I Don't Think Joe Manchin is a Working Class Democrat. I Know How He Can Prove Me Wrong
PLUS: A review of "The Department of Truth" by James Tynion IV
You know how on The Price is Right they sometimes play a game where the contestant can win a BRAND NEW CAR but there’s also a consolation prize that’s something like an outdoor grill which is not as good as the BRAND NEW CAR but definitely better than losing although it kind of feels like losing when they win it because no one goes on The Price is Right to win a grill especially when a BRAND NEW CAR is in play but then hey, only nine contestants get to “Come on down” every time CBS tapes an episode so it’s kind of amazing they even won the grill in the first place even though they were this close to winning a BRAND NEW CAR?
I think that’s kind of how Democrats felt watching the White House signing ceremony for the bipartisan infrastructure bill Monday. It’s like we won the grill. It’s not bad. Not everyone wins a grill. The guy on yesterday’s episode kept trying over and over and over again to win the grill and he couldn’t win the grill, but we actually managed to win the grill!
But every time I look at that grill, man, all I think about is that BRAND NEW CAR…
On a positive note, at least we’ve made it to the Showcase Showdown. Unfortunately, we’re facing off against Joe from West Virginia. He was supposed to bid first but he passed. Oh man. It’s an expensive showcase, too, and we got to be careful not to overbid cuz if we do, Joe’s just gonna say $1 and walk away with all the prizes. He’s kind of got us cornered.
Things have simmered down a bit on Capitol Hill now that Congress has passed the infrastructure bill. It won’t be long, though, before things get crazy again, as the fate of the reconciliation package is yet to be determined. Journalists would have you believe this is going to come down to a showdown between progressives (led by Bernie Sanders in the Senate and Pramila Jayapal in the House) and Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, but I don’t think that’s the case. The fact of the matter is progressives, as Manchin reportedly told Jayapal recently, have no leverage over him.
It all comes down to two numbers: 50 and 0. Fifty because Joe Manchin is one of 50 senators in the Democratic senate caucus, which means they need his support to get any reconciliation bill passed through Congress, and zero because that’s the dollar amount Manchin is comfortable spending on any part of Biden’s domestic agenda. That means progressives (let alone the rest of the Democratic Party) have to take or leave whatever it is Manchin is giving.
Progressives keeping learning this lesson the hard way. Originally, the infrastructure bill was part of the larger Build Back Better package that also included the climate change and “human infrastructure” provisions (i.e., child care subsidies, universal pre-K, tuition-free community college, lower prescription drug prices, paid leave, etc.) that make up the current reconciliation bill. The idea was that Manchin, who isn’t particularly enamored with social spending or climate change legislation, would sign-on to this massive bill if it contained elements he liked, such as the provisions concerning traditional infrastructure.
Instead, Manchin has effectively dictated the fate of every component of that legislation by threatening not to support any aspect of the bill if he doesn’t get to do what he wants with it. He carved the traditional infrastructure provisions out of that bill, worked with Republicans to turn it into a standalone bill, and then slashed the amount of new money in the revised bill from $2.1 trillion to $579 billion (the amount spent on electric vehicles, for instance, dropped from $157 billion to $15 billion, while the $15 billion devoted to removing lead pipes from the United States’ water system is only a quarter of what experts believe needs to be spent to fix the problem.) When progressives in the House took Manchin’s infrastructure bill hostage in order to get him to go along with their human infrastructure/climate change reconciliation bill, Manchin basically signaled to them he’d determine the price tag of the reconciliation bill (not $3.5 trillion as promised to Sanders but something more along the lines of $1.5-$1.75 trillion) and what—if anything—would be included in that bill if he got around to supporting it. He also indicated he was fine with them killing their hostage if all this upset them because he could live without the hostage. Manchin correctly guessed—actually, he knew—Democrats would take something rather than nothing, so after Democrats got thrashed in the elections a few weeks ago, progressives relented and gave a politically beleaguered Biden and his party a victory they could maybe use to start turning around their cratering poll numbers.
