The three US military service secretaries went on the offensive against Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville over his ongoing hold on senior military nominations in an interview with CNN on Tuesday, saying he is aiding communist and autocratic regimes, and being used by adversaries like China against the US.
Rhetoric aside, it is chilling that a sitting Senator would take such a step and we should all be concerned about what this could lead to.
Today it’s Tuberville’s hold on nominations for non-military political reasons. Maybe tomorrow it’s the Armed Services committees treating these appointments and promotions like judicial nominations. All of a sudden, you effectively have de-facto political appointments for in-the-ranks military leadership, and U.S. politics is far scarier than it’s ever been.
Sure, I’m committing a slippery slope fallacy here, but given the track record of our political leaders to cause institutional decay with zero-sum game partisan politics, I don’t think it’s a stretch.
One side of the political aisle is well known for open obstruction. The other is not.
I think, given the fact that we are all living in the same era of American politics and that we are all in the comments section of a story about a Republican Senator, that it was obvious Republicans are the perpetrators I’m speaking of. Their behavior with regard to institutional security is obviously abhorrent.
I am a bit bothered by your reply though. And I do mean to operate in good faith here, but I am curious about whether my comment was unclear or were you hoping for “Democrat good” to be my reply?
No, not hoping for “Democrat good.” It’s probably just a matter of mild miscommunication/misunderstanding.
The only reference you make to a Republican Senator is naming him as today’s problem. Tomorrow’s problems are described neutrally. And the last line, especially the part I quoted above, can be read in a “bOtH sIDeS” kind of way. That’s the read I was responding to, and I apologize if I misunderstood.
I still think it’s worth saying. The major and pressing problem with politics in the US in 2023 is the Republican party. This is not to say that Democrats are immune from criticism. This is not saying anything about Democrats. It’s unfortunate that the construction of our elections force a two-party system. Perhaps the right wing wouldn’t be so crazy if we had ranked choice voting, full passage of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, better civics and US history education, etc, etc.
But here we are.
Let me clarify that I’m not trying to sound like an “enlightened centrist here,” I’m just trying to make the point that playing the finger-pointing game in relation to this story also contributes to the zero-sum-game politics that causes this institutional decay. There are no winners here, only losers.
I think it speaks more about our system that relied on having a 100% consensus in order to function efficiently. It was setup for failure.