Monday, July 13, 2020

Can the GOP Save Its U.S. Senate Majority?

If one looks ate the legislation that has passed the U.S. Senate over the last year, the bills enacted are paltry in number.  Meanwhile, hundreds of bill passed by the House of Representatives have piled up on Mitch McConnell's desk and have been denied debate much less a vote.  Instead of doing its job, the Republican majority has done little and served basically as an enabler for Donald Trump's misrule with Republican senators most focused on licking Trump's feet and ducking any action that might enrage the knuckle dragging, racist, religiously extreme party base. A piece in The Hill by a Republican argues what needs to be done if the GOP is to avoid a increasingly likely loss of the majority in the Senate.  Don't expect any of these suggestions to be implemented by today's worthless Republican Senators.  Here are excerpts:
There is the old, rather worn, but still applicable adage of “when you are in a hole, stop digging." This could definitely be applied to the Republican Senate.
The Republicans in the Senate have been supplicants to President Trump.
They have marched behind him as he has marginalized himself more and more with his weak and divisive leadership on almost all issues of significance, from the coronavirus crisis to the more general goal of giving the nation a purposeful direction.
It is well past time for Senate Republicans to stand up for themselves. At least seven and maybe more Republican Senate members who are running for reelection may not be returning if the president, who seems to be oblivious to his stylistic and substantive disconnect with the majority of Americans, meets a defeat in November of Barry Goldwater proportions.
Trump has yet to give any meaningful reason why he should be reelected other then his dislike of the mainstream media (which is well-founded) and his own narcissistic self-importance.
Neither of these idiosyncrasies helps build an agenda that attracts more then a minority of electoral support.
There is no there, there with this president. There is only a “me” there.
Republican senators, like most elected officials, are a risk-averse group. They have chosen to be background to the Trump presidency. This is no longer a viable path for those up for reelection in competitive states. This, in turn, imperils the party’s hopes of retaining the Senate majority.
[I]t is difficult to see how Republican members can hold onto the Senate if they keep inextricably tying themselves to the misanthropic style of Trump.
Rather then being the “very stable genius” that the president has proclaimed himself, he appears more often to be an unguided political missile who might well lead those who follow him to a defeat of historic proportions.
It is late, maybe later than they think, but the Republican Senate, as the last rational group standing in the Republican Party now milling around Washington, should present its own largely positive argument for why it should continue to run the Senate.
It needs a name and set of goals that make sense.
Set out a course to protect us not only from this pandemic but from the next one that may come, by setting up a systematic, massive commitment to develop vaccines and prevention.
Relatedly, stop the trial bar from using this pandemic as a piggy bank with lawsuits that disable small businesses’ ability to recover.
Address the pressing issue of healthcare reform with policies that promote the marketplace of ideas for better care and individual choice.
Address immigration reform not as a threat, but rather a way to make our nation stronger — as immigrants always have — and more competitive in this global economy.
Return to a course that rebuilds our strategic alliances. NATO especially has been essential in protecting both our security and freedom across the world.
Senate Republican need to define themselves and their reasons for being there.
It is time to step out of the narrowing shadow of the president and to speak for all the people in this country who are wondering what has happened in Washington.

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