Joe Manchin's Bipartisanship Obsession Is Misguided, Young West Virginians Say

Over the past 20 years, West Virginia’s politics have undergone a radical transformation. George W. Bush won the state in the 2000 presidential election, which was once considered solidly blue. Since then the state has trended in a steeply conservative direction. Republicans have controlled every level of state government since 2018, and in 2020, Donald Trump won the state by almost 40 points. Now, West Virginia and its politics can be found at the center of the struggle to maintain American democracy, due to its sole Democratic senator, the conservative-leaning Joe Manchin. In an evenly divided Senate, Manchin’s vote can spell life or death for the Democrats’ agenda and, while all eyes are on West Virginia, Manchin’s young constituents are eager to make their voices heard.

Touting bipartisanship as one of his core values, Manchin pressured Democrats to prioritize earning Republican support on President Joe Biden’s sweeping infrastructure plan and the Senate’s failed For The People Act, a bill designed to make voting easier and target big money in politics, on the grounds that it has garnered little to no Republican support. Many young West Virginians feel Manchin’s belief that a functional government requires bipartisan collaboration in the Senate is not only misguided but obstructs democracy’s actual purpose: representing the desires of everyday citizens.

This past spring, students at two of West Virginia’s largest schools, West Virginia University (WVU) and Marshall University, communicated their political priorities to Manchin by passing resolutions through their student governments and urged him to back the For The People Act. The resolutions passed both student governments with liberal and conservative support. Isabella Robinson, who describes her political affiliation as independent and is an organizer with the anti-lobbying group Un-PAC, introduced the bill to the Marshall University Student Government Association.

“I thought that by passing a nonpartisan resolution representing almost 30,000 of his young constituents, Senator Manchin might realize how overwhelmingly young people all across the political spectrum support this bill and want it to pass,” she told Teen Vogue.

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/joe-manchin-bipartisanship-young-west-virginians