Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is one Republican solon who refused to do truck or trade with Trump and Trumpism from day one. She recently firmed up on social media her criticism of ex-President Trump, and added one blunt bit of advice to deniers this week: Read the indictment.
Murkowski voted against confirming Trump’s pick of GOP mega donor Betsy DeVos as U.S. Secretary of Education. She was the lone Republican Nay vote on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. She voted against the Senate’s taking up Amy Comey Barrett’s court nomination on the eve of the 2020 election.
“In early 2021, I voted to impeach former President Donald Trump based on clear evidence that he attempted to overturn the 2020 election after losing it,” she recently Tweeted after the Justice Department’s four count indictment of the 45th president.
Murkowski was the only one of seven GOP impeachment supporters to run for reelection last November. Trump came to Alaska to campaign for her Republican opponent. Even so, Murkowski was re-elected under Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system.
The Senator is undaunted as Republican colleagues did a duck dive or echoed Trump’s talking points. Since the Senate vote, wrote Murkowski, evidence gathered by the House January 6 committee and other sources “only re-enforced that the former President played a key role in instigating the riots resulting in physical violence and desecration of the U.S. Capitol.”
She was equally blunt when Trump was indicted for allegedly hanging onto and concealing classified materials at Mar a Lago. Remarked Murkowski: “Mishandling classified documents is a federal crime because it can expose national secrets as well as the sources and methods they were obtained.
Murkowski notes that Trump “like all Americans” is innocent until proven guilty. But like all Americans, he is subject to the laws of the land. Of the documents case, Murkowsk stood her ground: “Anyone found guilty — whether an analyst, a former President or another elected or appointed official — should face the same set of consequences.”
Seventy years ago, led by Sens. Margaret Chase Smith and Ralph Flanders, more than a dozen Republicans in the Senate stood up to the demagoguery of colleague Joe McCarthy. Washington Attorney General Slade Gorton was an early Republican voice calling on President Nixon to resign.
Murkowski lacks company in her courage. She speaks the truth to power (and cowardice) in saying of January 6: “We must learn from that horrible event that history does not repeat itself.” As Trump backers posted abusive tweets and called her a RINO, Murkowski shot back: “Read the indictment. Understand the very serious allegations.”
They won’t.
From David Brooks’ recent piece in the NYTimes:
“In this story, we anti-Trumpers are the good guys, the forces of progress and enlightenment. The Trumpers are reactionary bigots and authoritarians. Many Republicans support Trump no matter what, according to this story, because at the end of the day, he’s still the bigot in chief, the embodiment of their resentments and that’s what matters to them most.”
(www.nytimes.com/2023/08/02/opinion/trump-meritocracy-educated.html)
The political fault lines are many, left-right, globalist-sovereigntists, female-male-indeterminant, old-young, wealthy-impoverished, highly educated-illiterate, skin color/ethnicity.
Brooks goes on to speculate “So let me try another story on you. I ask you to try on a vantage point in which we anti-Trumpers are not the eternal good guys. In fact, we’re the bad guys.”
What if, what if the anti-Trumpers are actually the ‘bad guys?’
Bienne Glyceme:
Busted.
Carefully pasting only certain sections from his column like this telegraphs the ol’ “intent to deceive.”
Read widely, think deeply! Introspection is good!
https://sashastone.substack.com/p/yes-david-brooks-you-are-the-bad#details
In what universe does standing up against authoritarian bigots and no-nothing, anti-science fanatics count as being “bad”? Unless you take the position of moral relativism, wherein the only “good” is that which serves one’s own purposes, all other positions being consigned to various shades of “badness”, the concept is preposterous. While no one should be judged solely on the basis of his political beliefs — it is possible to engage in vociferous argument without recourse to dueling pistols — but the dividing lines separating pro- and anti-Trumpist politics are so deep and wide as to be the Grand Canyon of American politics, separating those who believe America’s system of democratic institutions is worth preserving and strengthening, and those who see no problem with bringing down the entire fabric of society to suit the fancy of a whiney, entitled narcissist. The “pro-Trumpist” rely on fear-mongering, rumor and fabrications to support their positions, their arguments hollow and replete with logical inconsistency.
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trump has committed numerous crimes, long before his political interests. His family, particularly his father, also a well known criminal, bought don’s freedom.
Now his “family” is the USA, and he will be unable to buy his way to innocence. The DOJ and Jack Smith have so well prepared their approach to prosecute don, he’ll finally come to realize he lost. Exciting times!!
I also would like to recommend the NYT OpEd by David Brooks mentioned above with a link to the article. His point “caste privileges” is a valid one. I urge you to read what he has to say. From the article: “As the sociologist E. Digby Baltzell wrote decades ago, “History is a graveyard of classes which have preferred caste privileges to leadership.” That is the destiny our class is now flirting with. We can condemn the Trumpian populists until the cows come home, but the real question is: When will we stop behaving in ways that make Trumpism inevitable?”
Lisa looks at things her way. She does not vet Biden the same way. If she did Biden the same way then I would give her credit. What’s her take on the russian collusion?