So yeah, that infrastructure bill, it’s a decent prize, but it still feels like one of these…
…when I was really angling for this:
Manchin and Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema—who aren’t necessarily working on the same page here—have been slow rolling the reconciliation bill for months now. It’s gotten to the point where it’s hard to tell what’s in and what’s out of the bill anymore: Tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans, negotiated prices for prescription drugs, fossil fuel regulation, Medicare expansion to cover hearing and dental. Manchin has been particularly stingy when it comes to paid leave; at one point the Washington Post reported he insisted the program have a work requirement (like, c’mon Joe, it’s paid leave from what exactly?) Manchin has all the right to leverage his power to his advantage in Washington, but it is quite jarring to see a male senator draw a line in the sand when it comes to whether or not a woman can take a few weeks off work after giving birth without sacrificing a paycheck.
Now his big thing is inflation is too high, meaning Congress needs to switch its focus from social spending and climate change to, I don’t know, vaccinating Chinese factory workers manufacturing microchips? Siphoning petroleum out of OPEC’s oil fields? Unloading container ships at the Port of Los Angeles? Driving semi trucks? Never mind that even an inflation hawk like Lawrence Summers has said Biden’s Build Back Better plan will have a “negligible impact” on inflation and that not passing it would only “compound” recent economic errors. Rating agencies agree.
That’s the thing with conservative Democrats like Joe Manchin, though: They don’t think there’s ever really a good time (outside a national shutdown brought about by a pandemic) to help working class Americans. When times are bad and the economy’s limping along, we’re told the government can’t afford to lend folks a helping hand; when times are good and the economy is humming, we’re told there’s no need to help people. When deficits are too high, we’re told it’s time to get a grip on spending; when the government runs a surplus, we’re told it’s time for a tax cut (most of which in all likelihood will go to the well-to-do.)
Working class Democrats have a different perspective on all this. They realize in good times and bad that working-class kitchen-table economics are always precarious. They therefore work to make sure Washington is working to make it easier for working class families to make ends meet. That economic unit—the working class household—is their moral starting point. That’s what led Democrats to push for paid leave, universal pre-K and child care subsidies, lower prescription drug prices, and all the other benefits in the Build Back Better plan. Make the working class economy work, and then make whatever other economic adjustments are necessary in light of that.
Additionally, when kitchen table economies are good, the national economy is healthier too; that’s the argument Bryce Covert made in an excellent op-ed published recently in the New York Times:
When President Biden released a sharply pared down framework meant to appease the centrists, Mr. Manchin refused to sign off because he’s worried about “the impact it will have on our national debt, our economy and the American people.” Now Mr. Manchin is signaling that he wants to slow walk his party’s legislative package because of increasing inflation — even though the spending will be doled out over a decade and will have no impact on price increases today, while it will eventually help ease household budget crunches.
What Mr. Manchin fails to understand is that we have been enduring enormous costs from our failure to do these things and will continue to incur them if we don’t do enough to meet this moment. The pain is borne by individual Americans who struggle to flourish and stay healthy. But every single one of us suffers from an enfeebled economy and a poorly functioning society.
Inaction comes with its own price. We pay it in the form of forgone human potential. We pay it in the form of lower productivity and a smaller work force, of an economy failing to function at its full capacity. And we also pay for it in human lives. These are very real consequences. To ignore this side of the ledger and focus solely on how much is being spent is, at the very least, ignorant, and at worst, cruel.
Joe Manchin prides himself on being a conservative Democrat. To that end, he doesn’t need Washington to work for his brand to succeed, since the government dysfunction he’s always complaining about and spitting in the face of (and, since he’s a stick in the mud when it comes to Congress actually getting anything done, complicit in) only endears him to voters back home.
