Using censure to slap someone down for being too moderate
Usually when Democrats run as moderates they end up voting like good little leftists, except for votes that don’t matter.
Democrat Senator Krysten Sinema of Arizona, who won a close election in 2016, ran as a moderate. I haven’t followed all the ins and outs (or, to be honest, any of the ins and outs) of her actual voting record, but it appears that every now and then she really has voted as a moderate.
Which has earned her this:
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) is facing a censure vote from the Progressive Caucus of the Arizona Democratic Party, due to her support for some of President Donald Trump’s nominees…
The resolution, which will be considered by the Democratic state committeemen during the Arizona Democratic Party’s quarterly meeting Saturday, cites a pair of Sinema’s confirmation votes. They did not support her confirmation votes for William Barr as U.S. attorney general and for David Bernhardt as secretary of the interior. They were also annoyed by her resistance to join Democrats in trying to reinstate “net neutrality” rules.
I don’t believe this will pass the full Arizona Democratic Party; the group pushing this is the Progressive Caucus. In other words, the leftist branch. But the leftist branch is now wagging the dog on the national level of the Democratic Party, so perhaps that’s true in Arizona, as well, and perhaps it will pass. “Progressives” don’t believe in or tolerate disagreement or compromise of any sort, however small. It’s groupthink and goodthink all the way.
Always someone else for the Democrats to destroy.
Always someone else to take down.
All in the name of ideological purity.
Nope, no shortage….
Death to traitors!!! (AKA those who think differently; those who are relatively sane; those who are pragmatic; those who have concluded that they were elected to actually govern.)
This is weaksauce.
I mean, from the dawn of Movement Conservatism to the Tea Party to now whateverthehell this is, you can find Right Wingers purging moderates from their party.
But that’s what you’re supposed to do. The party stands for something. It’s not an open forum. Moderates just want to draw the line someplace else.
Oh Manju, Manju.
So much effort on your part to so little avail.
Do you understand the difference between challenging someone politically, trying to defeat them in a primary for instance, or speaking out in disagreement with them—and formally censuring them for simply voting one way or another in their legislative capacity?
She’s a yesteryear, “classical” progressive who has not liberalized, thus moderate in principle.
But that’s what you’re supposed to do. The party stands for something. It’s not an open forum. Moderates just want to draw the line someplace else.
Their complaint includes on its bill that she didn’t vote to block a pair of cabinet appointments. There have been a number of cabinet nominees withdrawn over the years consequent to complaints about a history with harboring or employing illegal aliens (Zoe Baird, Kimba Wood, Linda Chavez, Bernard Kerik), allegedly running pay-to-play schemes (Bill Richardson), and miscellaneous reasons. There’ve only been two cases in the post-war period where a nominee was blocked by a Senate floor vote, and in one case (that of John Tower), the issue at stake was his drinking habits (which the Senators knew something about from personal observation). They wanted Sinema to do something that’s hardly ever done.
Of course, Manju doesn’t understand the difference. And no one else who posts here is the least bit surprised.
Actually, I’m happy to see the democrat party censure Sen. Sinema.
“that’s what you’re supposed to do. The party stands for something.” manju
That’s true and rather than standing for our founding principles, the democrat party is revealing itself to now stand for; the unrestricted invasion of aliens, making American taxpayers pay benefits to those invaders that exceed the benefits our veterans receive, working toward the economic collapse of America, racism, destroying the lives of political opponents, gutting the 1st and 2nd amendments and INFANTICIDE.
To paraphrase Napoleon, “Never interfere with an enemy who is committed to a fatal mistake.”
And yes manju, you are as much an enemy of liberty as ever the British Tories in 1776 were…
AZ is far from a certain blue state. She has to attract a lot of centrist voters. You could argue from a sufficiently Machiavellian perspective that getting her party’s loons to censure her will assure her re-election – a move so useful and so powerful that she probably requested them to do it.
Please, PLEASE, Br’er Bear. PLEASE don’ thow me into the briar patch.
Simon Kenton on September 18, 2019 at 10:05 pm said:
…getting her party’s loons to censure her will assure her re-election
* * *
Or maybe get the voters to pull the GOP lever instead?
Sinema is to Democrats as Collins is to Republicans.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/congress-trump-score/
Simon Kenton:
Good point.
My God! They’re going to formally express their disapproval?
Will they be in robes, use a gavel, and wear wigs and everything? That is bad.
Manju:
I guess your answer would be “No, I really don’t understand.”
Or you just pretend not to understand.
Yes, its a chilling watershed moment for Dems.
I’m sure after the AZ GOP censured Senator McCain you all wrung your hands about your party’s descent into Orwellian Groupthink.
Maybe it’s the heat….
http://archive.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20140125arizona-republican-party-mccain-censure-gop.html
Sinema is to Democrats as Collins is to Republicans.
Doubt it. Collins is a programmatic and ideological temporizer who, over a period of > two decades, has established herself as the member of the Senate Republican caucus most troublesome to party whips. She doesn’t have a liberal voting record by any means, and Democrats whose voting record bears any resemblance to hers are few . Per the American Conservative Union, Collins’ disposition used to be the mode in the Senate Republican caucus and was favored by Hugh Scott, the Republican floor leader from 1969 to 1977. Nowadays, she’s in the tail of the bell curve with a few other Republicans, among them Sleaza Murkowski (R – Her Daddy), Mark Kirk (Illinois, now gone), John Hoeven (North Dakota, low profile), and Kelly Ayotte (Little Miss Janusface of New Hampshire, voted out as well). John McCain had a habit of throwing a spanner into the works at inopportune times, but his voting record was normal-range for a Republican senator.
