WASHINGTON, D.C. — This morning, Senator Joe Manchin filed official paperwork, and left the Democratic Party for good. At the same time, Manchin filed the necessary change of party affiliation as well. As of this moment, he is a member of the “Might-As-We-Be-A-Republican Party.”
At the time of publication, the Might-As-We-Be-A-Republican Party has only two members, but both are senators who used to be Democrats. Manchin joined today, but Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona joined shortly after her curtseying thumbs-down of a provision in President Biden’s recently passed American Rescue Plan that would have raised the federal minimum wage to $15/hr. Both Sinema and Manchin had made a name for themselves since Biden came into office for publicly blocking key components of the Democratic Party’s agenda.
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“Today, I decided to finally be honest with myself, and with my constituents as to where my feelings and opinions really are,” Manchin said, announcing his party switch. “Of course, if I were being totally truthful I’d just join the GOP, but since they have kind of a bad reputation in the media and the public in general, I don’t want to do that. So, I want to just stop pretending about being a Democrat, but not fully embrace which party I more closely align with.”
The Democratic majority in the senate is so razor-thin that they need every single vote, plus Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie breaking one, to move anything out of the Senate and to the president’s desk. Consistently, Manchin and Sinema have blocked Biden’s agenda, throwing cold water on proposals like hiking the minimum wage, or raising the corporate tax rate by three percent. Manchin said that after having several long talks with Sinema about it, they decided they should strike out on their own and start their own party.
“Look, I’m a rich white guy in a rural state, and I’m not cool with limiting gun rights, raising taxes, or changing the filibuster rules so that we can protect brown people’s right to self-governance,” Manchin admitted. “All of those things mean I’m a better Republican than Democrat anyway. It’s just, well, if Republicans had better reputations right now, I might have more courage to be called one. But I don’t. So yeah.”
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Writer/comedian James Schlarmann is the founder of The Political Garbage Chute and his work has been featured on The Huffington Post. You can follow James on Facebook, Spotify, and Instagram, but not Twitter because Twitter is a cesspool.
