Support Ruben Gallego Over Kyrsten Sinema

The Honorable Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) has announced that he is going up against Senator Kyrsten Sinema, ersatz Democratic Senator turned Independent, of Arizona, giving up a safe seat in the House of Representatives in order to do so.

Gallego is the real deal, a Harvard graduate, Marine Corps veteran (Iraq), a true working-class hero. He’s also a real vote-getter, never scoring less than 70% of the ballots in four successive outings. A progressive Democrat, he walks the talk.

Kyrsten Sinema’s reaction to Gallego’s announcement: If you run a Democratic candidate against me in 2024, you will split the Democratic vote and elect a Republican to my seat.

This is, unfortunately, quite true…but it doesn’t really matter because, between them, Kyrsten Sinema and West Virginia’s Joe Manchin have been hamstringing the Biden administration since Day One of the Biden Administration. Sinema’s presence in the Senate is what allows Manchin to blackmail the Biden Administration into making compromises with him to get important bills passed.

Sinema is a Republican in all the ways that count because she can’t be counted upon to stand up to the Republicans in the Senate.

Whenever either House of Congress is evenly divided, it gives the outliers in the majority party the ability to dictate policy to their party. Because the outliers are always either at the extreme right or the extreme left of their party, they always advocate for measures that are anathematic to the majority of their own party.

That’s what Sinema and Manchin have done. Both senators have relied upon the weakness of the Democratic majority in the Senate to work their will upon the Senate and the country.

It is time for this to stop. Sinema must be ousted from Senate because Arizona because a win in Arizona is an absolute necessity if the Democrats what to hold onto the Senate. (Manchin has to go, too, but he hasn’t left the party yet, making it difficult for Democrats to challenge him in the primaries. You don’t challenge an incumbent senator from your own party when your party is on the ropes.)

It is absolutely essential for the Democrats to hold onto the Senate because, in the event that the Democrats lose the White House in 2024, the United States Senate will be the last bulwark against the fascist wave that is lapping at our shores.