No, Joe Manchin and “No Labels” are not going to have any impact on the 2024 presidential election
For months the media and pundit class has been screaming about how Democratic Senator Joe Manchin is supposedly going to run for President in 2024 as part of a third party group called “No Labels,” and that Manchin’s campaign is going to “doom” President Biden’s reelection bid. This narrative is being hyped so widely and so hysterically, I keep getting panicked questions about it. Suffice it to say that this is a non-story and it’s not going to have any impact on anything.
For starters, groups like “No Labels” are launched to make money, not to change the outcomes of elections. They run hopeless third-party candidates in various races, and manage to bring in sizable donations from the kinds of dummies out there who think they’re “sticking it to the man” by donating to a third party candidate. But these candidates almost never end up having an impact on the outcome.
Even when third party presidential candidates do occasionally change the outcome of the election, such as with Ralph Nader in 2000, it’s always by running to the left of the Democrat (or to the right of the Republican). Even then there’s no indication that Nader actually changed the outcome of the 2000 election, because the kind of people who voted for him were the types who probably would have otherwise made their “protest statement” by staying home on election day.
This group “No Labels” is talking about running a third party presidential candidate in the middle – which means it should call itself “No Impact.” No matter how much breathless doomsday hysteria you’re hearing from the media and pundit class, a group like this simply isn’t going to make a difference in the outcome. And if this were some concerted right wing plot to steal the 2024 election for the Republicans, they wouldn’t be doing it out in the open. This is, just so obviously, a money making venture and nothing more.
As for Joe Manchin, he just happens to fit the bill as a corrupt centrist politician, so the media decided months ago that Manchin will be the “No Labels” candidate. What’s this based on? Well, nothing. But it makes for a good ratings-friendly doomsday hysteria narrative. Now that the media has built up this ghost story, No Labels is taking advantage of it by having Manchin appear at one of its events in New Hampshire yesterday. Why did Manchin do it? Every move he makes is directly or indirectly about money, so if you want to know why Manchin made the one-off appearance, follow the money.
The kicker is that when the media asked Manchin about running as a third party candidate in 2024, he basically ruled it out by saying that he doesn’t run in elections he can’t win. But the media nonetheless decided that this wasn’t a definitive enough denial from Manchin, so multiple major news outlets are now running with the headline that Manchin is “refusing to rule out” running in 2024. Even though he pretty much just ruled it out.
At some point you realize that this entire narrative is little more than a media creation. The major media outlets always look for these kinds of angles where they can invent a phony narrative that no one involved has any motivation to fully shut down. The media has all but announced – based on literally nothing at all – that Manchin will run as the No Labels candidate. It’s not true, but No Labels has no motivation for shooting it down, because for a group like that, any publicity is good publicity. And Manchin has little motivation to fully shut it down, because he probably figures that at some point he’ll be able to get the Democratic Party to give him some pork barrel thing in exchange for formally announcing that he’s not running for President. And so the media keeps getting to milk this made-up scary story, all day every day, in order to keep people panicked and outraged and glued to their screens.
When the media starts hyping these kinds of “this magic wand thing is going to happen and we’re doomed” stories, it’s always good to ask yourself one question: is the media presenting any solutions to the problem? Is anyone in the media and pundit class offering any actual ways to fight back against this supposed doomsday scenario involving Manchin and No Labels? Is there any reason to believe that sitting around idly fretting over this kind of story all day is somehow going to improve the outcome of the story? Of course not. The media’s goal here isn’t to make you aware of an impending problem so you can go do something about it. The media’s goal is to convince you that there’s no solution to the supposed problem, and that you’re doomed anyway, so you might as well just stare at your screen all day and boost the media’s ratings in the process.
Even if Joe Manchin and No Labels were in danger of stealing a percentage point or two from Joe Biden in 2024 – which they’re not, but even if they were – the real solution would be for you to get out there and help Biden get more votes. And that’s something you can do right now.
Biden brought in $72 million in campaign donations in the most recent quarter, most of it from individual small-dollar donors. That’s money that Biden and his campaign will be able to use to convince more people to vote for him. So what did you do to help Biden raise that $72 million? A few of you donated. Most of you probably did nothing. But all of you could be doing something. You each have a voice, online and in the real world. You can use it to convince others with money to donate to Biden. You can sign up to volunteer for the Biden 2024 campaign. You can convince others to volunteer. You can retweet Biden and the Democrats when they post links for things like fundraising and volunteering and getting out the vote.
That’s how we actually make a difference in the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. We go out and we get more votes for our guy. Or we help our guy amass more resources for being able to go out and get more votes. If some parlor trick picks off one percent of the vote from your guy, then you help him find another one percent of the vote to make up for it. It’s just math.
Every election in history has been won by math and making an effort for your side. Not one election cycle has ever been positively influenced by you sitting there staring helplessly at your screen and fretting over whatever doomsday narrative the media is opportunistically telling you to sit helplessly and fret over.
I’ll say it again for emphasis: Joe Manchin and “No Labels” will have no impact on the 2024 election. My position on No Labels is not going to change, so there’s no need to keep asking me about it each time the media finds some new way to spin it for ratings. I consider the topic to be a complete waste of time, and a distraction from the things that we can actually do to make a difference. Even if I end up being wrong about No Labels, the solution would still be for you to turn off your television and go help line up some more donations and volunteer hours and voter registrations for President Biden. So it doesn’t even matter if I’m right or wrong. The solution is still the same, and I say this with all the love in the world: get off your asses and be the difference in the 2024 election.
