If Republicans won't risk defeat to tell the truth, Trump will own their party

[Zorro]

Retiring senators are handing the GOP over to its wild fringe.

By Norman Ornstein

When Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), once mocked by President Donald Trump as “Liddle’ Bob Corker,” retired in 2018, Trump loyalist Marsha Blackburn succeeded him. When Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) retired, he gave a farewell speech making clear that he didn’t want to be “complicit” in the Trump agenda but declined to defend his seat in a primary. On Monday, Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) announced that he, too, would not seek another term, noting, “We live in an increasingly polarized country where members of both parties are being pushed further to the right and further to the left.”

On one level, it’s easy to sympathize: It’s almost impossible to be a traditional Republican in the Trump era. And to be a senator of any stripe in a divided Senate can seem pointless. Portman wasn’t wrong to point out that “it has gotten harder and harder to break through the partisan gridlock and make progress on substantive policy.”

But by pulling the plug rather than facing a potentially bruising primary (or a tightly contested general election) — and risking a rout at the polls — these senators all evaded the bigger debate about the future of the Republican Party: Instead of taking a stand to help the GOP revert to a right-of-center, problem-solving party that doesn’t see compromise as a dirty word, they’re standing aside while the party remakes itself as a xenophobic cult of personality for conspiracy theorists and trade protectionists. Fear of defeat is handing their party over to Trump, his loyalists and Trumpism — and it is warping the country.

Portman is an instructive example. He worked for Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, including as Bush 43’s U.S. trade representative and Office of Management and Budget director. He served for more than a decade in the House of Representatives, where he toiled closely with liberal Rep. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) on pension reform. Portman has favored free trade and containing deficits.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trump-mcconnell-portman-toomey-kinzinger-republicans/2021/01/29/a71efed4-60f0-11eb-9061-07abcc1f9229_story.html

[bullimiami]

1. oh what bullshit from portmans hole. having to both-sides what is obviously a rightwing disaster.