It’s too early to tell what Sinema’s voting record’s gonna look like, but there’s currently no Democrat in the Senate as out of step with the caucus as Collins is with hers, and two of the three dissenting Democrats sitting in the last Congress (Nelson, Manchin, Donnelly) were ejected by voters (both in favor of Republicans).
My God! They’re going to formally express their disapproval?
You’re either playing dumb or it’s not an act. You ‘censure’ someone for misconduct, not because you disagree on some ancillary matter.
I think Manju is right — many Reps, including me, were happy the AZ GOP censured McCain. For his votes, despite his consistent “good GOP” record of total votes.
McCain’s offenses cited in the resolution included working on comprehensive immigration reform, or “amnesty,” and not going along with last year’s conservative strategy to “defund” President Obama’s signature health-care law.
The GOP was against amnesty, and against the health-care law. I own that. Most Trump-supporters and Rep voters are like that — and are accurately described that way in the press. McCain, in campaigning as being against Obama’s health-care, but then voting to keep it, violated the Rep trust. (Tho I think the censure came before that nearly final vote of his).
Today, the Democrats are de facto against any and all Republicans, and whenever they can, they vote against them. Few Dems or Dem voters will agree with that “truth”. They will, as with Kavanaugh, believe in evidence-free accusations against the character of a Rep, rather than admit they hate all Reps.
This public censure of a moderate Dem is more public, and more honest, that the Democratic Party is against virtually all Republicans, and does not support them, will not vote for them, and will censure any Dem who tries to judge a Rep as an individual instead of merely judging their group membership as Rep.
The Dems are terrible BECAUSE they think group membership is more important than ML King’s individual “character”. This group/tribal sickness is deadly to democracies, and to individual human rights. But the Dems increasingly favor it.
As famous Dem journalist George Packer is finding out with the “hate America” indoctrination his own kids are getting in NYC schools.
A censure vote from the progressive caucus, or by the whole party, really doesn’t mean a lot. In North Carolina, there’s a more effective move underway. Thom Tillis has a primary opponent who’s making considerable progress.
Barry Meislin on September 19, 2019 at 6:19 am said:
“The heat” …. ‘hehehe‘
Well, Senator Media Maverick Darling did it his way after all. He sabotaged his own party, back stabbed his former running mate, took great relish in doing it all, made sure everyone knew it, and then had his corpse borne out to the strains of that famous narcissist’s anthem of similar name My Way … I did it MY way … .Yeah, the same song Frank Sinatra claimed to have found embarrassing in retrospect.
Unfortunately there was not a Church of McCain for the national obsequies to be performed in, so they had to make do with an Episcopalian edifice which before the transformation of Episcopalianism into a lesbian earth cult, once sustained some identification with Christianity.
If there is an afterlife, and a God, I would suppose that Senator McCain same now as ever before, is warmly informing Him how it should be, and just where to get off on the next stop.
I think he is probably happy.
Are there mirrors in Hell, do they say?
“The Dems are terrible BECAUSE they think group membership is more important than ML King’s individual “character”. This group/tribal sickness is deadly to democracies, and to individual human rights. But the Dems increasingly favor it.” – Tom Grey
I am listening to a Jordan Peterson interview today in fits and starts between chores, and was impressed by his rationale for writing his first book, “Maps of Meaning.” IIRC He undertook an investigation of how and why people acquiesce in the atrocities of authoritarian regimes, most notably Nazis and Soviets, in order to understand the psychology of — my phrasing — why good people do bad things.
His goal was to learn to do just the opposite, so that, if the challenge came, he would not become one of those people. His opposition to the Canadian speech coercion law came out of that decision.
About 10 minutes in. The whole thing is worth watching, of course. He seems to pack more good sense into any given ten minutes of verbiage than anyone I know of. Lewis & Chesterton & and others certainly have as much good to impart, but they do it more liesurely, I think, even when speaking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6H2HmKDbZA
From the Aspen Ideas Festival, recorded Tuesday, June 26, 2018. Jordan Peterson, author of the best-selling 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, may be one of the most famous intellectuals in North America today. He also may be among the most misunderstood. His fans say that he’s saved their lives, and detractors say that he’s the gateway drug to the alt-right. Who is this psychologist-philosopher whom so many of us had never heard of two years ago, and what does he really believe?
Featuring Jordan Peterson in conversation with Bari Weiss. Hosted in the St. Regis Hotel Ballroom, Aspen, Colorado.
(Bari, to her credit, asked infrequent but interesting questions, and then just got out of his way.)
AD – manju isn’t “playing” dumb if you follow my drift. But think fool *and* knave. It fits so much of the left these days.
I think Manju is right — many Reps, including me, were happy the AZ GOP censured McCain.
McCain verbally attacked other Republicans (“wacko birds”), eventually sticking a shiv into Sarah Palin of all people. He also created trouble at inopportune times for no very defensible reason. In a dozen years of reading complaints about the man, I never saw someone complain that he cast a pro forma vote to confirm some random nominee to a position in the executive branch.
So, really, who was McCain working for?
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mccain-donors-flip-to-mark-kelly-over-republican-incumbent-in-key-arizona-senate-race