Tag Archives: Marco Rubio

Cruelty As Political Strategy

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From Maureen Dowd, “How Low Can They Go?”

“The argument that migrants coming across the border have a more severe impact on border states is obviously valid. You can’t have a nearly unchecked flood of people coming in — an average of 8,500 a day, according to Axios.

. . . President Biden ignores the border, giving it to Kamala Harris to get under control. We all know that’s not happening. Republicans like Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham who once tried to work on solutions have now just degenerated into using the border issue to bash Democrats as flaccid.

But the contentions of Republicans about geographical unfairness and Democratic inaction are undercut by their meanspirited behavior.

They are willing to make life worse for vulnerable, exhausted people who are already in a terrible position — and chortle while they’re being cruel.

As Blake Hounshell noted in The Times, DeSantis is courting Trump donors by adopting the racially charged playbook of Trump, who ‘made frequent and aggressive political use of Latino migrants during his run for the presidency in 2016 and long thereafter, casting many of them as ‘criminals’ and ‘rapists’ during his presidential announcement at Trump Tower.'”

Further evidence, as if we needed any, of the (dis)United States decline. Especially if it works.

Rubio, Veterans’ Day, and Default Hawkishness

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They will not raise the minimum wage, but Marco Rubio and three-quarters of the Republican’s on stage last night, are playing on the American public’s fears in the hope that we spend a whole lot more money on a larger, stronger military*. “People are being beheaded, Christians are being crucified.” Repeat that enough and no one will ask where. Each candidate is more appalled than the next that President Obama has failed to invade some countries and kick some ass. How dare he refuse to send more young men and women into wars that only have political solutions.

They all suffer from a collective amnesia that is extremely dangerous unless you like repeating mistakes of the past. They refuse to honestly assess how the last few wars have gone. How much money was spent, how many people’s lives were irrevocably changed for the worse, how many were killed, how the initial problems worsened.

The Republicans would have Rand Paul and the rest of us believe it’s un-American to question whether military might is always right. I will ask questions, resist knee-jerk hawkishness, and support this President’s more conservative and disciplined alternative to mindless militarism. All in the the hope that we have fewer vets to celebrate on future Veteran’s Days.

* all while lowering our taxes