Republican senators are shrinking.

[mia]

There Is No Defense—Only Complicity

Republican senators are shrinking before the eyes of the whole country.

To understand what was at issue in the impeachment proceedings today, it helps to look at a video released yesterday by Senator Marco Rubio.

Few Republican officials have more reason to hate former President Donald Trump than the defeated rival Trump so memorably nicknamed “Liddle Marco.” Trump brutally bullied Rubio throughout the presidential primary campaign in 2015 and 2016. Over the five years since, Trump imposed one humiliation after another upon Rubio. Now it’s rumored that Ivanka Trump intends to challenge Rubio for his Senate seat in 2022.

But Rubio knows that Republican senators who defy Trump have a way of ending up as ex-senators. And so he abases himself again and again to defend Trump. He appeared on Fox News Sunday on January 24 to denounce this second impeachment trial as “stupid.” And in his February 9 video, a senator who often speaks out against authoritarian corruption in China, Cuba, and Venezuela positioned himself as its apologist here at home—dismissing accountability for the January 6 attacks as a “waste of our time.”

But here’s the important thing, the big reveal: As he delivered his message, Rubio looked absolutely miserable. Watch it yourself and see what I mean. Rubio looked equally miserable on Fox News Sunday....

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/there-is-no-defenseonly-complicity/617996/

Link to tweet

[Jetheels]

1. Human scum. And why is the Atlantic giving him a platform for his toxic spillage?

[mia]

3. To make the point that "There is no defense. There is only complicity...."

... whether motivated by weakness and fear or by shared guilt. And the House managers forced every Republican senator to feel that complicity from the inside out.

That feeling of complicity will not change the final outcome of this Senate trial. The weak will be no less weak for being shamed by their weakness; those who share Trump’s guilt will not cease to share it, because that guilt has been blazed to the world. But at least the House case can restrict the personal and political options of the weak and the guilty. If a senator like Marco Rubio did not feel his world tightening around him, he would not look so haunted. The Republican senators are shrinking before the eyes of the whole country. They are all becoming “liddle.” They know it. They feel it. They hate it. But they cannot stop it.

[Jetheels]

5. I guess your right.

I couldn’t watch it all I was so disgusted especially by his lack of making any sense. Yeah they have zero defense. Only complicity.

[lagomorph777]

2. Shrinkage. "Like a frightened turtle" as Seinfeld says.

[mia]

4. Shrinking into the cowardly cores.

Owned by the domestic terrorist.

[Delmette2.0]

6. The R Senators are owned by the person who caused the pandemic

to blow up all because he found ways to make money at the expense of nearly a half million Americans who died in the last 12 months. We don't know how many will die from secondary damage to their bodies.

He is not even a man. He is a sniveling coward. He cannot admit when he is wrong. He can fuck off and so can all of them.

[czarjak]

7. Gallings are not appreciated. FYI!

[Kashkakat v.2.0]

8. I really think theres more to this than theyre afraid of losing their jobs Wev ALL had to quit jobs

that were intolerable or had to reinvent ourselves after we've gotten fired. It's something you just DO when it gets too impossible to bear.

I really wonder how many of these people are adult children of alcoholics or grew up w abusive parents - they really cannot see how screamingly ABNORMAL they and their verbally and psychologically abusive leaders are -

[Ford_Prefect]

9. Marco discovers what it feels like when the rock meets the hard place

And he is found to be in between.

[DeSmet]

10. Rubio, Graham and Cruz

All remind me of the Colonel Getty character in the movie "The Postman".

Castrated by General Bethlehem, Getty goes on to be his most loyal servant. ????

[bearssoapbox]

11. I watched it with the sound off.

Except for about 20 seconds or so in the middle because I wanted to see if his body language matched the word salad.

It didn't. What was he watching off to his right and watch carefully how he was jerking around. His facial micro expressions were very telling.

He was giving a rehearsed talk and was afraid he wasn't being believable.

I think he was/is scared shitless.

By whom or what, I don't know, but he is.

[BlueIdaho]

12. The Pandemic wasn't important to Rubio until it was...

That’s only when it became a diversion away from his responsibility to Stop the Shithead.

[Hekate]

13. Jeez. Marco went from rising star to wet firecracker....

Sorry — this is just sad.

[ooky]

14. What has Rubio done to help any Americans in need?

What legislation has he brought forth and championed to ease the burden Americans are feeling? What policy does he promote? How many more Americans will suffer more than they already are because he has to sit a few more days through this trial? Whatever difference would he make to anyone being negatively impacted by Covid, no matter where he is?

How does he do what he does, say what he says, and live with himself?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

15. He's scared of Ivanka

The reality is all that groveling isn't going to save his ass.