There Is No Defense--Only Complicity

[Nevilledog]

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David Frum
@davidfrum
I wrote last night about the sad case of Senator Marco Rubio.

There Is No Defense—Only Complicity
Republican senators are shrinking before the eyes of the whole country.
theatlantic.com
7:03 AM · Feb 11, 2021

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

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.

Unlike so many of his fellow senators, Rubio has no double face. He has no guile and no game. His face displays his feelings. And he is feeling this.

Those feelings are not leading Rubio to do the right thing. He has already committed to do the wrong thing, as will so many other Senate Republicans. But he’s not happy about it. He’s angry about it. He knows he’s being inscribed as one of the villains of American history, one of the saps and weaklings of the American present. Trapped, helpless, and embarrassed, he seethes with resentment about a predicament he cannot see a way to escape.

And he is not finding it.

*snip*

[Stuart G]

1. Thank You for this post..K and R for all to see, Outstanding Article from "The Atlantic". no text

[lagomorph777]

2. There's shrinkage?

"Like a frightened turtle," as Jerry Seinfeld says.