Joe Manchin was the last of the red state Democrats.
He’s free to speak his mind now that he’s leaving the Senate.
And Joe Manchin called Democrats one unthinkable name that left Kamala Harris seeing red.
Joe Manchin slams Democrats on his way out the door
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (I-WV) decided to retire rather than run for re-election in deep red West Virginia.
He is the last of a dying breed of red state Democrats who could pretend to be moderate enough to get elected.
Manchin became an independent in May 2024 after spending decades as a member of the Democrat Party.
He called the Democrat Party “toxic” during an interview with CNN host Manu Raju on Inside Politics.
New — Joe Manchin unplugged as he leaves the Senate.
“This has been the worst performing Congress in the history of the United States of America.”
The Senate “still sucks … The House sucks worse than the Senate.”
“The D-brand is …. toxic”
On progressive leader saying they… pic.twitter.com/IWbWyBkoui
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 22, 2024
Raju asked him if he still thought of himself as a Democrat.
“I am not a Democrat in the form of what the Democratic Party has turned itself into,” Manchin said. “The national brand. Absolutely not.”
Manchin told members of his former party they needed to do some soul-searching when a lifelong Democrat like him walks away.
“The brand got so bad,” Manchin explained. “The D brand has been so maligned from the standpoint of — it’s just — it’s toxic.”
He accused the far-left in the Democrat Party of lecturing people about what they can and can’t do.
“They have basically expanded upon thinking, ‘Well, we want to protect you there, but we’re going to tell you how you should live your life from that far on,’” Manchin stated.
The results of the election were a rejection of this far-left ideology.
“This country is not going Left,” Manchin noted.
Democrats have become out of touch with voters
Manchin pointed out that Democrats used to be focused on kitchen table issues but veered off into fringe social issues.
“The Democratic Party, the Washington Democrats, have tried to mainstream the extreme,” Manchin said.
Raju asked him about the comment from Representative Greg Casar (D-TX) – a member of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) “Squad” – the Democrats would have won the election if they were more like socialist Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) than him.
“For someone to say that, they’ve got to be completely insane,” Manchin declared. “The people in America voted. They had that opportunity, you know, to vote with Kamala Harris and with Donald Trump. Donald Trump, there’s not much hasn’t been said. You know exactly what you’re getting. He hasn’t made any bones about it.”
Manchin said that Vice President Kamala Harris failed in her attempt to rebrand herself as a moderate during the election.
“If you try to be somebody you’re not, it’s hard,” Manchin stated.
Democrats try to claim that they’re the party of the working man but more and more voters no longer believe it.
The party caters to the wealthy coastal elites and college professors.
Rural and blue-collar Democrats are almost extinct now.
West Virginia went from being one of 1988 Democrat Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis’ best states to being the second most Republican state in the country in the 2024 Election.
The Democrat Party coalition is shrinking as the far-left continues to drive people out of it.
