Few Republicans are willing to publicly stand in front of the Donald Trump bandwagon as it speeds along toward the party’s nomination for a third run at the presidency. Many are too afraid of angering his passionate supporters and losing their next election.
They see opportunity in climbing aboard his wagon, even if they think the guy driving the horses through political badlands shoots first and never asks questions, or forgiveness. They stick with him, even if they think the wheels may fall off as he bounces through his self-made potholes.
They are afraid he will turn on them if they question his leadership, his crass and antagonistic style, his deceit and meanness.
Thankfully, Alaska’s senior senator, Lisa Murkowski, now in her 22nd year in Congress, is willing to speak her mind. Not that she is ever going to change Trump’s mind, but her honesty gives hope that someday more of her fellow Republicans will speak up, too.
The senator did not call Trump names, or insult his manliness, or question his attire, or make fun of his heritage or anything similar to the nasty, personal insults Trump throws at anyone who does not support his candidacy, Murkowski simply said, “I wish that as Republicans we had a nominee that I could get behind.”
“I certainly can’t get behind Trump,” she added in her comments to a CNN journalist March 24 in Washington, D.C.
The senator’s position is nothing new; she has spoken out against Trump since he instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol intended to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president.
Murkowski was one of seven Republican senators who voted to impeach Trump for his role in that shameful day.
“What happened on January 6 was … an effort by people who stormed the building in an effort to stop an election certification of an election. It can’t be defended,” she said in the CNN interview. Trump, however, not only defends the rioters as “patriots,” but talks of granting them pardons if he wins election in November.
Despite her lack of love for Trump, Murkowski is still a Republican, but an open-minded one, willing to put country before personality, the law before politics.
And just to clarify, she doesn’t think much of Biden repeating another term in the White House. “I’m very discouraged to see a rerun of the 2020 campaign between these two deeply flawed candidates,” she said in a written statement the day after her CNN interview.
She speaks her mind, honestly. That’s a rare quality in politics these days. Alaskans should be proud of her.
-- Wrangell Sentinel
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