This author and blogger is fully aware of the pressures brought on by the feeling of “party loyalty”, as that is the nature of politics.
But the idea that Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, who has often demonstrated a sense of independence and sincere conviction, would allow herself to vote for the Trump “Big And Beautiful” Budget bill, just because a few details favored her home state, is a sign of the true disaster the nation is facing in 2025 from Trump authoritarianism.
Murkowski made it clear she did not like the details of the bill in broad terms, so why did she lower herself to gain an image of being weak, unprincipled, and afraid of Trump?
If we cannot count on even Lisa Murkowski, the “last great hope” of mainstream Republicanism in the past ten years, to show courage and determination, then it leaves us with a feeling of hopelessness!
After all, her colleague, Susan Collins of Maine, who sometimes shows weakness and indecisiveness, came through in opposing this bill, so why could not the two women, who generally represent the little bit of decency left in the national Republican Party in Congress, team together and show they are jointly “profiles in courage”?
The hope is that the House of Representatives will reject the Senate bill, and will change it dramatically, and maybe then, Murkowski can join Collins and a few others, and stop this disgraceful, outrageous legislation dead in its tracks, with the help of a few House members, most notably Don Bacon of Nebraska, who is not running for reelection, and represents one of a few House districts won by Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, alongside Bacon’s victories.