Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) took to the Senate floor on Thursday and delivered a speech that could be described as having a little something for everyone. There was, however, one little something that was much bigger than all the rest: her steadfast resolve about not getting rid of the filibuster.
Knowing what the crux of this speech was going to mean for the future of the Republic, I really wanted to love it. Sinema is my senator, and so far has been an ongoing surprise for conservatives here in the Grand Canyon State. She seems to grasp the true purple nature of the state she represents and has thus far been unwilling to throw herself off of the leftist cliff that the rest of her party has already done the lemming march over.
Although she’s on board with almost all of the Democratic agenda, Sinema has refused to budge on the filibuster issue. It’s not a position that has been easy for her to maintain but she’s proven to be tough.
Sinema’s speech began with some brilliant lines about the deep division in American politics. She talked about our tendency to view our political opposites as “the other,” then said, “It’s more common today to demonize someone who thinks differently than us rather than to seek to understand their views.”
As someone who makes a living as a verbal bomb-throwing political opinion writer, I know that there is plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the aisle. However, as a conservative in political media — as well as the entertainment industry — I know full well that the blame scale tips heavily to the left.
In fact, it’s the Democrats and progressives who’ve demonized and harassed Sinema the most in recent months.
The unfortunate part of Sinema’s speech was that she trotted out a host of talking points from the Democrats’ false narrative about election integrity. This was no doubt done to mitigate the blowback from within her own party but, as a friend of mine who works in the Senate pointed out, it was quite unnecessary. If she’d merely talked about keeping the filibuster in place to prevent further divide the speech would have been positively epic.
However, decrying the tendency to demonize our opponents while trotting out the Dem rhetoric about election integrity laws is trying to have it both ways. Even when they aren’t explicitly saying it, all of the Democrats’ talking points about recent election integrity laws are code for “Republicans are racists.” Sinema really dropped the ball on this.
Still, I’m holding out some hope that the sheer awfulness of the way her own party treats her will eventually lead Sinema to evolve on some issues.
While the tired Dem “blah blah” about voting rights was unneeded and incorrect, some of the remarks in the beginning were fantastic. Here’s the whole speech:
Sinema Delivers Senate Floor Remarks on Voting Rights, America's Divisions, and the U.S. Senate https://t.co/72zAFWDPjO
— Kyrsten Sinema (@SenatorSinema) January 13, 2022
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