Republican lawmakers who get kicked to the curb for not kissing Donald Ass lose in primaries….
That means for the next 6 months?
They still have their jobs …
But are NOT beholding to their parties leaders….
Hmmmm?
By giving belated independence to a handful of incumbents he vanquished at the ballot box or forced into retirement, the president is creating a growingly noxious dynamic between the two ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
“It’s hard for me to see how the president is going to get his agenda through the Senate in the next seven months if he keeps purging Republican senators who support him,” former senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee) told CBS News last week. “… I think Republican senators will find they can say what they think and the country will be better off if they do.”
In his Trump-engineered defeat, Sen. John Cornyn joins a club of two other Republicans in the chamber, where their party holds a 53-47 majority. The other two are already expressing resistance to the president’s dictates.
One is Thom Tillis (North Carolina). Under a barrage of Trump attacks for opposing parts of the president’s agenda — including the sprawling One Big Beautiful Bill that was its domestic centerpiece — Tillis announced his retirement last year rather than making what was deemed to be a hopeless bid for a third term.
Tillis has since become a regular Trump critic. He has criticized the Justice Department’s recently announced “anti-weaponization fund,”which could allow the Trump supporters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to receive taxpayer dollars, as “stupid on stilts” and said: “These people don’t deserve restitution. Many of them deserve to be in prison.”
Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), who failed to even make the runoff in his party’s May 16 primary, voted for the first time a few days later to advance a resolution to block Trump from ordering further strikes on Iran without congressional authorization….
…
As primary season moves into the rearview mirror, Republicans may become bolder. Trump’s leverage against them will be less, once they have secured their party’s nomination, and the attention of those in the House and the Senate who are in tight races may turn to self-survival in November. And, yes, while the dissenters may amount to only a few in either chamber, the party margins are tight enough that their votes could matter.
True, until now, the Republican-led Congress has largely been supine with respect to Trump, his whims and his wishes. But even as the glare of his power within the party appears greater than ever, it might be worth remembering one of the long-held observations of astronomers: A star gets brighter as it begins to burn out….
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.