Rob Portman runs and hides
This week Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman announced that he would not be seeking reelection when his term expires in two years. In a statement, Portman boasts about his legislative accomplishments and then says, “it has gotten harder and harder to break through the partisan gridlock and make progress on substantive policy, and that has contributed to my decision.”
If Senator Portman is serious about ending partisan gridlock, he needs to call out by name one of the biggest culprits of this problem, Senator Mitch McConnell, the self-described “Grim Reaper,” who takes perverse pride in killing legislation. Under McConnell’s leadership for the past several years, the Senate has effectively stopped all meaningful progress except for being a factory for confirming conservative federal judges and naming U.S. postal offices after various people. Portman continues his statement, saying:
“We live in an increasingly polarized country where members of both parties are being pushed further to the right and further to the left, and that means too few people who are actively looking to find common ground. This is not a new phenomenon, of course, but a problem that has gotten worse over the past few decades.”
Portman commits the fallacy of “both side-ism” here, claiming that both sides, the Right and the Left, are to blame for polarization in the United States. Sure, there are some leftists who want a more progressive agenda, as there always have been. But the real radicalization has been happening under Trump’s watch for the last four years, as well as the Tea Party movement, and the culture of Fox News and Newt Gingrich, which preceded Trump. This right-wing radicalization evinced itself during January 6’s terrorist insurrection on the Capitol.
So, Mr. Portman, if you’re sincere about ending partisan gridlock and polarization, publicly stand up to your own party.
