{"id":100378,"date":"2026-04-18T01:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T05:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=100378"},"modified":"2026-04-17T10:20:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T14:20:02","slug":"qotd-democratic-versus-republican-senators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2026\/04\/18\/qotd-democratic-versus-republican-senators\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Democratic versus Republican Senators"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left; padding: 0px 25px 10px 0px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>A few years ago, Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema provoked the rage of progressive activists by occasionally having an independent thought, <a href=\"https:\/\/rollcall.com\/2023\/03\/24\/2022-vote-studies-division-hit-new-high-in-senate-fell-in-house\/\" target=\"_blank\">voting with her caucus<\/a> on &#8220;party unity votes&#8221; only 96% of the time. Senator Joe Manchin caused comparable disgust by joining his party in those votes only 92% of the time. Sinema and Manchin were EVIL MONSTERS, and progressive activists showed up at their public events to scream at them.<\/p>\n<p>Sinema eventually left the Democratic Party, declaring herself an independent, because a disgusting heretic couldn&#8217;t remain in a party that she only agreed with 96% of the time. Burn the witch, Democrats explained.<\/p>\n<p>The descent of the Democratic Party into a state of increasingly obvious group psychosis is a product of the absence of internal debate, and of the degree to which Democratic legislators wholeheartedly believe that their job is to hold up their hands in unison whenever their party leaders tell them to. They can&#8217;t talk themselves out of their madness \u2014 they don&#8217;t know how. They don&#8217;t have the cultural habit of thought. Watch someone like Chris Murphy speak, and ask yourself if there&#8217;s a <em>person<\/em> inside there. I find myself unable to say yes to that question. He will read anything that is put on that teleprompter, and I mean an-y-th-ing.<\/p>\n<p>By comparison, the Republican legislative habit of wandering around like the residents of a feline daycare center is a strength, and the presence of independent thought in the GOP&#8217;s legislative caucuses makes the party relatively sane. The presence of a Rand Paul, refusing to get on board, is more a good thing than a bad thing. The culture of debate is healthier than the behavior of the North Korean legislature or Tina Smith, soulless human robots.<\/p>\n<p>Chris Bray, <a href=\"https:\/\/chrisbray.substack.com\/p\/the-greatest-republican-strength\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;The Greatest Republican Strength is the Greatest Republican Weakness, Again&#8221;, <em>Tell Me How This Ends<\/em><\/a>, 2026-01-15.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few years ago, Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema provoked the rage of progressive activists by occasionally having an independent thought, voting with her caucus on &#8220;party unity votes&#8221; only 96% of the time. Senator Joe Manchin caused comparable disgust by joining his party in those votes only 92% of the time. Sinema and Manchin were [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[28,53,41,13],"tags":[768,517,553],"class_list":["post-100378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-politics","category-quotations","category-usa","tag-democrat","tag-republican","tag-senate"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-q70","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100378"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101949,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100378\/revisions\/101949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}