Joe Manchin

 There are several kinds of possible takes on his announcement on Fox News Sunday that he "cannot vote to continue with" the Build Back Better package. We're already seeing some of them play out. 

Lefties are howling, of course. A common theme among their expressions of outrage is that it was a mistake for Capitol Hill Dems to de-couple the infrastructure bill from BBB. But wasn't the point of doing so that the American public wouldn't swallow a price tag like that was going to entail? The ongoing - and ever worsening -debt-and-deficit problem may not ordinarily be a front-burner issue for most citizens, but in a year of a dramatic rise in inflation, its insidious nature has been easier for people to see. More basically, while some of BBB's provisions poll favorably (more on that in a bit), the portion of the public on board with such a massive imposition of collectivism, identity-politics militancy and climate alarmism is relatively small.

The administration, via Jen Psaki, took the line that Manchin's announcement constitutes a betrayal of goodwill. That's to be expected. 

Haven't really seen much response from the Trumpists yet, but I'll predict that the basic tone will be along the lines of glee at a defeat for Dems without much analysis.

Actual conservatives are understandably heartened by this development, because it's a significant stymying of the general progressive agenda.

The case that Manchin might have been more comfortable as a Republican over the course of his career is fairly easy to make. I find the preponderance of his activity laudable. (Not that I consider myself a Republican anymore, but a lot of his moves happened back when the GOP was the repository for conservative principles.)

He voted to confirm Scott Pruitt for EPA head. While Pruitt later demonstrated some poor judgement, going into his nomination, the salient point about him was that he understood that the EPA was all about overreach and halting human advancement. Manchin's first bill in the Senate was the EPA Fair Play Act, intended to address the agency's monkeying with the rules after permits for a project had been granted.

He supported the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would have greatly enhanced the nation's energy outlook.

He voted for Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. He seems to have understood that they were serious jurists with a fealty to the Constitution as written. 

He was a founder of No Labels in 2010. While the idea naturally arouses skepticism (at least for me), it indicates a desire to distinguish himself from what the Democrats had become.

He's said he doesn't see the need for DC statehood, which is a no-brainer for anyone who's motivated by anything other than instantly adding a bunch of Dem voters to the rolls. 

He's on record as being skeptical that single-payer health care has any appreciable merit.

He seems to understand that marriage, as defined by all cultures all over the world throughout history until the last couple of decades at the outset, is between a man and a woman. Hence, his lone stance as the only Democrat not to cosponsor the Equality Act.

He opposed hiking the minimum wage to $15 per hour, although he's not quite as immovable on this one, having then floated the idea that a lesser hike might be okay. I personally wish he'd said something like minimum wage being bad and wrong as a matter of principle, but that's probably too much to ask for. 

So why has he remained a Democrat through the years? The intertwining of family tradition and party affiliation may be a factor. He comes from a politically prominent West Virginia family.

There are also going to be the disinterested-analysis takes, which will largely state the obvious: He represents a state that went for Trump over Biden, which necessitates him balking at BBB's glaring problems, and Biden surely knows that with the Senate comprised as it is, BBB was likely to mostly be a lot of big talk.

There will be cynical takes as well. From the left, they will take the form of characterizing Manchin's motivation as being getting a kick out of wielding this unusual amount of power. 

And now for my opinion. I'm absolutely delighted. Manchin's announcement has indeed prevented a ratcheting-up of the progressive vision's imposition that would have rendered the country even less recognizable that it already is. But I'm not gloating. "Ha-ha-we-sure-owned-the-libs" is not the point of my delight. 

The messiness attendant to the way things are done in America will continue. 

As I mentioned above, while polls show that the American populace remains, overall, center-right, several of BBB's features have great appeal to lots of people. Subsidized child care and target dates for moving away from fossil fuels sound great to a public that has little acquaintance with the concept of economic freedom. People have vague notions of what policies are preferable based on not much more than "yeah, that sounds like it would make life better," not considering the price: government omnipresence in their lives. 

I'm not a cynic. I think Joe Manchin is a decent man with his head basically on straight who had no desire to accelerate his country's headlong rush to decline.