He doesn't always vote with the democrats, but if a republican had won that seat, they would be much more likely to side with the republicans.

He hasn't done anything single-handedly, in every case where he gets blamed, it's because there's a huge Republican minority opposing something and he joins them. You can never blame him unless you're first blaming all the Republicans he's joining.

He's a lightning rod because people think that for some reason he should vote with the democrats every time, but that's not realistic. He's a democrat from a very conservative state. The problem isn't Manchin, it's that they have to rely on Manchin and Sinema so much. If the democrats had a firm majority, his votes wouldn't matter. Instead he's often the deciding vote on something, so if he doesn't support it it fails. But, again, it would be worse if a Republican had won instead. Right now the senate is 51/49, and the Democrats can occasionally pass things. If Manchin had lost it would be 50/50 and they'd virtually never pass anything.

When people look back at Biden's term, they'll note that it was the Republican who blocked everything, and that the 51/49 senate was too close to pass anything meaningful. Sinema and Manchin will probably get a mention, but anybody objective will note that it was the Republicans who blocked things, not Manchin and Sinema.

Which was 100% predictable and expected.

There are two things he's useful for: having a Democrat as Senate Majority Leader, and he actually does side with Dems on voting rights most of the time (even co-sponsoring bills). That's it. Other than that, might as well let the seat fall to a Republican for all the good he does.

With his position as swing vote, Manchin is arguably the most powerful person in the world. He's doing fuck all with that power besides obstructing things. If I were a W. Virginia voter with sense, I would be asking how he's using his position to help W. Virginia. You want to bring jobs and industry and sweet government pork to your state, Joe? You're in a prime position to do it.

from an otherwise red state

Not really, his voters overwhelmingly support progressive policies.

It's just no progressive has a chance in the primary with the party blocking all of Manchin's primary opponents.

It has been on a downswing lately tho. 2016 there was more D than R voters, and 2021 it got tied up.

I do t know why everyone acts like all these "red states" are worth writing off, it really wouldn't be hard if we actually tried for them.

He's not all bad. He has let the democrats get through as many judges as possible. That said, he is a bad look for the party hands down. He allows moderates to believe democrats have a plurality when really they are just being lead by the people the least to the left. So when things go wrong it was the other 48's fault but not really.

Thank you