The impulse on the left to punish Manchin is suicidal. A former governor who has been winning statewide in West Virginia since 2000, he holds a Senate seat that without his selective departures from party orthodoxy would be firmly in Republican hands. Forgoing it is a luxury Democrats can’t afford.
If Democrats are to have any hope of taking control of the Senate in the 2018 midterms, they need to cling to every red state seat they possess. And they have a lot: 10 are up for re-election next year, with Manchin’s being the reddest of them all. No state in this country gave Trump a higher percentage of the vote (a whopping 68.6). But Trump is no fluke. Outside of Manchin, the rest of the West Virginian congressional delegation is Republican, and all won their races comfortably.
The Senate map presents a conundrum for a left now informally known as “The Resistance.” Many are pressuring congressional Democrats to resist Trump on all fronts, but to apply that standard to all Democrats risks shrinking the caucus and diminishing the power to resist.
There is a way out of that conundrum: Leave red state Democrats like Manchin alone when they occasionally stray, especially when the vote in question is substantively meaningless. Sessions already had the votes to be attorney general. Manchin’s extra “aye” didn’t change the outcome.
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