Yes, when they start voting against such core Democratic principles as abortion rights, LGBT rights, racial equality, expanding health care.
It's hard to view him as being any of those things when he doesn't rule out endorsing a bigot. I understand supporting specific policies that Trump puts forth that can help people, but entertaining an endorsement for a bigot is way too fucking much. Manchin voted to confirm Jeff Sessions, the well known racist elf. Despite all of the evidence showing Sessions to be racist, Manchin still voted for him because he hasn't personally witnessed any bigotry from Sessions.
Sessions would've been confirmed anyway.
Then why vote for a racist?
Not on marriage equality, but gay rights in general:
Given his record and what he has said, I'm not going to believe that he's only saying this to trick his constituents.
Yes. Always.
He voted against the ACA repeal on every occasion, and against the tax cut (specifically because it messed with healthcare) even though by his own admission it will hurt his reelection campaign.
He was one of the deciding votes on repealing DADT.
It was repealed a short time later anyway.
So what if it was repealed a short time later? He still declined to vote for it. Should we excuse anyone who voted against the ACA because it ended up being passed? Manchin made his position known with regards to DADT and DOMA.
I meant the restrictions that individual states impose upon it within their borders.
I'm talking that way because you flippantly said that that DADT was repealed anyway later on. Obviously, with the DADT repeal, it wasn't a hall pass because it didn't get repealed at that time. It was Manchin's personal view. After all, he said that he supported DOMA and that was as recent as 2013. And there was the statement he released after Obergefell that just seemed begrudging to me:
It's literally shorter than Channing Dungey's statement cancelling Roseanne.
It got repealed, like, days later.
This is what gets me. I've seen a lot of people rightfully say that we shouldn't abandon these marginalized groups in order to win, but we have some in here being alright with Manchin abandoning these vulnerable groups. Well, in the case of LGBT issues, he was never in a position to abandon them.
And I can't believe the naivete or willful ignorance I've seen in this thread.
No one said anything about state level oppression. He still, however, represents minorities in WV and should be helping them.
Unless he sides against issues that affects minorities again... shit, he voted for Haspel and Sessions. This guy doesn't have a great track record for progressiveness. Then again, you'll excuse him if he wasn't a "deciding vote" which is bullshit. His votes matter just as much as the other senators.
Lol this is actually brilliant messaging
Exactly.
Sanders is running a National campaign. Manchin is not. So yes, you have different standards because holy hell West Virginia's electorate are a problem.
Yeah, these groups will gladly sacrifice the rights of minorities and be quite alright with xenophobia if it means they can get more power. A Democrat moving to the right and it's treated as smart.
Except you can't DO anything without power. Without power, you're trusting Republicans to safeguard minorities' rights. Good luck with that.
Quoting a brilliant poster who addressed this question last week in this very thread:
Frankly, I think you're one of those people looking for any excuse to portray Democrats as a bunch of milquetoast centrists despite evidence to the contrary, hence your ignoring all arguments in this thread and pushing the same line. Your arguments are transparent and disingenuous.
I'm going to take a guy who voted to confirm Jeff Sessions, who is indeed a racist Keebler elf, whose confirmation was an inevitability, if that person votes against ACA repeal and against the tax bill.
What matters fundamentally is that Manchin is a vote for a chamber run by Schumer, which would be 1000x better for LGBT/racial minority rights than the one by McConnell. Both as a stonewall against harmful legislation and judicial nominees, and a positive agent for change. To that end, ENDA passed the Senate the last time Democrats controlled the chamber. The only reason it didn't become law was because the Republican-controlled House had no interest in passing it.
I mean DADT was also literally repealed by a Democratic president so eh.
