In a Thursday interview with West Virginia radio host Hoppy Kercheval, Democrat Joe Manchin claimed that he is “seriously” considering leaving the party to become an Independent. For some time now Manchin has claimed he is dissatisfied with the direction of the party and, apparently, seems set to defect.
Manchin has ruffled feathers with Democrats over high-profile disagreements with President Joe Biden, especially over fossil fuels, which Democrats and climate alarmists believe are causing the planet’s temperature to rise.
“I’m thinking seriously” of leaving the party, Manchin said. “For me, I have to have peace of mind, basically. The brand has become so bad — the D brand and R brand. In West Virginia, the D brand because it’s [the] national brand. It’s not the Democrats in West Virginia, it’s the Democrats in Washington.”
“I’ve been thinking about that for quite some time. I haven’t made any decisions whatsoever on any of my political direction. I want to make sure that my voice is truly an independent voice,” he explained. “When I do speak, I want to be able to speak honestly about basically the extremes of the Democrat and Republican Party that’s harming our nation.”
Manchin has earned the ire of Washington Democrats over his reticence to follow the party line on several issues in the past few years. In November of 2021, Manchin vowed to work with Republicans when Democrats were floating a court-packing scheme and considering doing away with the filibuster.
“I commit to tonight and I commit to all of your viewers and everyone else who is watching, I want to allay those fears, I want to rest those fears for you right now because when they talk about, whether it be packing the courts or ending the filibuster, I will not vote to do that,” Manchin said on Fox News at the time.
Manchin has also warred with the Biden administration over so-called ESG investing, as well as nominations to key bureaucratic posts Manchin referred to as “climate activist” nominees.
But perhaps nowhere has Manchin’s rift with Democrats been more apparent than on Biden’s “Build Back Better” bill, which became the ironically named “Inflation Reduction Act.”
Manchin made a great show about stopping Biden’s key piece of legislation. In December of 2021 he said: “I have always said, ‘If I can’t go back home and explain it, I can’t vote for it.’ Despite my best efforts, I cannot explain the sweeping Build Back Better Act in West Virginia and I cannot vote to move forward on this mammoth piece of legislation.”
“If enacted, the bill will also risk the reliability of our electric grid and increase our dependence on foreign supply chains,” Manchin raged.
He gave people hope that at least one Democrat hadn’t gone completely off the deep end regarding climate change and globalism. Unfortunately, it was short-lived, as Manchin picked up his Democrat mantle and assisted in the writing and passage of the absurdly named Inflation Reduction Act.
Now, after allowing Democrats to pass the monstrosity of a bill, Manchin is trying to have it both ways, insisting that Biden and his fellow Democrats “broke their word” in the implementation of the legislation.
“They broke their word to the American public… This legislation was balanced. In the next ten years, we are going to have enough fossil fuel to run our country and to help our allies around the world. We will also be investing in new technology for the future. Now, the Biden Administration has disregarded this completely,” Manchin said in April of this year. “This was about energy security and we have not heard a word about energy security out of their mouths since it was passed. It’s all about the environment.”
So Manchin didn’t know that his own party was capable of lying and betrayal?
Manchin had a chance to be the Democrat who saved America from Joe Biden’s absurdly named “Inflation Reduction Act.” Now, he’s simply one more cog in the Democrats’ cult of climate who intends to cede our national sovereignty to the United Nations and António Guterres.
Manchin is considering a run for president as an independent or as part of a third party backed by the No Labels group. He wants to carve out a place in the political center as some sort of reasonable centrist. Unfortunately, he gave up that chance when he gave Joe Biden and the Democrats the victory on the Inflation Reduction Act — no matter what his complaints are about their implementation of the legislation.