I suspect Joe Manchin also prides himself on being a working class Democrat, but he’s got to prove that to me for me to believe it. A working class Democrat would support an infrastructure bill, but I’m not sure why they’d be so eager to let Republicans cut 75% of new spending from that bill rather than work out more modest cuts on their own. More importantly, though, I would think a working class Democrat would want to help working class Americans with child care, paid leave, prescription drug bills, dental and hearing coverage, community college tuition, etc. If Joe Manchin can’t support working class proposals like that, I think it’s time voters in working class West Virginia know Joe Manchin isn’t a working class politician.
We may find out soon enough where Manchin stands on all this. I suspect Nancy Pelosi may ram a version of the reconciliation bill through the House sometime before Thanksgiving, which may put the spotlight wholly on Manchin’s stubbornness, particularly if Chuck Schumer is daring enough to push him into a vote. If Pelosi gets the budget math right on the bill, that may be a showdown she can win. But let’s not forget the numbers 50 and 0 and that Manchin holds all the leverage. Given the way he’s been acting this year, too, it may be he doesn’t even want a bill of this nature to pass. For Manchin, the price may just never be right.
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The Pull List: The Department of Truth by James Tynion IV
Joseph Goebbels, the head of Nazi Germany’s Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, once said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” Actually, that’s not true: There is no evidence Goebbels ever said that. It sounds like something a Minister of Propaganda would say and the thought certainly rings true, but no, there’s no proof Goebbels ever wrote or uttered those words. I guess you could say, “If you incorrectly attribute a quote to someone and keep repeating it in books and Internet memes, people will eventually come to believe that person actually said it.”
The Department of Truth, a monthly comic book written by James Tynion IV and published by Image Comics, takes that general idea and pushes it to a wild extreme. In the first issue of this series, FBI investigator Cole Turner learns a disturbing truth: That as more people come to believe in something, the more real that thing becomes. Turner witnesses this first hand when he flies with a bunch of flat-earthers to Antarctica, where he discovers a giant ice wall has manifested itself at what is now the edge of the world. He’s quickly extracted from that situation by a government agent working for the top secret Department of Truth, whose job is not only to prevent crazy ideas and mass delusions from becoming reality but to clean up the messes that result when they do. Turner, whose work with the FBI involves immersing himself in the conspiracy theories promulgated by right-wing militia groups, is then poached by the DoT, setting the series in motion.
Some of the problems the Department of Truth is tasked with dealing with are fairly run-of-the-mill spook stories. Issues 8 and 9, for instance, find Turner traveling to the Pacific northwest to snuff out a manifestation of Bigfoot before some hiker returns with evidence the legend actually exists. (In this vein, there’s also a funny throwaway line about how the Department of Truth deals with Santa Claus.) The stories in other issues, though, hit a lot closer to our reality. In Issue 3, Turner and another agent are assigned a case involving the mother of a child who was killed in a school shooting. A podcast host resembling Alex Jones starts spreading rumors that the shooting was a “false flag” and that the mother and her son were actors, which leads the host to conclude the victims are actually alive and in the hands of a Democratic sex ring a la “Pizzagate.” Originally traumatized by the theory, the mother soon starts to wonder if these theories are true and begins collecting evidence to support her suspicions. (She’s helped by people all too willing to perpetuate her misery and paranoia.) Turner’s job is to make sure her son does not reappear in the world. It’s a heartbreaking story Tynion follows to its maddening conclusion.
The series has a strong X-Files vibe to it, particularly in the way it explores conspiracy theories related to the supposed “deep state.” The opening pages of the first issue, for example, depict an interrogation set in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. (In his author bio, Tynion admits to having watched JFK three to four times a year since turning nineteen.) There’s talk of black helicopters, reptilians, faked moon landings, and fake birth certificates. Government paranoia runs rampant amongst the people and the powers that be.
