In a sentence I did not expect to type today, Timothée Chalamet is asking some pressing questions about President Joe Biden’s battered Build Back Better Agenda. For example: What exactly is the difference between Rep. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and an evil, blockbuster, sci-fi movie villain?
A meme that started circulating on Twitter early this week comparing Manchin — referred to as “Coal Baron,” which… not wrong! — to Dune villain Baron Vladimir Harkonnen made its way to Chalamet’s Instagram Story on October 27.
What they have in common, according to the joke: Both “[use] the government to enrich themselves via their family mining company, [ignore] the overwhelming will of the people out of naked greed,” and both are “actively destroying the climate, dooming millions.” A tweet with a screenshot from Chalamet’s story has over 15,000 likes on Twitter as of this writing.
Dune, which was released in theaters on October 22 and a day earlier on HBO Max, stars Chalamet and Zendaya facing off against House Harkonnen, a family of bads that exploits the indigenous population of planet Arrakis to control access to the drug spice. So a family business built around making a profit at the expense of the marginalized, and driving humanity to disaster in the process… Sounds familiar. This brings us back to the current kerfuffle in Congress.
Thanks to Manchin and fellow obstructionist Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), the new plan for Biden’s Build Back Better bill cut provisions including two years of free community college, guaranteed paid parental leave, lowering prescription drug prices, and a proposal to add dental coverage to Medicare.
But the climate issue is especially concerning when it comes to Manchin. Recent reports say Manchin’s made $4.5 million over his 11 years in the Senate from his son’s coal companies, and he met weekly throughout last summer with ExxonMobil lobbyists pushing him to weaken Biden’s climate plan. Five youth climate activists are on day nine of a hunger strike to try to push Biden to maintain his commitment to climate policy as advocated by the Sunrise Movement and other groups.
“Does the fossil fuel industry money you’ve taken have anything to do with you blocking vital climate legislation right now?” hunger striker Abby Leedy, 20, asked Manchin on October 26. “Joe Manchin, I’m going to grow up in a catastrophic climate emergency if you continue to block the Civilian Climate Corps.”
By choosing fossil fuels, Manchin isn’t just ignoring progressives' “overwhelming will,” he’s ignoring his own constituents. The original Build Back Better plan was “immensely popular” among West Virginians, according to a recent survey.
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