Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The fiscal irresponsibility callout is a specter that constantly haunts the American left. Shakespeare might as well have written “to spend, or not to spend.” The reallocation of resources to best fit society, as many rightly believe, should be done with the best interests of the masses and, as such, the government should ensure the public ownership of industry and the redistribution of wealth.
In that scenario, we would build ourselves up and assume a new period of governance bound to the common good, moving on from a chaotic and exploitative history. This is not something that will happen seamlessly. In all likelihood, it’s not something that will happen soon. Yet politics roll on and we are forced to pander to Joe Manchin’s accusations of frivolous spending.
Manchin is a conservative Democrat from West Virginia whose largest single-firm campaign contributor is Tellurian Inc., a Houston-based gas company. Manchin also took a pretty penny from Capital Group, Pfizer and Goldman Sachs, some of the largest and most bloodthirsty pharmaceutical and financial entities in the country. He has been embraced by many liberals for his keystone position in Congress, narrowly completing the Democratic majority in the Senate.
To them, he was a saving grace from Trump-maggedon. As Democrats would have you believe, Manchin is not a conservative but a warrior defending the castle walls, skewing our government in slight favor of the Democrats, placing us on a path which leads not into Trump’s second reign of terror but delivers us from apocalypse.
For those who think this, you are wrong.
Imagine, for a moment, that you are where I spent most of my adolescence: South Central Pennsylvania. Rolling, green countryside that careens into the beautiful foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, bordering northwest Maryland and not terribly far from the Monongahela Forest of West Virginia. You likely don’t stay plugged into the media, and you don’t care about political theatrics. Trump grabbed your attention with the promise of radical change, and after four years of nothing more than obscure media moments, there’s nothing much that’s different.
This is a place unlike affluent suburbs in the New York metropolitan area. Most people don’t have the upper middle class privilege that a lot of private university students – including myself – enjoy. There’s no yellow brick road leading to enlightenment at big-name colleges or companies. There’s your community, family, friends and years of labor and toil. Politics is the last thing you think about and, even if people do vote, they become party-liners, disinterested in politics and fearsome of strong ideas or ideologies.
Manchin, although he’ll never admit it, knows he is in the perfect position. A swing-state senator with no party allegiance, lobbyists line his pockets with cash, effectively buying his vote. Conservative interest groups want his contrarian tendencies, and the Democrats want a majority in Congress. Manchin is the epitome of a cash cow. It’s easy to take advantage of people you view as meek and even easier to do so when only half the state turns out to vote. But most of all, it’s easy to lecture about fiscal irresponsibility when the largest corporations in the country power your career with blood money.
