Why Manchin is worse: Fossil fuels are literally cooking our planet to death in a slow boil. Manchin is directly invested in coal companies and the fossil fuel industry in turn makes up his biggest campaign donors. In a naked payback of those interests, Manchin singlehandedly watered down the most important environmental legislation we have ever had.
Why Sinema is worse: Of all the issues to stick your neck out for, and risk torpedoing the most promising legislation in a generation to address climate change, Wall Street interests have got to be dead last. There is no rational basis for preserving hedge fund tax loopholes other than sheer greed. It’s literally robbing the U.S. Treasury to pay people who don’t need it. There’s no obvious connection between the financial industry and Arizona, either. So, she’s absolutely favoring wealthy out-of-state interests over those of her constituents: Democrats in Arizona don’t particularly like her. Sinema rarely speaks to the press, and therefore offers no peek behind the curtain of her thought process.
Why Manchin is better: In the short-to-medium term, fossil fuels remain an evil but necessary part of our economy. Manchin wrote in a fund for victims of Black Lung that will help some of the victims of this dirty and predatory industry. Manchin really does face a difficult, nearly impossible, task getting re-elected as a Democrat in incurably-red West Virginia. If letting him take the driver’s wheel on this legislation is the price of him retaining this critical Senate seat in MAGA country, then perhaps it’s worth it. Rechristening BBB as the “Inflation Reduction Act” was a brilliant piece of re-branding on his part.
Why Sinema is better: Unlike shilling for fossil fuel industry, lining the pockets of hedge fund managers does not pose an existential threat to civilization. So there’s that. She’s relatively young, so there’s still time for her to grow out of her “quirky Centrist” phase and into a mainline Democrat. A strong primary challenge from her Left may help effectuate that.
Both Senators expose the label of “centrism” as a cover for corruption and shameless pursuit of narrow special interests, living up to everything that makes Washington horrible.
But who would lose?
On balance, I think Sinema loses by a hair, as there’s no hint of a rational nexus between how she has chosen to spend her political capital vs. the needs of her constituents, making her “centrism” a product of sheer vanity.
Caption this Meme 
