On Meet the Press this morning, Sen. Tim Kaine appeared with far-right-Republican Sen. Rand Paul and had the following to say about bipartisanship. See my comment, following the Qs and As (in green/bold):
- Kristen Welker: “This is a conversation about bipartisanship. Both of you have at various points crossed the aisle and voted with the other party. Senator Kaine, you recently drew criticism from Democrats when you joined Republicans to keep the government funded back in November. Do you think more members of your party need to be willing to cross the aisle to work in a bipartisan fashion in order to break through the partisan gridlock that quite frankly is frustrating to so many people across the country?” [This framing is ridiculous; I mean, would the Kristin Welker equivalent in 1934 Germany be saying, “Do you think more members of your party need to be willing to cross the aisle to work in a bipartisan fashion [with the Nazis] in order to break through the partisan gridlock that quite frankly is frustrating to so many people across the country?” Because, the fact is, the Trump/MAGA Republican Party is a far-right extremist party by pretty much any metric, one that is hostile to democracy, inclined against our allies and towards our adversaries – Putin, etc., contemptuous of the rule of law and civil liberties, etc. And yet Welker frames all of this as “partisan gridlock” that’s “frustrating to so many people across the country?” Just total shit for brains.]
- Sen. Tim Kaine: “Let me just say, absolutely, I came up in a political culture in Virginia where I was a governor with two Republican houses. And if I wasn’t able to find common ground, I would get nothing done. And so that that is something that I work hard to do. And I will just give credit to Senator Paul. He’s he’s the same way. We’ve been good partners on tariffs, good partners on war powers and on other issues. And so we do need to do more. And if I could give some advice to American just voters, if you want to see more work across the aisle, every time you meet an elected official, no matter what party they are, ask them this question, ‘hey, tell me about something you’re doing with somebody on the other side of the aisle.’ I think a lot of our colleagues don’t hear that encouragement from their voters. And if they heard it over and over again, you’d probably get more of it.” [This is wrong in almost every way. And not just wrong in a minor way, but fundamentally misguided, inaccurate, etc. For starters, of course, it’s a very bad comparison between the Virginia Republicans back in 2006-2009 and the Trumpified/MAGA Republican Party today. Because in 2006-2009, there were still a few sane, “moderate” Republicans in the State Senate at least (e.g., Russ Potts, John Chichester, Jeannemarie Devolites-Davis, Emmett Hanger), so there was some room – although not much – for a Democratic governor like Tim Kaine to work with them on a few issues (also note that some of the things Kaine worked with Republicans on, like getting rid of the estate tax, were not good things at all). That isn’t really the case today, either in Virginia or in Congress, except in rare cases like with otherwise-faaaar-right Rand Paul on War Powers and tariffs. As for giving credit to Rand Paul for supposedly being willing to work across the aisle, that’s just false, again with the specific exceptions in Paul’s case being war powers and tariffs; overall, though, Paul has a lifetime progressive score of just 9.6%, so…not so much. Finally, the key at this point for American voters is to vote Democratic up and down the ballot, in every election, period – and to NEVER vote Republican, even if that Republican once in a blue moon works “across the aisle.”]
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