Another One Bites The Dust

Short and sweet from Axios:

Republican Sen. Roy Blunt will not seek re-election in 2022

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), widely seen as a member of the Republican establishment in Congress, will not run for re-election in 2022, he announced on Twitter Monday.

Why it matters: The 71-year-old senator is the No. 4 ranking Republican in the Senate, and the fifth GOP senator to announce he will not run for re-election in 2022 as the party faces questions about its post-Trump future.

The other GOP senators who have announced their retirement are:

• Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala., which Trump won in 2020 by +25.4%)
• Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio, Trump +8.1%)
• Sen. Richard Burr (N.C., Trump +1.3%)
• Sen. Pat Toomey (Pa., Biden +1.2%)

What to watch: Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) are also considering retiring in 2022.

Background: Blunt was first elected to the Senate in 2010, after serving in the House for 14 years and as Missouri secretary of state for eight. In addition to being a member of leadership as chair of the Republican Policy Committee, Blunt is the top Republican on the powerful Senate Rules Committee.

Trump continues to loom over the GOP like the Mad King wielding the sword of Damocles.

I get the feeling these Repubs would really like to consider themselves moderate, and they prob'ly know they've fucked up by allowing the party to go off the rails, but now they know they can't do much of anything but get out of the way and let the Democrats deal with it.

Which is another reason to treat these assholes with nothing but disdain.

If they had any real guts, they'd step up and say straight out that the GOP is fucked up, and that the best way to get it unfucked is to isolate the crazies and let e'm burn themselves out, which means we're all Democrats until there's nothing left of this GOP. 

We can't have a system where one party is trying to make shit work, while the other one refuses even to make an attempt to understand that we can't just hate our way out of our problems.

We have to start talking again about how we go about moving ourselves towards that more perfect union - in ways that don't include leaving people to die.

Cuz what we've got right here right now - this is all kinds of fucked up.

But they won't do that. Republicans can't even be trusted to tell us the truth about why they're throwing up their hands and quitting.

This