West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin’s decision to retire at the end of his term makes it very likely Republicans will take back the Senate in 2024. But it also suggests something even bigger: It probably marks the end of the road for centrist senators.
Manchin—who polls seemed to indicate would lose his re-election bid to West Virginia’s Republican Gov. Jim Justice—is a relic from a bygone era: a conservative-leaning Democrat who represents a state that Donald Trump won by 42 points in 2016.
So why should we mourn the end of squishy politicians like Manchin? Mainly, because our politics has become more dysfunctional as they have gone extinct.
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Once upon a time, America effectively had four political parties: conservative Republicans, liberal Republicans, conservative Democrats, and liberal Democrats.
While this might sound confusing for voters, there were some tremendous benefits. For one thing, the messiness allowed for weird political coalitions and compromises to emerge, thus reducing the likelihood of stalemates and bitter political divides.
It also allowed bipartisan friendships to blossom. You might be a Republican who shared a deep, abiding Christian faith with a Democratic colleague. Or you might be a backslapping rural Democrat who wanted to work with rural Republicans on behalf of agriculture subsidies. Numerous combinations of overlapping interests incentivized relationships, trust, and cooperation.
Large political trends usually take time to fully manifest, and the great sorting probably began in the 1960s; divisive (though important) issues like civil rights, Vietnam, and crime caused both politicians and Americans to choose the party that aligned with their deeply held convictions on these hot-button issues.
Four decades later, a milestone was reached: Georgia Democrat Zell Miller’s 2004 retirement from the U.S. Senate marked the last time a Democratic senator would be rated “less liberal than the most liberal Republican,” according to the Pew Research Center.
And now, two decades after Miller’s retirement, we will likely reach another important stage: Manchin’s retirement portends the end of a time when a “conservative” Democrat can survive in the U.S. Senate. (Note: Manchin’s announcement comes the same week that Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a moderate Democrat, won re-election—voters are more likely to break party ranks when it comes to governors.)
Part of the reason is that Democrats aren’t just defending Manchin’s seat in West Virginia—they are also defending centrists in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. Like Manchin’s, these Senate seats remained Democratic years after their state began voting for Republican presidents, primarily because the politicians like Manchin felt both culturally and politically appropriate for the state.
Montana Sen. Jon Tester, like Manchin, seems more like a regular guy than some elite, snobby, cosmopolitan liberal. Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, with his gravelly voice and disheveled demeanor, fits his state’s rust-belt image.
And Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey is one of the last national Democrats who still calls himself “pro-life,” even if he isn’t as big a champion as his famous father.
Meanwhile, Arizona’s Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has already left the Democratic Party and is fighting an uphill battle for her political survival as an independent.
For short-term political analysts, the big story here is that it seems very likely that Republicans will take back the U.S. Senate in 2024. But for long-term observers of trends, the even bigger story is that we seem to be entering an era where it’s impossible for a colorful local politician to buck a state’s partisan bent.
The loss of conservative Democrats obviously means the Democratic Party becomes smaller and more liberal, just as the loss of moderate or liberal Republicans is likely to make the GOP more ideologically purist—and MAGA-compliant for as long as Trump remains the nominal head of the party.
This loss also means that general elections in most states are essentially meaningless. Instead, the primary election will likely determine who gets elected to the U.S. Senate, thus pushing Republicans farther to the right in red states and Democrats farther to the left in blue states.
Both of these trends empower a small percentage of activists and voters on the extreme right and left, while effectively disenfranchising (or at least disempowering) the broad swath of voters in the center.
Part of the story here is that, just as our political parties have been sorting, we the people are to blame because we have been geographically sorting ourselves.
More and more, we are moving to states and communities where people are like us. (I am guilty of this, myself, having moved to Manchin’s West Virginia a few years ago.)
What this means is that it’s easier to live your life without bumping into or befriending someone who has a different political philosophy, religion, or worldview. It’s hard to truly hate Democrats, for example, if half of your family members are Democrats.
Not only does geographical sorting keep us from confronting diverse viewpoints, it also increases polarization.
As professor and author Richard Florida summed up the trend, “On the one hand, like-minded people cluster together or with other like-minded people, and on the other, such clustering together makes people more like-minded.”
Manchin’s announced retirement is a moment for us to reflect on why our politics has gotten so bitter and dysfunctional.
In most parts of our life, order is a good thing. But in politics, it turns out, we were better off being messy. The Joe Manchins of the world will be missed.
