Sinking To A New Low To Defend The Indefensible
For a man who "aspires" to be President someday, Marco Rubio sure has a frightening way of twisting that whole "Democracy" thing.
From Think Progress:
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is asking supporters of his Reclaim America PAC to support beleaguered Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) for voting down a bipartisan amendment extending background checks for gun purchases.
Ayotte is the Senator who, after voting against background checks, saw her approval ratings do a nosedive. Having tanked in the polls, she now claims she supports, and in fact voted for background checks. She's so desperate to have constituents believe this that she penned an op-ed at the Bedford Patch, opening with this statement:
I want to set the record straight: I support effective background checks and in fact voted recently to improve the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
By "setting the record straight," Ayotte is in fact saying that as long as you ignore her voting record, don't read the fine print on what she actually voted for, and redefine what a background check actually is, then sure, she voted "for background checks." The kind of background checks that are easier to pass. Because that's what the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), and Amendment, would have done.
Rubio of course knows this, and while he's not all that sharp in some departments, he knows how to grift. So if he can cash in on ignorance and score political points at the same time, what's not to love? "Freedom" at any price is Rubio's cash cow, and his selling of it has little to do with actual Democracy, or common sense.
This is his argument in support of Ayotte:
Liberals just can’t get over the fact that their most recent attempt to restrict our Second Amendment rights was defeated soundly by the American people.
Whether Rubio can read, or chooses not to, is beside the point here. It's not "liberals" that can't get over the background checks that failed, which in no way would have restricted Rubio's beloved Second Amendment rights. It's the 91% of all "the people" regardless of party affiliation who favored those very same background checks that won't easily get over the fact that Rubio and his "freedom loving" colleagues voted against their will. It wasn't "defeated soundly by the American people," it was defeated by 46 NRA backed Senators, several of which are now seeing their poll numbers plummet. Go figure. If "the people" had soundly defeated it, the NRA would have no need to spend $250,000 to support Ayotte now, and Rubio would have no reason to grift anew. And yet, here he is waving a petition in the face of the gullible as he hands them a pen to sign it with, and while they're at, another check. "Reclaim America" indeed.
No, for the sake of this particular argument, these are a few of the only people that matter in Rubio's world right now. The people who have vowed to break the law by marching into Washington armed on the Fourth of July, and daring any authorities to enforce that law against openly carrying loaded weapons in the subtlest way possible. Nothing says "subtle" like knowingly break the law, then claiming enforcement of that law means "the government chooses to make it violent."
Beyond that, apparently anyone who doesn't fit into Rubio's minority mold is a "liberal," and I know more than a few Republicans who would be surprised to hear it. (Even if you're of the minority Rubio is using as a political stepladder, no Democrats or liberals need apply.)
Speaking as a "liberal" I would be the first to stand up for, and support anyone, Republican or Democrat, who would be willing do what all of "the people" want, not just the ones who Rubio defines as "Americans." The majority of Americans do, but they have no representation in Marco's world, and he's not being subtle in pointing that out. For those who still need a little convincing, he and Ayotte have to grift their way around reality to get where they want to go. Unfortunately the dishonesty is catching up with them, and their desperation is showing.
Obtaining power by propaganda and force rarely bodes well, but then isn't that the whole idea that Rubio has propped up his history and political ambitions with?
