Since Senator Joe Manchin announced that he opposes Build Back Better — the massive spending bill doubling as the linchpin of President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda — a new class of expert has emerged: The West Virginia savant.
While Manchin was born in West Virginia — the nephew of the state treasurer and secretary of state — and served as governor before being elected and reelected twice to the Senate, others profess to have a deeper understanding of the state and its needs. Even if they despise its inhabitants.
Actress and singer Bette Midler, for example, insisted that Manchin had betrayed his “poor, illiterate, and strung out” constituents.
What #JoeManchin, who represents a population smaller than Brooklyn, has done to the rest of America, who wants to move forward, not backward, like his state, is horrible. He sold us out. He wants us all to be just like his state, West Virginia. Poor, illiterate and strung out.
— bettemidler (@BetteMidler) December 20, 2021
To Midler’s credit, she did go on to apologize to the “good people” of West Virginia, but progressive activist groups such as Occupy Democrats doubled down on her rhetoric:
NEW: Actress Bette Midler blasts Joe Manchin, calling him a “sell-out” who wants to turn the rest of the country into West Virginia, which is mostly “poor and illiterate” thanks to Manchin and its other Republican leaders. RT TO THANK BETTE MIDLER FOR TELLING IT LIKE IT IS!
— Occupy Democrats (@OccupyDemocrats) December 21, 2021
West Virginia, it should be noted, boasts a higher literacy rate than the Democratic strongholds of New York, New Jersey, and California.
Minnesotan congresswoman Ilhan Omar pursued a similar strategy of putting down Manchin’s home state, asserting that:
West Virginia is
50th in public health
50th in childcare
48th in employmentThey support Build Back Better by a 43 point margin.
This has nothing to do with his constituents. This is about the corruption and self-interest of a coal baron.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) December 19, 2021
Omar’s math is as shoddy as she claims life in the Mountain State is. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, West Virginia has the 23rd lowest unemployment rate, and polling shows that 59 percent of West Virginians oppose Build Back Better. And of course, nothing in her tweet does anything to prove that the legislation would do anything to remedy West Virginia’s deficits, be they real or imagined.
Wajahat Ali, a columnist for the Daily Beast, also had insults — but no fake statistics — at the ready.
Manchin played Biden, the Democratic Party and the majority. All of it was foreseeable. He gets his in the end. He gets it all. It's good to be a rich, white millionaire who made his money in coal and owns a house yacht and a Maserati in poor West Virginia.
— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) December 19, 2021
As did MSNBC’s Joy Reid, who described the state as “overwhelmingly” poor while displaying a frighteningly poor conception of the United States Senate for an anchor on a news network.
Anybody ever wonder: how can West Virginia and Kentucky have such powerful United States Senators repping them yet be so overwhelmingly poor? Somebody’s getting that money, and it ain’t ordinary West Virginians and Kentuckians… just a thought… pic.twitter.com/T7stjm1WY6
— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) December 21, 2021
At The New Yorker, Evan Osnos writes that West Virginians are asking Manchin “Which Side Are You On?” to which the polling replies, “theirs.” Only 37 percent of West Virginians want Build Back Better to pass.
Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich delivered the coup de grâce:
So Joe Manchin has no problem spending hundreds of billions on the military, but thinks expanding Medicare to cover dental costs too much?
Let me remind you that a full quarter of West Virginians 65 and older have no natural teeth.
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) December 21, 2021
With respect like this for West Virginians among the progressive ranks, it’s wonder that it’s Manchin — not a left-wing ideologue — representing the state in the Senate.