Joe Manchin and the Death of the Left in West Virginia By David Gottfried Joe Manchin, Dixiecrat Senator from the State of West Virginia, has finally said, in no uncertain terms, that he is staunchly opposed to the Build Back Better Act and to almost all progressive reforms advocated by left of center Democrats. Big Surprise. Although he had vociferously argued against liberal reforms, he always held out the possibility that he would support measures which would alleviate the plight of the pauperized working class. Of course, we all knew he was bullshitting. But bullshitting has a long and venerable history among the deceptive Democrats of the center. After all, Lyndon Johnson, Machiavellian manipulator second to none, presented himself as the peace candidate in the 1964 election, stating that he would not order American boys to fight a war that should be fought by South Vietnamese boys. And after getting elected, our troop levels skyrocketed from under 50,000 to 500,000.