What an embarrassment
“We achieved what almost everyone said was impossible-the first serious bipartisan border compromise in a decade. Republicans asked for this, and yet within 24 hours, they backed down because Donald Trump told them to preserve chaos at the border, because he thinks it helps him politically.” These are the thoughts of Chris Murphy (D-CT), one of those who negotiated the bill. Murphy worked on the bill with James Lankford (R-OK-the author), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), who was livid after Republicans turned it down. Sinema said: “Sunday morning, it’s a real crisis. Monday morning, the crisis magically disappeared.” The crisis hasn’t disappeared; it’s the only platform available to Donald Trump, and Republicans decided to bow to his will.
According to HuffPost, when that failed, Schumer moved to present a bill including aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan without the border, but Republicans didn’t want that either. Lindsey Graham was quoted as saying: “I want to help Ukraine, but I got to help my own country first, and I don’t think we’ve done an adequate job.” Graham and other Republicans had the opportunity to help our country by voting on the strongest border bill presented in a decade, yet their fealty to Donald Trump outweighs everything. Only four Republicans supported debate on the border bill-Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, and James Lankford. The remaining Republicans need to offer their seats to people who want to serve this country. How long have they been complaining about the border now? Years. They had the opportunity to address it, and they passed. This despicable showing is embarrassing.
Republicans are too busy to consider the safety and security of our country. They are busy going on TV to proclaim they would have broken the law for Trump (J.D. Vance), creating imaginary investigations into Trump prosecutions (Jim Jordan and James Comer), and writing resolutions declaring that Trump is not an insurrectionist (Matt Gaetz and Elise Stefanik). Not one of these activities has anything to do with governing this country. They sit on their self-proclaimed thrones with straight faces, claiming that they are governing when they are doing nothing but collecting a six-figure salary from our pockets to do nothing. This is not only despicable, but also sinful. Donald Trump won’t win the presidency. What are they going to do then?
The people who voted these do-nothings into office need to think long and hard about sending them back to Washington. They have accomplished nothing other than having their ill-advised impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas blow up in their faces. James Lankford has received threats for pushing the bill he wrote, even as Tim Scott went on Fox to say that we need to solve our border problem-the solution to which they all turned down. Unlike Scott, Dan Crenshaw has gone public, saying that the border needs to be fixed. It’s all the Republicans have talked about for the last few years. Now, it’s no longer a priority. As Jamie Raskin said: “Democracy is under siege.” As voters, we can and must stop the siege.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years