Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) openly admitted that she and her Republican colleagues were āall afraidā of āretaliationā from Donald Trump as she criticized what she called āunlawfulā executive overreach and sweeping federal cuts.
Murkowskiās comments came during a 45-minute session at The Foraker Groupās annual leadership summit and stands as one of the starkest public admissions from a Republican yet of the political pressure facing those in the party who push back against Trump policy or rhetoric.
āWe are all afraid,ā Murkowski told the crowd on Monday.
Pausing, she added: āItās quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And Iāll tell ya, Iām oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And thatās not right.ā
I think itād be more effective in the short term to show enthusiastic support for these kinds of admissions. Give these early defectors a soft landing. Politicians entirely operate in a perpetual popularity contest, where theyāre always trying to do today what they think will make them popular tomorrow. Maybe Murkowski thinks she has a chance of maintaining that popularity and we should do what we can to validate that assumption. If she helps turn the tide, thatāll warrant some respect. After the worst threat has been neutralized, some deeper review of her history and scrutiny of how she intends to continue on as a politician is then worth deep consideration.
But Iāll take allies where I can. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. The worst my enemy is, the better his enemies look to me.
The problem is these are Republicans were dealing with. Unless somebody on this site has a few million dollars to throw at them thereās nothing tangible we can offer them personally, and we wouldnāt have gotten here in the first place if they had any basic sense of right and wrong we could appeal to.
However, the good news is that we can honestly point out the very simple situation theyāre obviously in, and if enough of us do that often enough reality might finally break through to them. The situation is that Donald Trump has a list of people he wants to hurt and theyāre all definitely on it because they could threaten his power. Being nice to him might move their name down the list but it wonāt get them off of it. The only way they can protect themselves is by taking Donald Trumpās power from him before he gets to them.
We donāt need Republicans to be good people to deal with this situation (which is good because they absolutely are not and havenāt been for decades and decades), we just need them to be slightly less stupid than theyāre currently being.
If only his stupid fucking base would just disown him alreadyā¦
Iāve never seen so many people so hopelessly infatuated with such an unattractive, inarticulate, uncharismatic slimeball. Butā¦maybe thatās somehow his strength. Like, look everyone, even a fat ugly rough-talking slob can allegedly be rich and surrounded by allegedly beautiful women. That at least explains to me why he has classless dude appeal. Why any self respecting woman would like him is a mystery Iāll take to my grave.