to be ‘hey. This is here. You can choose this if you want.’
If you want them to not dig in their heels and hate what you’re trying to get them to do… you have to get them to want it. It has to be something enticing. It has to be something they get to do, not something they’re forced to do.
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I found Manchin’s response refreshing, but I’m not from West Virginia.
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…while Morrisey’s baiting makes him sound like an effete pansy.
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The two aren’t mutually exclusive. You can be tough and also be to the right of the party. Purging the so-called DINOs clearly hasn’t worked for us. If we want to broaden our appeal it will necessarily require electing people to the right of us. The alternative is electing people to the far, far right of us.
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I had half a reply typed, but you said it better than I was going to.
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This graph in this analysis tells a somewhat different story than what you write about above on WV’s economy.
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But not their perceptions of it.
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LBJ knew his audience.
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Just a quick reminder of what Manchin is up against.
This is the electoral map for West Virginia for the 2016 presidential election:
<img src=“https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7d/West_Virginia_Presidential_Election_Results_2016.svg/370px-West_Virginia_Presidential_Election_Results_2016.svg.png” width=250
The counties in red were carried by Trump. Those in blue by Clinton.
If that doesn’t help, have a look at the 2012 map:
Again, the counties in red were carried by Romney. Those in blue by Obama.
Admittedly, Obama did better than Clinton (more pink, less deep, dark red), but that just means that things are getting worse in West Virginia, not better.
As a final reminder, Trump carried the state by 68.5% to 26.4% for Clinton.
Manchin has a very fine line to walk. Personally, I’m willing to let him get on with it.
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This is exactly why Manchin votes in line with trumpp’s positions 54.2% of the time, the worst of any Democrat.
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Actually, no it’s not. According to Trump’s margin of victory in West Virgina Manchin would be expected to support Trump’s position 94.5% of the time. If you look at the votes where Manchin supported Trump’s position, most of them were on nominations for cabinet-level posts. For most deregulation measures supported by Trump, Manchin voted in opposition.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
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Agreed,
One could argue Manchin comes through when he’s needed.
Sure, he voted for some messed up cabinet picks. But they were getting in on Republican votes anyway. GIven his electorate he has to make crap some votes sometimes…
I’d rather he give them something they are getting anyway and then vote with dems when it counts.
He’s nobody’s favorite Senator, but…In my mind he is loads better than Blanche Lincoln and Ben Nelson ever were.
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Even so, he voted against Ross for Commerce, Mulvaney for OMB, Price for HHS, and DeVos for Education.
I always felt that when Harry Reid was Majority Leader, after he tallied up the votes he had on a measure and knew how many extra he had, he’d ask, “Now who has to vote against this? Joe?”
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Exactly, but as always, where necessary and WV is exactly one of those places.
Would we tolerate such votes from a Massachusetts Senator, NO, BUT WV…
I cut Manchin some slack, it probably would have been easier, politically, for him to vote with Repubs on Healthcare.
It’s more than Lincoln/Nelson gave us.
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In this instance I’m only the messenger.
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We are talking about WV, I commend Manchin for calling out that fucking Republican asshole. For the record I’m from Ohio and my father grew up in St. Clairsville, right across the river from WV and smack dab in the center of coal country.
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He’s got redeeming qualities…
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His daughter has clearly forgotten where her family came from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heather_Bresch
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Ok: it’s time you’ve heard from someone in WV. Me, in one of the pink counties on those maps you saw above.
Folks down here will, I think, be impressed by Manchin’s tough talk…if the coverage focuses on his refusal to vote for crap, and doesn’t focus on the ‘I don’t care’ stuff (remember how HRC’s comments about coal were distorted).
They like tough guys and tough talk here. And Manchin may…may…face an uphill battle in the general. But let’s hope and work to get him re-elected because any of the Republican candidates here would be worse (believe me) than Capito.
You may not like him or the totality of his voting record (I sure as hell don’t), but losing that seat to the GOP would be disastrous. Not just for me and my friends and neighbors, but to you and yours as well
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