Sen. Lisa Murkowski, aghast at Donald Trump’s candidacy and the direction of her party, won’t rule out bolting the GOP.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, aghast at Donald Trump’s candidacy and the direction of her party, won’t rule out bolting from the GOP.
The veteran Alaska Republican, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial amid the aftermath of January 6, 2021, is done with the former president and said she “absolutely” would not vote for him.
“I wish that as Republicans, we had … a nominee that I could get behind,” Murkowski told CNN. “I certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump.”
The party’s shift toward Trump has caused Murkowski to consider her future within the GOP. In the interview, she would not say if she would remain a Republican.
Asked if she would become an independent, Murkowski said: “Oh, I think I’m very independent minded.” And she added: “I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.”
72% sounds exceptional to me. Most of the legislation that the House and Senate deal with is uncontroversial and unless you read the daily Congressional Record would never hear about because it concerns only a handful of people or it's something we all agree on. Shit like nominations for the deputy undersecretary to the diplomat plenopotentiary to Mauritania or whatever. I'm sure a lot more of it is being unnecessarily politicized in order to sabotage the country but still. Even Bernie and Ted Cruz I would expect to be more than 72%. Got me curious.
They've all deserved it for a long time and for a lot of things. I'm pretty sure nobody in an elected position in DC today was there in 1964 when Goldwater's clique inside the GOP turned it anti-civil rights and pro-Southern Strategy, but every elected Republican in DC today knew that had happened and signed up anyway
The Republican party is the disease that needs curing*, everything they've done are just worsening symptoms of that disease
*For the record, I think violence would be an ineffective and self-defeating course of treatment
I wasn't even old enough to vote but was stumping for a candidate many years ago, a Democrat, and an older voter rebuffed me while walking into the polling place, fine, but then he said "you know that's the party of socialists and communists right?" And I'm like "yeah the other party is that of the KKK."
Not all Republicans are Klan but all Klan are Republicans. And I keep waiting for the day the GOP will kick these fools to the curb but every year they go further to the right. Fine, maybe you're too young to remember Goldwater. Remember Willie Horton? Remember Sarah Palin?
They keep on showing everyone there is no floor. That's why David Frum warns that before Republicans reject conservatism, they will reject democracy.
Important thing to note here is that he just meant they would be "destroyed" in the election - as long as Trump means they stay in power, he has no problem with him.
So guys, there's this sinking ship, see, and she's on it and afraid she'll drown - so when faced with irrelevance she finally finds an excuse to get onto another ship.
The important thing to remember is that she's still the same piece of shit she's always been... so don't let her on our ship. Just let her fall into irrelevance.
hey y'all, no joke... I'm totally gonna maybe probably be pretty dang upset this time you guys... Seriously, don't be surprised if I might possible potentially consider not fully supporting the worst shit again - okay, so I did support it again, but you got to admit, I got pretty close to not doping that for a second maybe (I didn't, but you can totally imagine what it would be like if I did right?)
I've voted third party most of my life. I will not while Trump and his flunkies run. And I will not urge anyone else to vote third party as I often had prior to 2016.
There has to be an American democracy in order for any voting to matter. Once fascism and autocracy is defeated vote for whomever you fucking want, but not today.
This is weird, but I miss Bush and the Az senator who reminded me of a wax museum statue. He was a war vet, but also ancient. At least their faults in my mind were lesser then the blatant issues now. I never thought the US was seriously at risk, just another shitty couple years. I used to think that about all of them.
An important first step to supporting 3rd parties would be a full switch to ranked choice.
So long as the spoiler effect is at play, you literally only have two choices... voting 3rd or not voting at all are both still choosing one of the big two, you're just sacrificing what voice you have and letting other voters choose for you.
Here and now, suck it up and choose the lesser evil. We can work on restructuring our political system later - it needs it, but we've got bigger fish to fry.
I don't disagree, but in my lifetime, we've been in much better shape in the past and still been unwilling to break away from the status quo.
Now that the situation is much more dire, it's even more frustrating that we lacked the will or desires that could potentially have lessened the chances of this outcome.
I try convincing the less diehard devotees to switch and they're still hung up on the aspects of the other party they disagree with.
That’s sort of like saying I need to stop being afraid of setting the world record in the 50m dash. It’s not fear that prevents me from doing it, it’s the way my body is constructed that’s the problem. You’re treating something systemic as though it’s a collective personal failing of each voter.
The good thing is that, unlike with my body and the 50m dash, it is possible to modify our election system to make it possible (and even inevitable) that we have successful third party candidates. This is no easy feat, and I imagine the way to do it is probably by making changes at the state and local level and expanding it from there. But there is no quick way to do it.
In any case, simply trying to vote third party in spite of our existing system (especially at the national level) is going to go the same way it has always gone. Even if you make a blip or even a big splash, you’re swimming upstream the whole time, pushing against the system correcting itself back to stability. We saw it with Perot in the 90s when his Reform Party died out really fast.
Given enough time, our first past the post system will always lead to two large coalition parties shaking out of the variety of movements/ideologies we've got going on at any point. It just makes too much strategic sense for groups B and C who don't want group A getting power but don't agree on anything else to team up to try to get the plurality in a single round of voting that counts as a win under our system.
What I think we need is a) some political upheaval resulting from one of the two parties collapsing, b) a focused and determined effort during that time of upheaval to change our vote counting systems to something less dumb (e.g. insrant run off ranked choice voting is probably the simplest but still effective model).
I had to google it.. "You disingenuously frame your conversation as a sincere request to be enlightened". I litterally said that I was uninformed/not paying too much attention. I have payed attention in 2016- about 2020. So was wondering if they actualy got him for something now, or not. Sorry for asking... Jeez. Trump sure triggers alot of people...
Some of those "charged in a few states" cases are actually federal indictments. Federal indictments have to be charged in a specific federal court system district (6th Amendment).
The classified documents case in Florida? Federal. The January 6th/election obstruction case? That's so federal it was brought in the DC circuit.