And off to the state GOP doghouse they go for daring to buck former President Trump.
Shortly after voting to convict the former president for the second time on Saturday after the deadly Capitol insurrection last month, Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) have already found themselves in hot water with Republicans in their respective home states.
Too many rats, too small a cage, too little food.
Please proceed.
Interesting we both used animal behavior to describe R’s.
How dare they do their jobs unbiased!
And that is why the rest of the hen house Republican Senators did not vote to convict. They were afraid of their local Republican organizations that would censure now and primary them later. This goes against the GOP’s Primary Directive to get reelected at any cost. Nobody said the defendant was innocent.
Burr is retiring instead of running next year. So he is in the same category as Toomey on this. Basically he doesn’t have to get a F**k what the state GOP wants to do; he won’t be seeking office in North Carolina again.
And on that point, Portman’s vote was the height of cowardice. He also is retiring, but still can’t bring himself to stand up to Trump.
Cassidy is the one facing the largest potential consequences for his vote. And I was somewhat surprised when he started forecasting that he would vote to convict, and then actually did.
But overall, its about where I expected it would end up. North of 50, south of 60, and far short of 2/3. Even if you optimistically counted Portman, and maybe added a couple more of “persuadables” to join Cassidy, the whip count was never close to 2/3
In a cultish authoritarian movement, dissent is verboten.
There’ve been worse episodes in history, God knows. But this huge swathe of the population just wallowing in stupidity and hypocrisy is really quite a sight to see. Right-thinking people have their work cut out for them, but I guess they always did. Chin up, I suppose.
Brings a little eye-watering of pride to know so many Americans are willing to trade democracy for a cult. Inspiring.
The Republican Party
Fealty to a Traitor
It’s Trumps party now
No Policy , No tolerance for discussion
and punish those who dare express a different opinion
That’s all you need to know
Big tent indeed
And this is surprising just how? Seriously, for the last three years I’ve been reading over and over about how Trump was placing his cultists in the state parties to ensure their loyalty. And now we’re finding out WHY he was doing this. Anyone not toeing the party line will be canceled.
Mitch doesn’t have a republican party any longer. He’s a small minority in the Trump party. And he’s about to discover that the hard way. I fully expect an internal insurrection in the GQP to topple Mitch for disloyalty. All they need are 25 votes in their caucus to replace him.
I’m surprised Goose-stepping isn’t a mandatory method of walking
The Japanese have a saying, “The nail that sticks up is hammered down.” I was laughing about this once with a business coach. People went through a phase that I suppose persists where they claimed to value innovative, “outside of the box” thinking. “No they don’t,” she said, “They want you inside the box with top nailed down.” There’s almost always a price to be paid for true non-conformity.
I could write books. 
Burr voting that the trial was unconstitutional and then voting to convict is not the best way to go.
At least Cassidy was consistent.
The GOP no longer believes in democracy.
I’ll take the “con” side of that question. I don’t think there are 25 senators who’ll oppose Mitch. I doubt Trump has more than three or four actual supporters in the Senate.
They never did.
"Burr and Cassidy were one of seven Republicans … " look tpm, I know the Rethug party is all cookie cutter white people, but I suspect that Burr and Cassidy are two distinct meat bags, casing similarity notwithstanding