Senate Republicans Are Failing Us... Big Time
The Democratic Party stood virtually united “resisting” Trump for four years. Their stalwart opposition was ruthless and unwavering. It had been my hope that if there was any lasting legacy of Trump in the Republican Party it would be that he taught them not just to not walk away from a fight but to actually fight back.
Yet again, I find myself disappointed.
On Wednesday the Senate confirmed racial conspiracy theorist Marcia Fudge as HUD secretary, and Merrick Garland as attorney general.
Fudge was confirmed 66-34, and Garland 70-30.
How did Fudge get sixteen Republicans to vote for her confirmation? And How did Garland get twenty?
Rest assured, I’m not calling for blanket opposition to Biden’s nominees. That is not a good strategy. But fighting the nominations of exceptionally bad nominees should be an easy thing for the GOP to unify and rally behind. Yet they’re not.
Let’s review the case against Garland.
Garland refused to commit to protecting special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the Obama-Biden administration’s spying on the Trump campaign, or to release his report to the public. He also refused to call Antifa’s attacks on federal buildings domestic terrorism and evaded questions about how he would enforce immigration policy, amongst many other things. In fact, he routinely evaded questions from Senate Republicans during his confirmation hearings—and repeatedly claimed to be unaware of situations cited by Republicans in their questioning. Whether you actually believed he was ignorant of current events, or just didn’t want to answer, it was unfathomable that anyone so ignorant or cagey could be confirmed by the U.S. Senate—let alone in a bipartisan vote.
As for Marcia Fudge, her racial conspiracy theories and advocating of violence should have disqualified her from the get-go.
In 2019, Fudge read a letter on the floor of the House of Representatives from a constituent, who called Donald Trump supporters “racist,” and “dumb.”
In April 2020, she claimed the COVID-19 pandemic proved that America is systemically racist, and accused the Trump administration of opening up businesses targetting lower-income America to get black people to spending their COVID relief checks. She also justified the riots and looting. “George Floyd’s murder just brought to the surface generations of pain,” she said last June. “We have to make sure we strike when the iron is hot.”
There shouldn’t have been a single Republican vote for either of these nominees. Sure, unified opposition may not have prevented either of them from getting confirmed when Kamala Harris can simply break a 50-50 tie, but the message sent to the American public when nominees like this are confirmed with significant bipartisan support is that they are good candidates who represent the mainstream of America.
Oh sure, Neera Tanden’s nomination went down in flames, but that’s not the point. Her nomination was doomed because not enough Democrats were going to support her, not because Republican opposition made her too toxic to be confirmed.
Is this really that difficult for Republicans to understand? As I recently noted, if Biden’s controversial picks can be confirmed with a bipartisan majority, then Republicans are enabling the perception that Democrat nominees are more mainstream than Republican nominees.
Confirmation of Biden’s nominees, no matter how crazy they are, may be inevitable, but that doesn’t mean these radicals should get the consent of Republicans in the Senate.
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