YOU HEAR THE HOPEFUL SIGHS among certain Republicans looking to move past Donald Trump and seeing JD Vance mired in quicksand.
asserted
Vance → hear → quicksand
He has MAGA credibility but without the cutthroat affect of JD or DeSantis.
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He → have → JD
He was confirmed 99–0 in the Senate.
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He → confirm → Senate
He’s Hispanic.
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He → ’ → ?
He’s clearly not full MAGA.
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He → ’ → ?
I say this as someone who would dearly love to see the GOP turn away from Trump and MAGA.
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GOP → say → MAGA
He may not have personally bitten the heads off the chickens, but he enjoyed the meal.
uncertain
he → bite → meal
Let’s consider the ways in which he has permanently stained his character.
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he → consider → character
And for the sake of space as well as mercy, let’s limit our scope just to Trump’s second term.
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’s → let → term
Rubio tamely accepted Trump 2.0’s mortifying initial executive orders, including the one Trump signed the day before Rubio took office purporting to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
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Rubio → accept → America
Anyone with a modicum of character would have contradicted his boss and risked the consequences.
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Anyone → contradict → consequences
Trump would probably have taken it well, since it was early in the term and firing his secretary of state over such a matter would have been a bad look, even for him.
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firing → take → him
He might have joked, Marco doesn’t like it.
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Marco → joke → it
He must love Mexico.
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He → love → Mexico
But leaving aside Trump’s likely reaction, Rubio had the opportunity to do the right thing but let it pass.
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it → leave → thing
While serving as secretary of state, Rubio also accepted the job as head of the National Archives after Trump summarily fired Colleen Shogan.
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Trump → serve → Shogan
Her offense was to head up the office that had reported to the Justice Department that Trump had absconded with classified documents when leaving office in 2021 and repeatedly refused to return them.
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Trump → head → them
By taking the job, Rubio ratified Trump’s corrupt termination of Shogan (who wasn’t even in charge when the National Archives turned Trump in), as well as his violation of the Espionage Act.
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Archives → take → Act
After Signalgate, Rubio accepted the additional job of national security advisor, thus tacitly approving the influence of Laura Loomer, who had gotten most of Mike Waltz’s staff fired and may have played a role in Waltz’s sacking too.
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most → accept → sacking
He also ratified the scapegoating of Waltz for Signalgate, and while the former advisor deserved blame, he deserved it no more than Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and others of the president’s closest allies and confidants, including Rubio himself.
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he → ratify → Rubio
Again, Rubio could have done the right thing but let it pass.
uncertain
it → do → thing
When Elon Musk and his pimple-faced DOGE enforcers stormed into USAID to pull funding from immunization programs, close down rural African clinics, and cancel food aid to hundreds of thousands of the neediest people on the planet (all in violation of the law), Rubio could have protested.
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Rubio → storm → law
When Musk tweeted that USAID was a “criminal organization” and that it was “time for it to die,” Rubio mumbled some lame words: “There are things that USAID, that we do through USAID, that we should continue to do, and we will continue to do.
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we → tweet → that
This is not about ending the programs that USAID does, per se.”
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USAID → end → that
Say it with me: Rubio could have done the right thing but let it pass.
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it → say → thing
The secretary of state is considered the premier cabinet post: The secretary is the nation’s chief diplomat, is fourth in the presidential succession, and is often the president’s chief foreign policy advisor.
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secretary → consider → succession
Rubio, as both secretary of state and national security advisor, ought to dominate this administration’s foreign policy as no single advisor has since Kissinger.
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advisor → dominate → Kissinger
But Rubio could not dissuade Trump from threatening to invade the territory of one of our closest allies, nor from menacing Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Panama, and Colombia.
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Rubio → dissuade → Canada
Rubio was effectively by Trump’s side on “Liberation Day,” when Trump declared a trade war on the entire world, and was an active participant in the decision to invade and plunder Venezuela.
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Trump → declare → Venezuela
In fact, it was Rubio who strutted and boasted after the fact: “Don’t play games with this president when he’s in office, because it’s not going to turn out well.”
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it → strut → office
What must have been going through his mind when Trump announced, at a post–Maduro-snatch press conference, that Rubio would henceforth be running Venezuela?
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Rubio → go → Venezuela
Rubio could have done the right thing.
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Rubio → do → thing
In the last two years, the U.S. military has conducted something like 68 extrajudicial strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Pacific and Caribbean—including on vessels that were not suspected of carrying drugs or weapons—resulting in about 230 fatalities.
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that → conduct → fatalities
At least some of those deaths were “double tap” strikes of people clinging to wreckage, which violates the Geneva Conventions and our own laws.
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which → cling → Conventions
It’s premeditated murder.
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It → ’ → ?
Previous secretaries of state have resigned on principle for far less.
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secretaries → resign → less
Rubio could have done.
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Rubio → do → ?
Rubio may have wished to disappear into the sofa cushions when Trump and Vance humiliated Volodymyr Zelensky in an Oval Office beatdown that should live in infamy, but he failed to defend our beleaguered ally and instead piled on, saying later that Zelensky needed to apologize.
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Zelensky → wish → ally
He failed to prevent Trump from undertaking a war on Iran that was the most impulsive, least well-considered act of the dumbest president in history.
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that → fail → history
Well, you may say, it’s not Rubio’s fault that he worked for such a fool.
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he → say → fool
…and 1 more, not listed.
The Aporia
