Thread by @drvolts

An idle Sunday thread about Manchin, psychology, & money.

There's a whole cottage industry trying to figure out what's driving Manchin. Is he angling for reelection in a red state? Maybe angling to run for governor? Trying to ostentatiously show WV voters he's not like other Ds?

Or is it lobbying from FF interests? Manchin is the top Senate recipient of oil & gas money, by a decent margin. opensecrets.org/industries./re…++

Is it him defending his personal wealth? He does, after all, directly benefit from the coal industry. theintercept.com/2021/09/03/joe…

The savvy take is just, "it's the money, end of story." But I don't really think that fits with what we know about the psychology of people like Manchin. The dude is extremely vain; he thinks very highly of himself. I very much doubt that he *consciously* views himself ...

... as fighting for FF interests in exchange for money. That's so grubby & small. It strikes me as far, far more likely that an old egotist like Manchin has convinced himself he is doing the courageous, virtuous thing that's best for the folks in West Virginia.

Guys like Manchin are the heroes of the story in their minds; ego demands it. The question then becomes, how can he convince himself of a position that is, based on any reasonable disinterested analysis, bullshit? Pretty easily demonstrable bullshit.

In some sense the answer to that question is easy: people are *extraordinarily* good at bullshitting themselves. It is our greatest human talent. Even most of history's worst actors were acting heroically in their own minds.

But (coming at last to my point) when it comes to self-bullshitting, I don't think you can underestimate the role of *propinquity*, ie, who is close to him. Who's around him. Who he talks & listens to. What assumptions & worldviews are accepted among his social cohort.

Our instinct, I think, is to exaggerate the independence of most minds. We want to think there's more deliberate scheming than there is. Pointing to money somehow feels deeper, more sophisticated, than "he's surrounded by people who believe this bullshit."

But I really think that's most of it: Manchin surrounds himself with other old white conservatives, lots of whom are Republican. He is immersed in that worldview. To him the idea that social services create "entitlement" is just obvious -- all the old white guys know that!

To him "something something debt" means "the government should spend less." It doesn't matter that that analysis has no economic credibility at all (the f'ing bill is "paid for" & deficit spending is fine anyway). Waving "debt" around is never questioned by the old white guys!

Even when it comes to lobbying, I think, more than the direct cash involved, it is simply *being around lobbyists constantly* that shapes Manchin's thinking. More professional, Very Serious white dudes in suits, nodding gravely about "energy independence." They all agree!

None of this is to say the money is irrelevant, but these people are human beings & human beings are shaped above all by their peers, their tribes, their (ahem) epistemic communities. That's where they get their worldviews & self-conceptions.

This goes for Sinema too. She's smart, she's got a big ego, there is no way her self-conception is "I am defending Big Pharma in exchange for bribes." She's got a story she's telling herself in which she is the hero, & generally the best way to figure out what that story is ...

... is simply to look at who surrounds her, who she's talking & listening to.

Anyhoo. I know the savvy thing is just to say "money" & you're supposedly naive if you disagree, but I think that flattens out a lot of psychological complexity. Politicians are self-selected ...

... people with big egos. Perhaps it's easy to corrupt them. Perhaps alongside the money you need only the slightest of stories with which they can fool themselves. But they do need those stories. And they absorb them from the people in their circles. That's the place to look.

Oh, I forgot to state one implication of all this, which is: all this talk of "just bribe Manchin with WV projects" is forlorn. If he were just angling for money, it would be easy to pay him off. The real problem is *he believes his own BS*. That's way, way harder to deal with.