{"id":155,"date":"2025-08-04T14:19:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T18:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/?p=155"},"modified":"2025-08-04T21:59:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T01:59:20","slug":"the-swing-state-senators-more-worried-about-the-right-than-anyone-else","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbump.net\/o\/the-swing-state-senators-more-worried-about-the-right-than-anyone-else\/","title":{"rendered":"The swing-state senators more worried about the right than anyone else"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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(National Archives)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For what little good it does in the moment, it seems clear that history will not look kindly upon many of the decisions being made in Washington. President Trump will bear the brunt of that eventual opprobrium, but it’s fair to assume that his explicit and tacit allies will earn more than a few paragraphs themselves, whatever language these histories might be written in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s frustrating for Trump’s opponents is that this apparent inevitability seems to have only a limited effect on the decisions of those allies. There are some Republican legislators who’ve refused to confirm obviously unqualified nominees or unpopular legislation. But most haven’t, choosing instead to nestle in under the temporary shade provided by Trump’s umbrella of popularity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This may well be because they don’t think that there will<\/em> be some future analysis of the moment in which they are depicted on the wrong side of history. And they may be right. The longstanding idea that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice does seem significantly less predictive than it used to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But some legislators seem to understand that they are making decisions now that will color their legacies. Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has voted against three of Trump’s most-contentious nominees \u2014 Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth and Robert Kennedy \u2014 and declined to vote for the nomination of Jeanine Pirro. But he’s an outlier; a review of 10 contentious confirmation votes shows that nearly every Republican supported all 10. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was true from the least to the most conservative senators. The vast majority of the party caucus consistently sided with Trump’s picks. Of the 53 Republicans in the Senate, 43 of them voted for all 10 nominees. Another seven missed votes but voted yes on those they made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n