In an action that was inconceivable before the 2018 election, Republican Senators voted unanimously today, along about half the Democratic caucus, to oppose Trump administration plans to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan and Syria.
The amendment was drafted by Mitch McConnell – so this was not some rump action from an obscure party of the Republican caucus.
This demonstrates the rough political patch Trump has steered himself into with the government shutdown and his continued promotion of the unpopular border wall plan, driving his approval ratings to points as low as they have been in his Presidency. Senate Republicans, who face a very difficult electoral map in November 2020 (the mirror opposite of the easy pickings they had this past November) and seeing their own poll ratings sag, find themselves putting some space between themselves the President they supported wholeheartedly during his first two years in office.
From a Trump supporter perspective, this probably is just the establishment showing their disdain for the upstart Trump, reaffirming that Trump really was the right main to shake things up in Washington.
I find it funny that when Trump announced the Syrian withdrawal and some people on this forum (myself included) questioned his wisdom, Trump supporters accused us of supporting endless war. The 23 votes against military continuation all came from Democrats.
My question is, does it matter to the Trump presidency that if along with a Democratic House elected on the promise of counterbalancing the Trump presidency, he now faces a Republican Senate that is willing to publicly question him? One senses that to keep the Republicans on his side, Trump would need to make some compromises: on military isolationism; on deferring the wall (no shutdown; an how can he declare a National Emergency when the intelligence services see no threat at all). Should Trump compromise with his own party or is he better off going it alone (of with just his advisors on FOX News at his side)?
With all the other breaking news happening every day and every hour on the hour, no one is going to notice this “rebuke”, making it safe for Senate Republicans to vote for it.
Glad to see they have now had spine implant surgery, albeit a day late and a dollar short. Dumpster Donnie has already tarnished the Republican brand with a stench that may not leave for decades.
That’s an excellent question! From what I read in the press, Senate Republicans do NOT want another shutdown and they know that wall funding has no chance of getting Democratic support… What Senate Republicans appear to want (appear… I’m not in their meetings) is to end the immigration debate because they cannot satisfy the right-wing base and the issue is bleeding support away from the President and the Republican Party.
What we can see clearly is that a whole set of Republican voices who were cheerleading for Trump or scowling quietly while Jeff Flake criticized him are not try to create records of how they opposed Trump… at least some of the time.
This may be heretical to say, but given the globalist, interventionist traditions of the Republican Party isn’t Trump the Republican In Name Only or has he made the party over in his own image?
But the number of Republican Senators making statements disagreeing with the President on a variety of subjects has spiked recently. You version means that after absolute agreement for two years on this one matter 52 Republican Senators suddenly found themselves disagreeing with the President. These are politicians creating white space… and remember these are the same Republicans endorsing military presence who refused to ever consider any request from Barack Obama for authorization of military presence when he was President. Politics over principle on this one… all the way.
Do you have a history documenting this “spike” in disagreements and what they were about, and that there were none for two years?
White space? What white space are they creating?
Which Senators didn’t consider which requests from Obama for which military presence and what does that have to do with believing we should not pull out of Afghanistan and Syria?
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(which, coincidentally, has a lot of debt to those in a foreign nation which shall not be named. Nope, not going to mention Russia. I won’t do it. Oops, I just did)
Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Paul Ryan refused to ever bring up Obama’s Status of Force requests for debate. Obama was forced to operate under congressional approvals given to the Bush Administration a decade before. Particularly with regard to Syria, it was obvious that the Republicans were absolutely unwilling to take responsibility for American policy in that difficult situation.
Go over the papers for the past two weeks, almost every day there is a Republican Senator disagreeing with Trump about immigration, about intelligence, about Syria, about climate. One issues people in a politics forum are paying attention to the news.
Yeah… this rebuke carries as much weight as the parent engrossed in the cellphone saying nonchalantly “donny stop doing that” as little donny runs around rhe store knocking everything off the shelves…
