Retiring ex-Dem Sen. Joe Manchin did not mince words Sunday about what his former party has become, panning the Democratic brand as “toxic” for working “to mainstream the extreme” in recent years.
The West Virginia pol, who ditched the Democratic Party and became an Independent earlier this year, contended that the Dems are increasingly out of sync with voters and underscored that “this country is not going left.
“I am not a Democrat in the form of what the Democratic Party has turned itself into the national brand — absolutely not,” Manchin, 77, reflected on CNN’s “Inside Politics.”
“The brand got so bad. The D-brand has been so maligned from the standpoint of, it’s just, it’s toxic,” said Manchin, who became a senator in 2010.
The retiring senator nudged his former party to ruminate over how it prompted him and other like-minded individuals to abandon the party, recounting how West Virginia used to be a solid blue state and how his family had been fond of John F. Kennedy.
“There was a split. I was never [on] the liberal side of it. I was never [on] the establishment side. So I always had to fight,” he recounted.
During the first two years of President Biden’s administration, Manchin emerged as a perennial thorn in his side, dealing a death blow to key progressive wish-list items.
Specifically, he kept tanking multitrillion-dollar iterations of Biden’s so-called “Build Back Better” agenda before ultimately agreeing to the watered-down and rebranded $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act.
Along the way, he drew the wrath of progressives. Still, Manchin was one of the reasons Democrats held the-then 50-50 Senate during Biden’s first two years, at least on paper.
He was an extremely rare Democrat from a state that President-elect Donald Trump won by roughly 40 points in both 2020 and 2024. Manchin opted against reelection in 2024 amid stiff competition from Sen.-elect Jim Justice, briefly a Democrat who is currently serving as governor in the ruby-red state.
Manchin, who has long operated as a centrist in the upper chamber, characterized his former party as overly paternalistic.
“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,’” Manchin told CNN about his grievances with Dems.
“So the Democrats go too far, want to ban. The Republican says, ‘Oh, let the good times roll. Let anybody have anything they want,’ ” he continued. “Just some common sense things there.”
Dem Vice President Kamala Harris had sought to cast herself as the candidate of freedom in the 2024 presidential cycle, ripping Republicans for eyeing restrictions on abortion and encroaching on people’s lives when it comes to social issues.
Manchin declined to divulge for whom he voted in the 2024 presidential contest.
At one point during the race, he flirted with a presidential run and had been lobbied by the No Labels movement, but the retiring senator concluded he had “no chance of winning” especially because of cumbersome ballot rules in various states.
Still, he believes there should be an alternative party to the duopoly.
“The centrist-moderate vote decides who’s going to be the president of the United States. And when [candidates] get here, they don’t govern that way. Neither side does. They go to their respective corners,” Manchin lamented.
“So 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.”
The three-term Mountain State Independent conveyed gratitude for his time in the Senate, calling his time in public service “an honor of a lifetime.”
Yet, when pressed about whether he will miss the upper chamber, Manchin was blunt.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
But he mused that the House of Representatives has it worse.
“Those poor guys. I feel so sorry for them over there,” Manchin said. “They can’t move. They are in [a] dead heat.”
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