According to FiveThirtyEight, West Virginia's Joe Manchin leads all active Democrat senators in voting President Trump's way. Despite this, Trump criticized Manchin yesterday morning (see my last post). Not willing (or, more likely, unable) to stop, Trump continued his attack on Manchin last night:

...But, just like the people of West Virginia will no longer look at weak & pathetic Joe Manchin the same (I got the Pension Bill approved, Manchin couldn’t do it), the wonderful people of Utah will never look at “grandstander” Mitt Romney with anything but contempt & disgust!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2020

Manchin responded:

I’ve read the transcripts thoroughly & listened to the witnesses under oath. Where I come from a person accused defends themselves with witnesses and evidence.

— Senator Joe Manchin (@Sen_JoeManchin) February 9, 2020

I may be reading too much into this, but Manchin's willingness to punch back goes beyond simply providing an explanation for his recent votes. No other politician knows West Virginians as well as Joe; thus his "where I come from" may be an indication that he thinks that for some West Virginians, the president has gone too far.

But what about the Republicans? If you listen for Republican criticism, you'll hear silence followed eventually by summer crickets. What does the President have to do before Senator Capito, or any state Republican, would criticize him? The same could be asked of the state's Republican newspaper chain, Ogden Newspapers, which has never written one critical word about Trump. (Ogden's Democratic readers can only imagine the daily Ogden outrage had Obama done 1% of what Trump has done.)

Maybe I'm just grasping at straws, but I see Manchin's hitting back as an indication that the times may be a-changin'.

Evening update

Missed this Tweet earlier:

They are really mad at Senator Joe Munchkin in West Virginia. He couldn’t understand the Transcripts. Romney could, but didn’t want to!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2020