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The problem is not so much that Marco Rubio is embracing Trump, but rather it is with those who mistook Marco Rubio for a transcendental figure instead of a politician. Rubio, a good and decent man, is a Republican politician loyal to the party that has put him on the national stage. Confronted by two evils, he chose the one affiliated with his party, just as Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, and so many others have. It is not that Trump is the lesser of two evils. It’s just his evil has an elephant for a mascot.
Part of the whole #NeverTrump phenomenon really was secretly #AlwaysRubio. When Rubio announced he was also #NeverTrump, that just built him up more with those who could stand no one else save Rubio. Now a lot of those people are heart broken while others, as much in a cult of personality with Rubio as some are with Trump, are finding ways to justify it. He is, they say, keeping his pledge.
For me, it does not really matter. Rubio is doing what he thinks he has to do or should do. I consider him a friend. I disagree with him. But he is no less a friend today than he was yesterday.
Of course this gets back to my piece from the other day on Republicans and Hitler. I have a harder and harder time being convinced the GOP would reject Hitler if Hitler were running against Hillary Clinton.
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My issue with Marco Rubio embracing Donald Trump really has little to do with Rubio personally and everything to do with the Republican Party. The party has given birth to the Trump phenomenon for campaigning that Barack Obama is a menace to the world, we must do everything to stop Obamacare, the President’s foreign policy is going to get us all killed, and Obama is anti-worker and hostile to capitalism. But then the party rolls over and refuses to fight.
Rubio’s embrace of Trump strikes me as that same pattern of behavior. He thinks all these terrible things about Trump, stands by them, but will embrace Trump because Trump is not Clinton. Not a single prominent Republican is willing to embrace Trump for who Trump is. They’ll only embrace him because he is not Clinton. That should tell them they have no real reason to embrace him.
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Marco Rubio did what he felt he had to do. I do not fault him or anyone else concluding Trump is the evil they can embrace and Clinton is not. It’s just that all the people doing this recognize Trump’s evil and won’t stand up to it. That’s unfortunate. But it is reflective of the age in which we live.
- Discussion
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