The only ones to blame are Republicans. End of. They have autonomy, just like anyone else. They ain't children who have no idea what they're doing. They're grown adults, just like everyone else. And so, if they make the choices they made, that's absolutely, positively 100% on them and no one else. It's not on someone else to convince them to do the right thing, it's not on someone else to stop them from doing evil, if they're doing evil, it absolutely rests with them to not do that in the first place and anything else is just a pure deflection and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. When it comes to their actions, their votes, the buck stops with them and blaming anyone else for their own choices, their own decisions which nobody made them make, is absolutely nonsensical and indefensible.
To quote myself from a post I made elsewhere earlier today along these lines:
"Decided to go to sleep right before Collins's speech (mix of just not wanting to endure the nonsense live and preferring to catch up on it later all at once, and my sleep schedule being messed up to hell and back right now anyway).
Dissapointed that my tea leaves reading was correct in this instance, but not surprised at all in any way other than just how much if the mask Collins really let slip there. Was expecting her to vote yes, but not for her to pretty much start sounding like Grassley or Hatch or something. Of course, for all the difference it made, considering the media's apparently more than happy to lavish praise on her and pretend she's a moderate anyway.
Not that that matters though. Any 2020 prospects she may have had other than lobbying are hopefully completely dead now.
Not that 2020 matters that much right now anyway though, when there's an election next month.
But still, just to get it out of my system, fuck Senator Collins. But even more than her, even more than even Trump himself right now, if he reporting is indeed true, fuck McGahn. Dems weren't wrong to call for an FBI investigation. That was the right play and all they could have done (and even that wasn't really up to them anyway). But McGahn's (and potentially Wray's though it sounds like McGahn is the main factor here) own connections to Kavanaugh cast a shadow over the whole thing, so it's not terribly surprising it turned out like this and though I wish in hindsight Democrats could have focused more on that aspect I'm not sure what they could have practicaly done if anything that would have made a difference.
Ultimately, I know I'm preaching to the choir saying this here if all places, but I just have to get it out regardless: Democrats aren't the enemies or bad guys here in any way. Republicans have access to the exact same info as such. They have the exact same info on stuff like the White House Counsel's involvement in the process, his conflicts of interest in doing so. They just, unlike Democrats, chose to ignore it.
And they didn't have to do that. Nobody made them do that. They're not children or anything. They have full autonomy and are not infants but walking, grown adults just like everyone else. They have the same info, the same ability to analyze that information and come to the right conclusion, to do the right thing as anyone else, but made the conscious choice to bury their heads in the sand, ignore everything, and make precisely the wrong choice instead.
And that's in them, and no one else. Not Democrats-at-large. Not Schumer. Not Manchin or Biden or anything like that that. That's their choice, their decision they chose to make of their own free will, when they had every opportunity to do otherwise at every step of the way.
And for that, I hope to dear God, God do I hope we make as many of them pay the price in next month's election as we possibly can. I know I'm doing my part here for sure (even though I'm in a pretty safe D district all the same here in MI-9 I still know that stuff like those margins can matter, we have some important proposals here in the ballot in Michigan, etc) and I hope to dear God as many people as possible have the same idea.
Fuck Republicans. Fuck Collins. Fuck Trump. Fuck McGahn in particular right now (though again, with the autonomy Republicans have to see the same stuff we are with their own eyes and just going all "see no evil" instead that too ultimately speaks more of the Senate GOP caucus than anything). Fuck McConnell. Just fuck the GOP and how transparently brazenly evil they are, even when given every single opportunity and viable excuse in the world to do otherwise. More than ready to do this and make them sure I haven't forgotten a single thing from these past two years (or beforehand). Bring on the blue wave. I'm ready."