There’s also the sneaking suspicion that the Department of Truth itself—which knows how reality can be manipulated—may be up to no good. A clandestine organization called Black Hat seems determined to undermine the public’s faith in its own understanding of reality, but mainly in order to expose the machinations of the Department of Truth to the world. That of course leads the reader to wonder just how much of the world as we know it is reality vs. a fabrication some agent in the DoT decided was preferable—either socially or personally—to reality. There are even hints reality itself bends to the whims of charismatic personalities like Ronald Reagan, who is able to conjure whole new worlds through the mass manipulation of public sentiment. Then again, isn’t choosing your own reality the ultimate expression of democratic freedom and individual liberty? It seems more and more people these days are living in a reality of their own creation and determined to compel others to operate according to the terms of their delusions.
The Department of Truth is packed with secrets that will take issues to reveal. It turns out Turner himself was drawn into the satanic scare of the 1980s as a child and is still haunted by a baby-eating star-faced demon. Consequently, his involvement with the Department of Truth feels a little more than coincidental. A mysterious woman in red with Xed-out eyes keeps popping up wherever Black Hat is at work. And given what we think we know about the work of the Department of Truth, the inexplicable twist at the end of Issue 1 is bound to go down as one of the biggest WTF moments you’ll ever find on a printed page.
The artwork by Martin Simmonds is a strong complement to Tynion’s writing. Simmonds’ illustrations are rarely defined. More often they feel like sketches, half-formed ideas that are missing the sort of details that might make them more fully realized representations of their subject. Simmonds style relies a lot on watercolors, so there’s a sense the images are bleeding away, melting into one another, or getting washed out. In many instances, the drawings are splattered with ink, scratched, or smudged, making it feel again that whatever we’re witnessing isn’t the complete story. Sometimes the panels appear assembled from clippings, suggesting someone has either cobbled together this information from a variety of sources or doctored it. At other times, the illustrations are simply macabre, the psychological horror of someone who’s fallen too far down the rabbit hole.
In the age of QAnon and the Big Lie, The Department of Truth could not be more timely. One man’s fabrication about a stolen election—propagated for no other reason really than to salve a fragile ego that can’t accept losing, especially when it happens in public—has led powerful leaders to act as though the theory is true and motivated hundreds more to use violence in an effort to undermine their democracy. The easy dispersal of false information has also resulted in the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans who have convinced themselves they would rather trust kooks than medical experts when it comes to vaccines, since experts aren’t always right while the kooks sometimes are. At the same time, those who resist these flights of metaphysical fancy remain astonished by the way people seem determined to force reality to submit to their will (consider those dying of COVID who still insist the virus is a hoax.) We fear becoming a victim of gaslighting; perhaps we already have.
Tynion—best known for his work on DC’s Batman comic books—takes the time in these issues to explore the appeal of conspiracy theories and why some people are more drawn to them than others. He offers no single answer, but in his characters we see how someone (for example) yearning for some sense of control over their life or looking for a simple way to explain a complex world or determined to assert their freedom in defiance of those who would wield knowledge as a form of power and authority might be susceptible to hoaxes, superstitions, or conspiracies. It will be interesting to see if he mainly sticks to popular conspiracy theories as the basis for his stories or if he’s daring enough to explore other ideas some consider metaphysical constructs, such as the notion of “free will” or “god” or “the devil.”
It’s not clear how many issues of The Department of Truth Tynion intends to publish, but since it’s the sort of story that needs a payoff, I would expect it to run between 25-50 issues. Two volumes of the series containing most of the first 13 issues have been published. Volume 1 went on sale this past March; Volume 2 went on sale earlier this month. (For some reason, issues 6 and 7 will be included with issues 14-17 in Volume 3, which is set to hit bookstores in April 2022.) You can also of course purchase the individual issues to read online at retailers like Amazon or buy the floppies in comic book stores. Image has made the first issue available to read for free online, so check it out to see if it’s the sort of story that interests you.
Exit music: “Policy of Truth” by Depeche Mode (1990, Violator)