The New York Times wasted valuable space recently on a puff piece for a narcissistic sociopath who has screwed over millions of people. No, I’m not talking about the Elizabeth Holmes profile, although that was pretty bad. I mean the Sunday Magazine feature on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of the Sinema Party: “Kyrsten Sinema’s Party Of One” (sounds like one of the many late ’90s knockoffs of “Sex and the City,” but this is one I don’t want to watch).
New York Times
Sinema spent most of her first term refusing to speak with the press or even her own constituents. (Although pro-Sinema ads have run on Facebook that appeared as if they were from imaginary publication The Desert Recap.) Now she’s started chasing down media outlets like they’re speeding ambulances. This is a blatant attempt to improve her public image, which is awful, but not even the most flattering Vanity Fair-style coverage can help you when you say crap like this:
During our second meeting, at a coffee shop in Southeast Washington in March, she was running five minutes behind. Her scheduler, she explained, had earlier calculated one of the day’s drives as 10 minutes when it was in fact 15.
“So, to a regular person, this probably sounds insane,” Sinema said. “But I need those five minutes. I have something planned for those five minutes. I don’t waste five minutes. I know that is unusual. That is how I’ve always been.”
And then, presumably after the aide who botched her schedule was flogged,
The scheduling misstep, Sinema said, had been handled. “I don’t waste emotions,” she told me. “I don’t have guilt or regret, because those are useless emotions.” When I suggested that guilt could be a constructive force for change, Sinema corrected me. Remorse could be constructive, she said. Guilt could not: “It’s a useless emotion that hurts you, and nothing else.”
While Sinema cosplays Miranda Priestly, her massive ego is an ongoing threat to her former party.
During an appearance on “Face the Nation” Sunday, she undermined Joe Biden’s debt ceiling negotiations, publicly stating that no votes existed in the Senate for a clean bill. Maybe she feels neither guilt nor remorse for that, either, but it’s becoming more likely that Democrats will have to accept Republican demands to avoid a default, which will hurt actual human beings.
The New York Times profile opens with Sinema palling around at the border with Republicans, and when they shredded the Biden administration’s immigration policy, she “nodded sympathetically, saying: ‘That’s right. That’s right.'” Polls show border security as a top issue for Arizona voters, and while Democrats such as Gov. Katie Hobbs, Sen. Mark Kelly, and Rep. Ruben Gallego have criticized the Biden administration’s policies, they’ve been constructive not destructive.
Biden narrowly won Arizona and it’s not like he has that many electoral votes to spare in 2024. Sinema, who was a Democrat at least in name until December, has gone on record questioning whether Biden should even run again.
Sinema recently attended a private fundraiser at the Los Angeles home of Jean-Marc Chapus, co-founder of Crescent Capital Group, and a donor asked her about the 2024 Republican primary race. Here’s her loathsome response: “The country deserves better than a rematch between Biden and Trump.”
Donald Trump is a twice-impeached fascist who was just held liable for sexual abuse. Joe Biden has elevated Sinema’s national profile and offered her every opportunity for political success. It’s not his fault she torched her former party’s good will.
Sinema proceeded to heap praise onTim Scott, whom she reportedly described to guests as “a great Republican presidential candidate because he is a man of integrity and honor.” That’s more than she’s ever said about Biden, whom she’s mocked behind closed doors.
However, Scott wasn’t even one of the few almost respectable Republicans who voted to remove Trump from office. He voted against the infrastructure bill that Sinema helped negotiate, calling it “reckless spending,” and he opposed the bipartisan gun safety bill she spearheaded. He screwed Democrats over on police reform legislation. He even voted against Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation. I could see her boosting her bipartisan buddies Bill Cassidy, Mitt Romney, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, or John Cornyn, but Scott is consistently a right-wing partisan hack, the very personification of what Sinema claims she resents about Washington.
She refuses to say whether she’s running for re-election and while the Times spins her evasiveness as in her own best interest, it’s not in the public’s benefit for Republicans to pick up her seat. When her Republican buddies like Thom Tillis suggest she has a snowball’s chance at another term, you can almost see them struggling to hold back laughter.
For Sinema to do so, according to Chuck Coughlin, a prominent Republican consultant in Arizona, “she needs 20 to 25 percent of Democratic voters, 25 to 30 percent of Republicans and 50 to 60 percent of self-identified independents.”
You don’t need a crystal ball to know that this is fundamentally impossible. Her approval numbers are abysmal and the overwhelming majority of Democrats would crawl on their faces to vote against her. She’s like an anti-matter turnout device. And 25 to 30 percent of Republicans aren’t voting for the pro-choice, (relatively) pro-democracy senator just because she’s dead inside.
So, what’s the point of all this other than to annoy us? Well, back in February, Sinema joined honorary “No Labels” co-chairs Joe Manchin and Susan Collins for a “strategy session” in Miami. Collins is a Republican, through and through, but there’s talk of Manchin and Sinema sharing a so-called “unity” presidential ticket that would only siphon votes from Joe Biden and help elect Donald Trump.
We all wish we could just ignore her, but she’s not making that easy. She’s a serious threat.
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