Unsolicited Advice to Sen. Donnelly

As anyone who pays attention to politics knows, Joe Donnelly is the Democratic Senior Senator from Indiana. He is also up for election in 2018 and has voted against three consecutive cabinet nominees of Donald Trump's: Betsy DeVos, Jeff Sessions, and Tom Price.

I would say that the choice on these votes is fairly easy for anyone in the mainstream of the national Democratic Party. DeVoss represents the privatization of education, something liberals have opposed for generations; Price represents the immediate repeal of the Affordable Care Act and the overriding notion of healthcare as a profit center, again something that liberals have opposed since the passage of the ACA or, for the more historically minded, since the Great Society and perhaps the new deal; Sessions favors investigation of voter fraud over civil rights enforcement and is against reforming both our privatized for-profit prison system and the war on (some people who use some) drugs, among other issue positions he holds. Whether these things are good or bad, they are against the liberal worldview.

My advice to Sen. Donnelly is thus: keep voting against Trump's picks that violate your conscience.

First, there is no amount of Trump a$$kissing that you can do that will make Indiana Republicans come out and vote for you. It didn't work for Evan Bayh or John Gregg in the end; it won't work for you. The only thing you could do by "going along to get along" with this stuff is alienate your own base, who will come to see you as another milquetoast Lieberman liberal, and a piece of ownership when this dumpster fire of an administration implodes.

Second, neither you nor I have any idea whether there will be a backlash against this crew of incompetents. If there is a backlash, better to be on the right side of history. If there's not, your reelection hopes are doomed regardless.

Finally, the Supreme Court.

Filibuster.

Make Mitch McConnell be the one who abolishes the filibuster on Supreme Court nominees. He has shown that he is perfectly willing to use procedural obstruction against any democratic president, as evidenced by the refusal to allow Merrick Garland a hearing. This has irreparably damaged the Supreme Court as an institution allegedly above politics.

No More.

It is now, thanks to Sen. Jowls McConnell, every bit as political as any other American institution of governance. It is a failure of conscience to refuse to play hardball when those with whom you vehemently disagree play nothing but.

Neil Gorsuch deserves to be filibustered. He likewise deserves to have an asterisk next to his name forever, as the seat was stolen from Barack Obama by Mitch McConnell and handed to Donald Trump and Neil Gorsuch.