I guess if you are the senator from Deplorablia, you have to throw a few bones to your constituents…
Manchin is a Dem the same way the governor of WV was a Dem
“I think it was reasonable what he did, what the president did, in saying it’s the legislature’s responsibility to fix this thing,” Manchin told TPM.
Reasonable to throw 800,000 children and their families into uncertainty and chaos for 6 months. It IS the legislature’s responsibility, and they have had how many years now to do something about it? Trump’s move wasn’t reasonable, it was cruel and Congress’ inaction is equally cruel, including Manchin’s comments.
The data show that the places where the fewest immigrants reside are the most fearful of immigration, and West Virginia is over 90% white. Manchin isn’t dumb (unlike the people who wish an orthodox Marxist-Leninist would primary him).
I think Manchin is being entirely reasonable here. It’s long been a problem for his constituents, what with the hoards of Mexicans streaming across the borders of West Virginia and taking all those good jobs working in those closed coal mines.
Yet red-state Dems like Tester, Donnelly, McCaskill, and Heitkamp managed to set aside politics and admit the basic human truth that:
“It’s just wrong fundamentally to pull families apart.”
Manchin derives from “Mancini”. His father’s parents were Italian immigrants; his mother’s Czechoslovakian.
(Filed under, “I Got Mine.”)
Just get elected, Manchin. 60 GOP Senators would be orders of magnitude worse than having Manchin as one of 41+ Dem Senators.
But he’s our xenophobe!
There was a Pew poll a few years ago that surveyed the districts that have the fewest immigrants are the most hostile to them. West Virginia could use a few immigrants. They would be creating industries other than mining and probably retraining displaced miners job ready skills.
Many would be working in their health facilities tending to the native ailments which are some of the worst in the country.
This is true with proximity/hostility to LGBTs, Muslims, etc. etc. Isolationism prohibits a fair and tolerant society.
The progressive dead-enders will have a hissy fit over this, but cool it, guys. If Democrats are ever going to have a chance of a Congressional majority, they are going to need some Conservadems from red states. In the end, that D after the name means more than any individual vote. (And Manchin has supported us on a lot of important votes, like health care.)
So, it looks like the Dems united opposition to trump lasted about 8 months. Compare to the Repubs whose united opposition to Obama lasted 8 years.
This is in one way a real strength of the Dems, putting country above politics. Too early to say how it will be viewed at the ballot box, but it might actually do something to improve Congress’s atrocious approval rating.
Sixteen State’s Attorney General’s coordinated by Schneiderman of NY are on the DACA appeal and will act to preserve it, and we’re going to see them restore it because trumpp the long time bigot and hater of brown people revealed his attitude as a campaign strategy. It’s discriminatory and has nothing to do with border security or criminal kids, it has to do with trumpp’s hatred for brown closely followed by black. The bigots in my party will not prevail. But how would they know about law. They work 124 days a year, the rest of the time, they’re in reelection mode.
@brissy Congress doesn’t care about ballot box issues, and they have a lower approval rate than orange. Neither set of numbers will ever improve.
@williamv I’m going to suggest we need more than knee jerk rhetoric from a uncomprehending DINO who may have gone along on occasion. This is a fundamental right to the pursuit of life, liberty and justice, no another vote of “nay” or “aye.”
That was my first thought when I saw where he is from and he’s all panicked over border security? Reminds me of all the people in Nebraska and the Dakotas who were convinced Osama bin Laden was getting ready to attack the midwest.
Do not read this story. It confirms just what an ignoramus is running the DOE and is in charge of containing the nuclear arsenal. He answers to “oops.”
Indeed there’s been quite a lot of research in psychology and sociology suggesting that much. It’s exposure without real contact that is a problem – exposure without engaging is just all about abstract, dehumanized “others” that can stir up fear and hostility. When on the other hand people from different backgrounds (wrt race, ethnicity, sexual orientation etc) actually engage with each other then that’s a real experience of the humanity of “others” – and that can lead to recognition and valuation of those humans.
It’s not a coincidence rural areas (socially more homogeneous without real involvement with “others”) tend to be red and trumpet.
coprophag mentioned: “…The data show that the places where the fewest immigrants reside are the most fearful of immigration…”
I heard this before and it is fascinating. It shows in spades the irrationality of xenophobia and nativism. I lived in a Trump territory small town in PA – pop 6,000 – as a boy… There were NO blacks, and two Jewish families. I saw only one black person in Scranton when I was about 10.
No blacks in my town, but everyone hated them. When I was stationed in the south, my southern comrades hated “New York Jews”, but had never met one and had no idea that some of the fellow soldiers were Jews from NYC.
This is why all those people who are terrified of Them live in gated communities.
