The transition to Joe Biden’s incoming administration was inevitable, so it’s moving by order of the current president. But outside of that, Democrats and liberals looking for assistance should look to anyone other than Senate Republicans.
Fred Hiatt, a liberal editor at the Washington Post, moaned Sunday that Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida was “sour” and “graceless” in saying that Biden’s Cabinet nominations so far “will be polite & orderly caretakers of America’s decline.” Rubio had added in the tweet that he had “no interest in returning to the ‘normal’ that left us dependent on China.”
What Rubio said is a matter of opinion and probably true. His colleagues Josh Hawley of Missouri and Tom Cotton of Arkansas have been similarly critical of Biden’s picks because, well, that’s what it means to be part of the opposing party of the one that controls the White House. You broadly oppose the direction that it’s taking us and many of its specific choices. (Note, by the way, that this is not the same thing as being the “resistance,” which is less about competing ideas and more about waging an existential battle.)
Hiatt wrote nonetheless that there’s “something particularly galling about this instant pivot to attack mode from senators who couldn’t even bring themselves to acknowledge the results of the election — who have stood by or cheered as President Trump has attempted to overturn those results.”
No, the gall is in anyone who would actually expect leading Republicans to welcome the new White House with open arms. Democrats in the last four years have boycotted hearings and floor votes. They’ve held “sit-ins” to disrupt normal congressional business. They even doggedly pursued a Supreme Court nominee to answer whether he drank beer and got drunk with friends in high school!
The election is behind us, but history didn’t start today and memories aren’t that short. The new White House occupant and his Cabinet picks should expect to receive the same courtesy, grace, and respect from Republicans that Democrats showed to Trump.
